Page 5192 – Christianity Today (2024)

“Bashar” is an extra-terrestrial.

“Mafu” is a highly evolved being from the seventh dimension, last seen on Earth when he incarnated as a leper in first-century Pompeii.

“Ramtha” is a 35,000-year-old ascended master, once a barbarian warrior-king, later a Hindu god, now beyond even deity itself.

“Lazaris” is a disembodied personality with no incarnations—a being with no past lives in his portfolio.

These are not characters from Superhero Comix, or a “Star Trek” episode. They are “entities.” And these entities, with others like them, have helped to create a modern mass-mania—the so-called channeling craze.

Besides their general implausibility, these entities have three things in common: They have no physical existence (that is, they are “spirits,” or “spirit beings”); they are mainly interested in dispensing their philosophy of life to human beings; and they operate through other humans to do so, temporarily assuming control of the body during trance. People who subject themselves to such entrancement and control are called “channelers,” or simply “channels.”

According to the channels, the function of the trance state is to disengage the mind from involvement with the space-time world by shutting out sensory input. The same effect is achieved by making the input of a single sense dominant and repetitive, as in the chanting of mantras. This state of disengaged attention permits contact with the nonsensory realm of spirits and also vacates control of the physical faculties for use by the spirits themselves. While the channel is in an entranced condition, the controlling spirit, or entity, will lecture, counsel, teach, or otherwise advise its human audience. As the entity operates the channel’s body, it comes through as a “new inhabitant,” a distinct and different personality. As one channel put it, “Channeling is a form of voluntary possession.”

Rush Hour Of The Entities

How significant is this trend? When the Los Angeles Times published a major article on the phenomenon, they headlined it “The New, Chic Metaphysical Fad of Channeling.” Is this just another diversion for New Age dabblers, or is it something more enduring?

The impact of channeling is easy to see, but difficult to assess. Its current high profile comes chiefly from celebrity endorsem*nt. Stars of stage, screen, and tube have given public testimonials about their spirit guides. Linda Evans (of “Dynasty”) and Joyce DeWitt (formerly of “Three’s Company”) follow the guidance of Mafu, channeled by Penny Torres, a California housewife. When Sharon Gless won an Emmy for her role in “Cagney and Lacey,” she announced in her acceptance speech that her success was due to Lazaris, channeled by Jach Pursel, a California businessman. Shirley MacLaine consults Ramtha, channeled by J. Z. Knight, a Washington State housewife and breeder of Arabian horses. Ramtha/Knight has also appeared on the Merv Griffin show. Other entity-channel teams have become local radio and television personalities.

Publicity alone is ephemeral. There is more to the trend than the fleeting favor of movie stars. There is extensive grassroots involvement as well. Channeled books are the top-selling titles in the growing occult and metaphysical market; many of them instruct readers how to contact their own spirit guides and become channels themselves (see “Entities in Print,” p. 26). New magazines also serve interest in the subject—Metapsychology: The Journal of Discarnate Intelligence “mines the lode of wisdom and knowledge coming from trance mediumship”; and Spirit Speaks presents an ongoing, channeled “symposium,” in which different entities channel their responses to a featured topic.

Mastercard Metaphysics

The final evidence of channeling’s impact is found on the bottom line: channeling pays. It pays big, for the simple reason that large numbers of people are willing to part with the price of admission, however steep. Pursuing channeled guidance can be seriously expensive. And supplying it can be seriously rewarding. A case in point is Lazaris, channeled by Jach Pursel. By Pursel’s own declaration, Lazaris is a commercial entity as well as a spiritual one.

It costs $275 to partake of Lazaris’s wisdom at a weekend seminar. Between 600 and 800 people fill each session, which means that Lazaris channels an average of $190,000 into the bank per weekend of transcendental discourse. Lazaris has a two-year waiting list for private consultations, at $93 per hour. Or you can reach out and touch Lazaris by phone at $53 per half-hour, billed to your Visa or MasterCard account. Audio tapes of Lazaris are available at $20 per set, videotapes at $60. Pursel also sells New Age baubles and art. He is co-owner of the “Illuminarium” gallery in Corte Madera, California. The gallery specializes in expensive crystal jewelry and visionary paintings. It grosses five million dollars a year.

A reporter once asked Pursel if he didn’t think it incongruous that a “spiritual” entity like Lazaris should be preoccupied with acquiring material wealth. Pursel replied: “I find it strange that spiritual entities need fancy business cards, that they need press secretaries … yeah, I do. And I don’t like it that that’s happened.” So far, however, he has not disliked it enough to alter his merchandising style. Or the lifestyle based upon it: “You don’t have to have a miserable life to be spiritual. You don’t have to sacrifice everything for your spirituality. You can have everything—and be spiritual!”

Lazaris/Pursel may seem extreme, but he is by no means unique. It has been estimated that over 1,000 active channels practice in the Los Angeles area alone. Southern California may be “the land of a thousand channels,” but it is only a focused version of what is happening more diffusely in other places.

Spirits With A Past

Channeling itself is no novelty. In fact, it is essentially identical to old-fashioned trance mediumship, one of the most ancient practices known to humankind. Indeed, there is irony in the fact that this spiritual relic is the latest rage of our “secular” age, the hottest fad of the so-called New Age movement.

In recent centuries, secularism and scientism have conspired to demystify the universe, but they have not delivered on their promise to eradicate irrationality. Secularism has weakened Christianity, but not superstition. It makes the concept of “Truth” distasteful—and thereby makes falsehood exotic. By rejecting the supernatural, secularism becomes a veil of denial; beneath it, spiritual error grows in the dark, without hindrance or attention.

Therefore, in the modern world there have been periodic outbreaks of spiritistic enthusiasm. Interestingly enough, these outbreaks often coincide with periods of religious ferment, and the rise of aberrant religious teachings.

The origins of modern spiritism can be traced to the activities of the Fox sisters in upstate New York in 1849. Margaret and Katie Fox began by hearing mysterious rappings in their house at Hydesville. They ended by becoming active spirit mediums and public celebrities. Their trances and spirit messages excited a wave of fascination that eventually reached across the Atlantic to England and Europe.

The next wave of spiritism began in the 1870s, a decade that also saw the founding of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Theosophical Society. Mediums of the time introduced some new wrinkles, including “automatic painting” under spirit control and “materializations” of “ectoplasm,” the barely visible stuff of which spirits are supposedly made. Periodicals appeared that were exclusively devoted to the subject. It was during this period that the general interest in mediums and spirits sparked efforts to investigate the matter scientifically. The Dialectical Society was formed in London in 1869, and the Society for Psychical Research at Cambridge in 1882.

In the twentieth century, public interest in spiritism has continued to rise and fall in cycles. The appetite for spirit contact increases after each major war. Spiritism often has its strongest attraction for those who have suffered personal bereavement, and after a war it always gains in appeal and credibility.

Today we live in an age of continual war—multiple, overlapping conflicts that have interruptions, but no end. Death dominates the headlines, and loss overshadows our lives. In an age that daily faces mass extinction from pestilence, pollution, and nuclear war, it is no wonder that the spirits are back and busier than ever.

The Modern Outburst

It is clear we are now in the midst of another major outbreak of spiritism. The spirits are not only more active than before, but in our biblically illiterate society, they are finding more people who are eager to lend them an ear. An expanding audience not only believes in them, it also believes them; it not only accepts their existence, it accepts their guidance as well.

To the casual observer, this renewed fascination with spirits and spirit contact seems to have exploded into prominence without warning. The mass media uniformly treat channeling as a fringe phenomenon that swelled to fad status overnight. Public perception was brought to instant focus in January of this year, when ABC-TV aired Shirley MacLaine’s miniseries based on her own experience with channelers and entities: “Out on a Limb” was a startling, prime-time testimonial to MacLaine’s occult conversion and her belief in spirit guides. Suddenly the subject intruded on our collective attention.

But that impression of suddenness is a media-projected illusion. The unnoticed reality is that spiritism has been steadily working its way into the mainstream of American culture for the last 20 years. The disturbing reality is that channeling is just the tip of an iceberg, the visible part of a much larger pattern. The sobering reality is that the new spiritism has moved beyond the weird and the supernatural into the normal and the mundane. Quietly but convincingly, the entities have been serving notice that they intend to shape our future.

What will their influence be? Assuming (for the moment) that the new spiritism will have a noticeable effect on our culture, what form is it likely to take? When that influence becomes concrete reality, what will it look like?

Teachings From The Twilight Zone

The entities’ primary tool is their teaching. They will mainly affect our collective psyche, the presuppositions of our popular world view. In simple language, fans of channeling adopt the understanding of God and reality that the entities teach them.

Just as mediumship is no novelty, neither is there anything new in the beliefs that attend it. From ancient times, spiritism has consistently been the source of communications that embody the essence of occult philosophy: Death is unreal; All is One; we are Divine Beings and can control Reality with our powers of Mind. It hardly needs pointing out that this glittering vision of possibilities bears a striking resemblance to the serpent’s temptation of Eve in the Garden of Eden. The entities give us no additions to that agenda of deception. What they give us is a new aggressiveness in pushing it, and a new use of high-tech tools to push it with.

The entities endlessly repeat the three-fold primal lie: There is no death; man is God; knowledge of self is salvation and power.

Shirley MacLaine’s TV miniseries was a virtual occult catechism. In one breathtakingly blatant scene, MacLaine is initiated into the understanding that Divine Being and the Human Soul are one. She and her spiritual adviser stand on Malibu Beach with their arms flung open to the cosmos, shouting, “I am God! I am God! I am God!”

When Ramtha channeled in to the “Merv Griffin Show” in October of 1985, Merv wanted to know, “What is your most important message that you want everyone on this planet to hear?” Ramtha replied, “What is termed God is within your being.… And that which is called Christ is within your being.… And when you know you are God, you will find joy.”

Equally egregious examples can be culled from a random scanning of channeled material. The denial of death is a dominant theme, always implied and often expressed. The entities endlessly repeat the primal lie, the three-fold creed of error: There is no death; man is God; knowledge of self is salvation and power.

Today, that message is merchandised. Both message and messenger are commodities, items of commerce to be packaged, promoted, and sold. The spirits have always been marketable, but the size of that market has been strictly limited. When spiritism reaches a critical mass of popularity, it graduates to a new level of commerce and becomes mass-marketable. In this way it roots itself in the very foundations of our consumer society. That in itself represents a quantum leap from the days when believing in spirits and going to seances was considered eccentric at best.

Today’s spiritism, in contrast to that of the past, has enormous commercial potential, and commerce controls the shape and direction of mass culture. In his book Masks of Satan, Christopher Nugent says, “The Moloch of consumerism is king, and the first thing it consumes is conscience.… As the idols descend we have a convergence of the culture and the occult, a kind of ‘occulturation.’ … I would conclude that our culture may be becoming so demonic as to render particular cults redundant and superfluous.”

Nugent’s conclusion may seem overstated. But in view of the open merger of spirit contact, occult philosophy, mass media, and high finance, it hardly seems fanciful.

Biblical Meanings: Delusion And Judgment

Channeling is part of a larger trend that is intensifying and will probably continue to do so. It is easy to see why. Spiritism’s powerful appeal caters simultaneously to the modern state of mind and fallen human nature. Spirit contact fits perfectly into the jiffy-solution mentality of our day. It’s quick. It’s morally undemanding. And above all, it provides a strong, immediate experience of the “beyond” to substitute for our alienation from God.

Spiritism, therefore, accelerates the process of spiritual decline toward apostasy and judgment, for it involves not only a rejection of God, but an active embrace of his replacement. It is, as the prophets put it, “spiritual adultery,” carried to completion. The biblical language that deals with spiritism is a litany of loathing: It is called evil, error, folly, falsehood, apostasy, and abomination (see, for example, Deut. 18:9–14 and Rev. 21:15). In the Old Testament, those who indulge in it are considered defiled and deserving of exile or death. In the New Testament, spiritists are identified as opposers of the gospel and enemies of the truth.

The Bible treats spiritism as a symptom of social corruption as well as of personal culpability. The extent to which a society endorses or indulges in spiritism, therefore, is a spiritual thermometer. As a social symptom, widespread spiritism represents the final stage of a long process of spiritual decay. It is the terminal phase of a people’s flight from God—terminal because beyond a certain advanced stage in the development of any sin, God’s judgment is no longer intended to admonish or correct, but to cleanse and extirpate. Terminal conditions call for termination.

Back To The Future, Forward To The Past

In that light alone, the current goings on have an urgent relevance to our lives. Christ exhorted us to “discern the signs of the times” (Matt. 16:3). Part of that discernment comes from understanding the spiritual currents of the age.

The new spiritism is only one of many tributary streams in the rising flow of occult influence. It is only one of many means by which the basic message is drummed into the popular mind. It has less significance in its own right than it does as a representative symptom—a milestone on the road to delusion.

Western culture seems to be relapsing once again into the spiritual and intellectual condition of ancient Rome. Franz Cumont’s Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans describes the crumbling classical world in terms that are indistinguishable from the New Age Movement’s vision of the future: “In the declining days of antiquity the common creed of all pagans came to be a scientific pantheism, in which the infinite power of the divinity that pervaded the universe was revealed by all the elements of nature.” If channeled New Age Occult Cosmic Humanism is the wave of the future, it is only because it has always been the way of the world.

Brooks Alexander is senior researcher at the Berkeley, California-based Spiritual Counterfeits Project. This article is based on research in progress for a book-length manuscript to be completed this fall.

Are The Entities For Real?

What is the nature of channeled entities? Are they objectively real, but disembodied beings that exist in some ethereal realm?

There seem to be four basic options: (1) the entities are real and are telling us the truth about themselves; (2) the entities are real and are lying to us; (3) the entities are a “dissociative reaction,” a mental dysfunction unrecognized as such; (4) the entities are a conscious fraud for the purpose of gain.

We can eliminate option (1) because the entities’ claims are plainly at odds with the biblical view of reality. In fact, many entities explicitly reject the Bible’s message of sin and salvation.

It has been suggested that a channel splits off part of his unconscious mind into a separate personality, which in turn is manipulated by an entity. That explanation has the virtue of covering all the bases. It allows for real entities as well as real pathology. It also illustrates that deception is basic to the channeling process, since the entities themselves have encouraged a very different view of their nature.

Thus, the full answer to our question could involve options (2), (3), and (4) at various times and in various combinations. After all, deception and derangement are basically variations on the demonic theme. We should not be surprised to see them turn up as items on the demonic agenda.

We would naturally expect channels to insist on the objective reality of their entities. Some do, but others are curiously ambivalent. Jach Pursel says, “I suppose Lazaris could be a different part of me, a ‘higher’ part of me or something. And, ultimately, I’d say, well, if you want to think that, fine. Because what really matters is the value you gain from it. And if talking to another part of me can help you improve your life, then have at it.”

That airy indifference to matters of factual accuracy apparently rubs off on followers. A successful corporate executive who lives in California’s trendy Marin County says, “I can’t say that Lazaris is really a disembodied spiritual guide. To me it doesn’t matter, as long as he’s truthful and helpful.” Ram Das (né Dr. Richard Alpert) is one channeling fan who is also a psychologist, and therefore should be able to evaluate the phenomenon. But he, too, uses his confusion about the facts as an excuse to avoid the issue of interpretation. Writing about “Emmanuel,” an astral-plane entity channeled by East Coast housewife Pat Rodegast, Ram Das says: “From my point of view as a psychologist, I allow for the theoretical possibility that Emmanuel is a deeper part of Pat. In the final analysis, what difference does it really make? What I treasure is the wisdom Emmanuel conveys.”

Ram Das is correct—in one sense. In the final analysis, it is the “wisdom” that counts, not the bearer of it. The wisdom of the entities—whoever or whatever they are—is the “earthly, natural, demonic” wisdom of James 3:15. That is enough to identify the phenomenon regardless of who the messenger is. As Robert Burrows, editor of publications for Spiritual Counterfeits Project, has pointed out, real entities do not have to be channeled for real lies to be told or real damage to be done. Satan’s purposes can be served without directly serving him or making direct contact with spirits who do. It doesn’t always take a devil to do the Devil’s work.

In that respect, as strange as it may seem, it does not matter whether entities exist objectively or not. The runaway popularity of a flagrantly demonic message is cause enough for concern.

By Brooks Alexander.

Entities In Print

“Automatic writing” is doubtless as old as the alphabet. The spirits have always been prolific authors. Every generation has its own form of channeled writing, and ours has the most lavish variety to date.

The current wave of channeled publications was set in motion by the late Jane Roberts. During the early 1970s, Roberts was channel for the entity “Seth,” author of Seth Speaks and numerous other books. Today hundreds of people claim to be channels for Seth.

The Seth books were a milestone because they were produced by Prentice-Hall, a respected general-market publisher. Earlier spirit scribes had mostly been printed by obscure specialty houses. When the Seth venture proved successful, more such writings began to appear from major publishers.

Authors also published spirit-dictated material under their own names. Jonathan Livingston Seagull was dictated to Richard Bach by an entity that appeared in the form of a bird. Bach claims that he simply wrote down the stream of thoughts and impressions that the entity poured into his mind. The book broke all publishing records since the legendary success of Gone With the Wind, and topped the best-seller lists for over two years.

The entity-authors of the eighties are a diverse lot, even if their message is redundant. “Jesus” himself is claimed as the source of A Course in Miracles, a three-volume work that uses biblical terminology to distort biblical doctrine. The disciples of Jesus are also popular writers, especially “Saint John.” Other literary entities include “Raphael,” an extraterrestrial; “Ra,” an ancient Egyptian; and “White Eagle,” a Native American. There are travelers from other planets, dwellers in other dimensions, denizens of ancient and lost civilizations, and the very gods themselves. And now there is Messages From Michael, written by a collective entity: “not a ghost, not a spirit, but an amassing of souls on a higher plane of existence.” Shades of “Legion” (Mark 5:9)!

The sheer number of titles in print today is unprecedented. The major New Age/Occult bookstore in Berkeley has seven shelves of channeled material. Three of those shelves hold the “older” books—the Urantia Book, the Aquarian Gospel, the works of Edgar Cayce, and so on. The remaining four shelves hold more recently published material. Those four shelves outsell the rest of the bookstore.

That’s not a mere publishing trend; it’s a stampede.

By Brooks Alexander.

Recent best-selling books assert that a number of Christian leaders have been unduly influenced by the Eastern philosophy of the New Age movement. Two of the most popular titles expressing such reservations are Constance Cumbey’s The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow and Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon’s The Seduction of Christianity.

In our May 16, 1986, issue, Robert Burrows detailed the complicated ins and outs of the New Age movement. Writing about certain practices sometimes considered New Age, Burrows addressed the concerns of Cumbey, Hunt, and other critics. “Is it possible to use guided imagery and relaxation exercises as aids to worship?” he asked. “Is it possible to use them to communicate with God or receive revelations from him? Or do those who use these techniques inevitably fall into magical manipulation and spiritual idolatry?”

Any number of writers—including John and Paula Sandford, Morton Kelsey, and Ruth Carter Stapleton—have been criticized for their apparent affinities with New Age ideas. No single treatment can deal with all these writers and the serious concerns raised about their work. Consequently, CHRISTIANITY TODAY chose to discuss the matter with two evangelical writers who have been involved in the New Age controversy. Richard Foster, the author of several books, including Celebration of Discipline, has come under fire for his recommendations concerning Christian meditation and the use of the imagination in spiritual exercises in general. David Seamands, whose books include Healing of Memories, has been criticized for using the therapy of inner healing and relying heavily on imaginative scenarios to rid counselees of trauma from past incidents.

Also participating in the discussion were two respected observers of the New Age movement: James Sire, senior editor of InterVarsity Press and author of such books as Scripture Twisting, and Eric Pement, associate editor of Cornerstone magazine.

Visualization

Common to meditation, inner healing, and other practices that give pause to some writers is visualization. “Remember,” write Hunt and McMahon, “we are not addressing the many valid uses of the imagination, such as visual images used by artists, architects, or ordinary persons in ‘seeing’ what is being described, remembering, or rehearsing in their minds.” Instead, Hunt and McMahon believe visualization is sometimes intended to “manipulate reality or evoke the appearance and help of Deity.” That kind of visualization, they say, must be avoided.

Eric Pement: Are visualization exercises biblical?

James Sire: Visualization itself is certainly biblical. The psalmists visualized all the time. Look at Psalm 77, for instance. “I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord, I will remember thy wonders of old.” Then a few verses later: “The clouds poured out water; the skies gave forth thunder; thy arrows flashed on every side.” Those are pictures. Psalm 29 and 46 are two other psalms, among many, that do the same thing. So it seems to me that there is a biblical basis for our picturing things.

David Seamands: Visualization is simply and basically human. How could you remember events, for example, without pictures? Human beings can’t stop visualizing any more than they can stop breathing or sleeping. But it’s true that visualization can be used for New Age practices. What we must do is visualize constructively and biblically.

Pement: Yet there’s an important difference between thinking or remembering, which involves mental images, and dwelling on those images for their own sake, believing that thought forms by themselves will bring things into being. Images are unavoidable—God put us in a three-dimensional world and gave us the ability to think in three dimensions. On the one hand, we can visualize to recall God’s grace and mighty deeds, and to see ourselves as God sees us. On the other hand, the New Agers have co-opted visualization because they believe the universe is a form of consciousness, and reality exists by common consent.

Would you say visualization gives us access to God? If so, is it a necessary means of access to God, or can the reality of the divine presence be acquired through other means as well?

Richard Foster: When you ask if it gives us “access to God” I assume you are asking if it can be a means of grace through which God can reach us. In that sense I would say visualization is a means of grace—but not a “necessary means.” The study of Scripture, prayer, worship—these would be examples of what could be more accurately called a “necessary means.” The Bible gives these things a high priority and universal application.

Pement: How would this square with the biblical teaching that we receive access to God through faith, because of the atoning blood of Jesus?

Sire: Richard and Eric are speaking in different categories. Eric is talking about the grounds of our access to God, which, we would all agree, is the atoning blood of Christ. Richard is talking about how we practice or appropriate that access to God, once we confess Christ. We’re mixing the justifying access, the grounds, with the sanctifying process of growth. The means of grace are not the grounds of our access to God.

Foster: Exactly! We are saved by grace through faith. There is no other way. But once we are believers we must answer the question of how we grow in Christ. Remember, Peter said, “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” and frankly, many people try to replace growth with birth. Because we have no theology of spiritual growth we get people born again and again and again.

Now, we have problems with a theology of spiritual growth because of our deep concern about works righteousness, which we should be deeply concerned about. But is there a way that Christians can grow that does not violate sola fide? Most of us have accepted Bible study, for example, as a part of the theology of growth. But I think we need to go a lot deeper into this matter of growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. We must, for example, help each other learn exactly how we are conformed to the image of Christ, as Paul says in Romans 8. And we must do that in the context of daily life. In other words, our theology must confess that we are not only saved by grace, we live by it as well.

Meditation

Some kinds of meditation are based on what Constance Cumbey calls the “old lie” of finding “the god within.” To prevent such dangers, some Christian writers have emphasized that Christian meditation should be rational or cognitive—based on objective ideas and historical events. They are concerned about forms of meditation that freely employ the imagination, which is subjective and so less easily controlled than cognition. On similar grounds, they worry about meditative techniques that employ controlled breathing (for relaxation) and visualization.

There are evangelical precedents for using visualization in meditation—consider Alexander Whyte and some of the Puritan divines.

—Richard Foster

Pement: I see a distinction between two kinds of meditation—cognitive meditation and mystical or contemplative meditation. How do you respond to this distinction?

Foster: I can understand and appreciate the concern that leads to this distinction, but its great weakness is that it is simply not biblical. It creates a false definition of meditation, because it neglects one of the most important biblical emphases about meditation, namely ethical transformation. Repentance, turning to God and changing our behavior in obedience, is central to biblical meditation.

Christian meditation is not a matter of simply gazing blissfully at your navel. Nor is it just a matter of memorizing the Gospel of John. It leads directly to obedience. We are to hear God’s voice and obey his word. Consider Psalm 119: “I will meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word” (vv. 15–16).

Seamands: The cognitive-contemplative distinction also falsely splits the whole person. It sounds as if contemplative meditation is all feeling, and cognitive meditation is all rationality. Scripturally, it’s impossible to separate feeling and rationality. The biblical person listens to God with mind and heart. The “eyes of your heart are enlightened” (Eph. 1:18); a man “thinks in his heart” (Ps. 10).

Sire: Ed Clowney, the former president of Westminster Seminary, has written that Christian meditation differs from non-Christian meditation “not in the absence of the intuitive, but in the presence of the rational.” So even someone as impeccably conservative as Clowney can affirm both the rational and the intuitive, the mind and the heart.

Seamands: Focusing on either heart or mind to the exclusion of the other is a mistake. Church history can be divided between the two extremes, with one bringing on the other. When we lose the wholeness of our personhood under God, then we become very cognitive—salvation becomes simple mental assent to a bunch of propositions—or we go off to the extreme of uncontrolled ecstasies, visions, and so forth.

Pement: But the fear, of course, is that some of this is coming from Eastern mysticism and other non-Christian sources.

Sire: The “new” and supposedly Eastern techniques of meditation only seem new because the church has lost touch with its rich spiritual heritage. We have lost contact with the entire church before the Reformation. And now we are getting back in contact with that heritage, partly in reaction to the stress on rationality in the twentieth century and in twentieth-century Protestant thought. More important, we are re-examining the Scriptures and asking what we may have forgotten.

Agnes Sanford described a process in which you find a blemish on your body and imagine it a quarter of an inch smaller or a lighter color. To me, that smacks of psychic experimentation.

—Eric Pement

Foster: I would add that the precedents for using our imagination are not only to be found in pre-Reformation times. There are Protestant evangelical sources as well, such as the nineteenth-century Scottish preacher Alexander Whyte.

On the subject of praying and meditating, he writes of using the “truly Christian imagination” to imagine yourself hearing and watching Jesus preach, seeing a leper healed, or actually being Lazarus in his grave, Mary Magdalene, Peter, Abraham, Job, the thief on the cross, and even Judas. He says the New Testament should come to be “autobiographic of you.”

Whyte was a highly esteemed orthodox Protestant, not a New Ager. But you can see that he had plenty of room for using the imagination, which he called a “magnificent talent.” And there are many other examples, including some of the Puritan divines.

But we must remember that the imagination is not an unmixed blessing. It has been affected by the Fall, just like all our other faculties. The Devil would like to use our imagination to work his evil purposes, and we always must guard against that. The imagination, just like all our faculties, needs to be redeemed and sanctified by God for his good purposes.

Pement: My problem isn’t with meditation as it is biblically defined, but with techniques currently used by some teachers within Christian circles. These techniques include breathing exercises, using a Christian mantra, guided fantasy, and (in a few notable cases) yoga exercises. Eastern religions have traditionally promoted such disciplines. The Eastern idea is that salvific enlightenment is gained through these meditative techniques. What about this in Christian meditation?

Foster: Personally, I have very little interest in technique, but a great deal of interest in helping people come into relationship with God. Specific suggestions are helpful only to the extent that they bring us more fully into relationship so that we behold the “glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). It makes a difference where one looks. Christians look beyond themselves to a transcendent God. In Hinduism and some other Eastern religions, the meditating person looks to a “god” who is not transcendent, only immanent.

Seamands: In addition, when we Christians meditate we do not intend to submerge our identities into that of an impersonal God. “I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live” (Gal. 2:20). I’m not going to be absorbed as the drop of water returns to the ocean. My personhood will never be destroyed, but will eternally fellowship with a personal God.

I was a missionary to India, and the massive umbrella of pantheistic and monistic Hinduism was a tremendous challenge. It made me an absolute fanatic on Jesus Christ. The one place that I’m not going to budge is on the Incarnation, because I see the tremendous importance of it. “Whether the Krishna existed or not,” says my Hindu friend, “that’s not important. It’s the Krishna ideal that matters, so therefore it’s the Christ ideal that matters. Whether or not Christ existed is not important.”

To that I would and did say, “No, we’re not talking about the same thing. Whether Christ exists or not is not just important. It’s absolutely paramount.”

Inner Voices

New Agers seek guidance from within. Techniques such as Silva Mind Control (a consciousness-raising technique named after its originator, Jose Silva) teach one how to obtain a certain state of relaxation, then to listen to the advice of an inner guide. The inner guide is sometimes considered a spirit and sometimes simply a manifestation of the subconscious. Protests Don Matzat (in his Inner Healing: Deliverance or Deception?), “The same technique of visualization used to allegedly encounter Jesus is used in occultism for the purpose of contacting spirit guides.”

Pement: Techniques such as Silva Mind Control teach one how to obtain a certain state of relaxation, then to listen to the advice of an inner guide. And similar things are being done in the church. I have a friend who attended a youth group meeting and ended up participating in something very much like Silva Mind Control. What do you think of such exercises?

Foster: My response would be that there are a lot of spirits out there, and they are not all good. The Bible teaches there is a spirit world, that there are angels and demons. And we need to realize that Satan and his cohorts are out to destroy us. Jesus said that he is the true Shepherd and his sheep know his voice. The sheep, you see, need to come to know the difference between the Shepherd’s voice and Satan’s voice. We’re told in 1 John, “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God.” And in 1 Thessalonians, the apostle Paul says, “Do not quench the Spirit, do not despise prophesying, but test everything; hold fast what is good, abstain from every form of evil.”

Seamands: We test the spirits and these inner voices against the written Word of God and the living Christ. The Holy Spirit can never ask you or me to do anything that is un-Christlike. Chapters 14; 15, and 16 of the Gospel of John make it clear that things truly of the Spirit of God will, first, glorify God. They will not glorify the person who testifies to them. Second, things of the Spirit of God will bear the fruit of the Spirit. The gifts of the Spirit can be counterfeited, as Paul indicates. But not the fruit, because the fruit of the Spirit is simply another way of describing the character of Jesus. That’s the litmus test of any inner voice.

Sire: Practically speaking, there’s another aspect to testing the reliability of an inner voice. That is the counsel of Christians whom you trust for their spiritual wisdom and discernment, as well as the communion of saints in the larger sense—the traditional understandings of the church through history.

Pement: Then you would agree that it is a mistake to presume that the voice of the subconscious is the voice of God?

Foster: That is correct! While God can use the subconscious (just like he can use all our faculties as they are submitted to him), the subconscious in and of itself is not reliable. Satan also can influence and use the subconscious.

Inner Healing

Inner healing (or healing of memories) is the counseling device of visualizing traumatic incidents from one’s past, but adding such therapeutic touches as the image of Jesus comforting the person at the time of the trauma. This is intended to lessen the hurt of the memory, and so to “heal” it. Hunt and McMahon say inner healing is based on faulty, non-Christian psychotherapies. They fear it confuses what actually happened in the past with what is only imagined in the present. Thus, “Inner healing is simply a Christianized psychoanalysis that uses the power of suggestion to ‘solve problems’ which it has oftentimes actually created.”

Pement: Isn’t a problem with inner healing that Christians can be prone to believe that if we have a better picture, a clearer thought, then we’ll be healed? For instance, Agnes Sanford, in The Healing Light, described a process in which you find a blemish on your body, and instead of praying for it to go away, imagine that blemish a quarter of an inch smaller or a lighter color. Experiment with the different pictures that you have and see how quickly it changes, she advised. To me, that smacks of psychic experimentation.

Sire: But the idea that God responds better to a better image is not different from the notion that God is more likely to hear an eloquent prayer than a stumbling, mumbling one. The truth in both instances is this: It is not our eloquence that gets God’s attention. It is the honesty and integrity of our prayers—and whether they reflect the mind of Christ—that God responds to. As best we can, we should discern the mind of Christ and then pray with honesty and integrity, and image with honesty and integrity.

Pement: Much of the mystique or appeal of inner healing is the idea that, since the triune God is eternal and is not bound by time, Jesus has been present at all times, and therefore we can relive a past event in his presence. Are inner-healing ministries trying to engage in some kind of celestial time travel?

Seamands: No. We’re merely exposing to Christ a memory that is in our past. We don’t do any traveling in time, but if he is the transcendent Lord of time, the past is present to him so that he can heal and free us from it.

Pement: Does he really deal with the incident, or does he rather deal with our responses to the incident?

Seamands: He deals with our memory of the incident. If my perception of my personal history was that something done to me was very hurtful, then I cannot separate my perception and my feelings of that event from the actual incident.

Let’s say there’s been sexual abuse in my past. That’s an extremely harmful incident, and there’s a lot of pain connected with it, pain that I have probably repressed. I could have repressed the memory of the whole thing. And that’s the thing that causes personality problems. The memory is repressed and the feeling is repressed. But repression is like trying to bury something alive. It keeps coming back to haunt you.

So what I do is ask the counselee to go back to that incident, when he or she was a little boy or a little girl, and to think of him-or herself in the arms of Jesus, being comforted by Jesus. I’m very strong on using biblical imagery.

Foster: What David is talking about is similar to the rehearsal of God’s redemptive acts. Israel was called to remember God’s great deliverance in the Exodus. And in our worship, every time we participate in the Lord’s Supper, we recall Jesus’ death on the cross for our sin. We receive, with thanksgiving, the forgiveness and healing that resulted from Christ’s death and resurrection.

Seamands: Absolutely. The crux of the matter, for the healing of memories, is appropriating forgiveness. And that means forgiveness of the one who wronged me, and forgiveness of me for desiring revenge.

Pement: Critics of inner healing have said there is sometimes an attempt to change something unholy into something holy, something evil into something good. Do you agree?

Seamands: An act that was evil, such as sexual abuse, cannot itself be altered into something good. But we can say with Joseph, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” So, a part of the healing of the memories is always a reinterpretation of the past.

Sire: We can re-understand the past, which we have wrongly interpreted. The goal is actually to see the past as God sees it.

Seamands: Yes, which is to turn it into something that’s no longer an infirmity that cripples you. God is now going to use it as a means of you ministering to other people. It’s going to become a gift, actually. This is one of the greatest things that happens to people. I once worked with a seminary woman who had been sexually abused as a child. She was dramatically changed. She went back home to her family and was able to be a means of healing for her mother, who was abused by an uncle, and for her 85-year-old grandmother, who was abused by a great-great uncle. So she brought healing to an entire family.

But it’s not a matter of pretending the original event didn’t happen or that it wasn’t evil. The first part of counseling is convincing the hurt person that an evil thing was done to him or her. They need to stop excusing it and stop taking the blame themselves. It has to be seen for what it was before God can change their perception of it and free them from it.

Foster: David’s concern is pastoral. Those who are uncomfortable with using the imagination just want him to declare to hurting persons that they are forgiven. But there is a real difference between sitting down and reading Hodge’s Systematic Theology and being healed of a past trauma. There’s a difference between the didactic and the pastoral. People need healing at every level, not simply the intellectual.

Seamands: Certainly the healing of memories grows out of a pastoral concern for hurting people. But there are theological underpinnings, like that great hymn of Charles Wesley’s, “O for a Thousand Tongues.” One verse goes, “He breaks the power of cancelled sin, he sets the prisoner free.” The point is that it’s possible to have sin cancelled and for it still to have power over you. People can accept Christ, be on their way to heaven, and yet there’s hurt and sin in the past that has power over them. It’s got to be broken, and if it’s not broken they cannot live faithfully.

Pement: So much of dealing with troubled people has to do with helping them find reality in Christ, to face the truth about themselves and their past. Unfortunately, several counselors of inner healing have created certain events that never actually transpired. That might be emotionally satisfying at the moment, but this seems to disable the counselee’s ability to face reality honestly.

Seamands: Inner healing, properly exercised, does not create a false memory or a past event that never happened. We are helping counselees reinterpret past memories in the light of God’s providence and love. The fact is that Christ has forgiven us, and we’re merely appropriating that forgiveness. I do not create events that never actually transpired. We try to deal with persons’ pasts so they can effectively live in the present.

Pement: Some healers of memories write about a ministry to hom*osexuals. They say that, since hom*osexuals never had a good father image, they should image a good father. Jesus may be the father figure, or perhaps someone else. But the hom*osexual should imagine the father finally paying attention to him and playing ball with him, things his real father never did. Essentially that’s an image of events that never happened. Is this valid?

Seamands: I just don’t do that kind of thing. In the case of hom*osexuality, I don’t attempt to create a good father that never was, but to help the hom*osexual understand a good father that was and is—God the Father.

Let me give a specific example. It’s not about hom*osexuality, but it has to do with whether or not the past is altered. One woman I worked with was suffering with a sense of inferiority. When she was in first or second grade, her teacher asked a question, and under her breath, this little girl said, “That’s a stupid question.” She said it too loudly. The teacher heard, got very angry, and said, “If you know all the answers, then come up here and put this one on the board.” The girl was so embarrassed that when she went up she was paralyzed and could do nothing. Then the teacher said, “Look, class, here’s Marjorie, who’s so stupid she says that’s a stupid question and then she can’t answer the question. Now, one by one come up and let’s write on the board what you think of Marjorie.”

So the children did. Actually, Marjorie was very smart, but she wore horn-rimmed glasses and was not very athletic. So they all traipsed up and wrote “stupid,” “clumsy,” “ugly,” and so on. This event affected her image in a remarkable way.

So I asked her to imagine that incident, all of it happening again, but then at the end to see Jesus taking her in his arms and saying, “Marjorie, I don’t think you are stupid or ugly. You are my daughter and I love you.”

Sire: And in fact Jesus did and does love the little girl, who is now a woman. So asking her to imagine Jesus holding her is not to manufacture an illusion. That’s very different from asking Marjorie to imagine all the children coming up and writing different things on the board: “Marjorie’s beautiful” or “Marjorie’s wonderful.”

Seamands: That would be unreality to me. But Christ was there all the time.

There was a time when raising the next generation was a “seat of the pants” operation—literally and figuratively. Intuition was the basis for most parental moves, with someone’s mother or a trusted neighbor the closest child-rearing expert. Parents wanted the best for their children, but understood the best was by no means a given; the future was, after all, not entirely in their own hands.

These days, however, a mother or father can hardly make a move without running headlong into a talk show, lecture series, or shelf of books brimming with advice on how to ensure a child’s place in the up-and-coming generation. Says Barbara Katz, writing in Parents magazine, “professional parents” are downright driven to cultivate their children’s abilities and college-bound resumes—superparents raising superkids. Armed with expert advice, they view parenting less as an instinctive process than a quantifiable set of do’s and don’ts, which, if applied properly, can transform any child into a runner by three, a reader by four, a writer by five.

To be sure, the findings of child psychologists over the past century have proved a blessing in helping frustrated parents better understand their particular “kid under construction.” And yet a question harried parents should be asking themselves is what this infatuation with the “quantification of child-rearing” might be saying about our relationship to the growing next generation—not to mention our relationship to God.

Assembly-Line Kids

Parenting has never been easy. But according to David Elkind, author of the ground-breaking book The Hurried Child, not since the Great Depression have American moms and dads experienced greater stress in or out of the home. The reasons for this are painfully obvious: divorce, changing technologies, a changing marketplace, inflation, drugs, and AIDS, to name a few. The subsequent “hydra-headed anxieties,” says Elkind, have prompted a subtle, steady shifting away from any outward concern over the needs of others to an inward concern with self. “Adults under stress become self-centered,” says Elkind, “and therefore have considerably more trouble seeing other people in all the complexity of their individual personalities.” Unfortunately, we have trouble seeing our children properly as well. As we race headlong into the twenty-first century, we are confronted with the irony of a society idealizing offspring as “prized possessions,” yet perplexed by how to rear these little ones without adding to our already pressured lives. Further complicating matters (and adding to the stress) is the ever-present specter of failure—a dark reality intolerable in today’s competitive world and increasingly feared at home. Any setback, no matter how inconsequential, is perceived as a major hurdle to the ultimate success of a son or daughter. There is gnashing of teeth if Junior can’t read by three—especially if his friends can.

“How to” resources alleviate some of the stress and paranoia by neatly structuring child rearing “by the book.” Taming the two-year-old can be accomplished by following an expert-tested set of rules. But rather than viewing children as complex and uniquely individual personalities to be molded over time, we are increasingly, to use Dr. Bruno Bettelheim’s words, “equating child-rearing to mass-producing machinery”; and we are basing the “quality of production” on standardized criteria—all to the exclusion of the child’s own emotional and spiritual dynamics.

Nowhere is this trend more pronounced than in the area of cognitive performance. Such abstractions as a child’s inquisitiveness, his wonder at nature, his excitement with learning, and his personality become secondary considerations to the more quantifiable abilities of reading, writing, and arithmetic. These and other measurable criteria have become the parental gold standard, and not surprisingly the books and theories illuminating the end of the rainbow fill cupboards and shelves across America. Says Harvard pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton: “Cognitive performance is easy to measure and to demonstrate to your friends. It becomes a way for young parents to feel successful in their parenting. Those of us who are more interested in social and emotional development for children haven’t made the guideposts in these areas explicit enough for parents so they can see when they have done a good job” (Working and Caring).

Parents under stress are eager for an encouraging word from the experts, even if that word spells the standardization of the next generation into what Brazelton calls “cognitive monsters,” devoid of sound interpersonal skills and a strong moral identity.

The Longhand Of Personhood

Needless to say, the establishment of these skills and values takes time, and their impact on the child may not be known for years. The question of “success” remains a question throughout the child-rearing experience, with only periodic glimpses of whether or not we’re “getting through.” Such uncertainty weighs heavily on today’s stressed-out “professional,” demanding a patience that is perceived intolerable, indeed weak. (After all, while I’m waiting, that other parent’s child is getting ahead.) Yet it is a burden Christians need not bear alone.

As the family of God, the church not only offers a foundation for values lost in today’s parenting style but a context for implanting those values in the growing generations to come. Practically speaking, it provides a community that can actively support individual parents as they tackle what Elkind describes as the “hard-to-decipher longhand of personhood.” Setting up such nonthreatening programs as support groups where parents can honestly share their concerns and not worry about having their child compared to another, or “adopting” older, experienced parents whose children have grown, can be a place to start.

Moreover, the church has the unique vantage point of acknowledging the whole personhood of children. Made in the image of God, they are people in process (as indeed we all are), individually different, and not simply “gifted,” “strong-willed,” or “hurried.” Writes Bettelheim: “Since the future is always uncertain, we cannot know what particular problems our child will encounter in life; therefore the best we can give him on his way into life is our trust in him and a sense of his own great worth” (A Good Enough Parent).

Whether we want to admit it or not, parents are themselves the real experts when it comes to knowing their children. Yet fear of failure, a sense of inadequacy, and concern about the future increasingly pressure these in-house experts to put that knowledge (and their own creativity) on hold and seek help elsewhere. But in the context of the church, where we can suffer and rejoice together (1 Cor. 12:26), fear of failure need not be insurmountable but a cause for improvement and eventual growth. Inadequacy can open up creative opportunities for the body to offer Bible-and time-tested parental insights and input. And concern for the future can provide daily lessons of what it means to have faith in Christ and live by his abundant grace—a grace all parents need in abundance every minute of every day.

By Harold B. Smith.

George Martin’s office—the office of Saints Martha and Mary Episcopal Church—is in the basem*nt of a funeral home. Public-school gymnasiums, library auditoriums, and all the other public meeting spaces in Eagan, Minnesota, have been taken by other church-planting efforts. Thus every Sunday, in one of the funeral home’s parlors, Martin erects a portable screen on which to hang a cross and a banner in order to help the brand-new 90-member congregation feel as if it has gone to church.

In addition to his job as vicar, Martin is also executive director of the Episcopal Ad Project, a high-quality, but low-budget, effort to get the attention of the unchurched. Appropriately, in a recent ad, the vicar of this funeral-home church appeared as one of a half-dozen pall bearers carrying a casket. The headline reads, “Will it take six strong men to bring you back into the church?” The fine print explains that the church “welcomes you no matter what condition you’re in, but we’d really prefer to see you breathing.”

Tom McElligott’s office—the office of the ad agency that produces Martin’s church ads—is in downtown Minneapolis, 18 miles from Martin’s mortuary meeting space. The Fallon McElligott agency occupies the fifteenth and sixteenth floors of the blue steel-and-glass 701 building. There the grey-carpeted hallways and the reserved grey, upholstered walls are punctuated by the eye-popping work that has brought the agency national recognition. Ads for Bloomingdale’s, the Wall Street Journal, and Lee jeans are mixed in with the more socially conscious pro bono work they have done for the Children’s Defense Fund and the Episcopal Ad Project.

“We’re trying to stop people with these ads,” McElligott says of the Episcopal Church promotions. “We’re trying to make them open up their mental boxes. This is the first step in opening the possibility of regular church attendance.”

The laid-back McElligott, relaxed in a green gingham-checked shirt and khakis, says he particularly enjoys beginning the ad brainstorming process with a piece of classical religious art. McElligott takes Titian’s portrayal of Daniel in the lion’s den as an example. “People have closed their minds to that art. But by pulling it out of its original context and giving it a contemporary point of reference, we’ve made it meaningful again. Although,” admits McElligott sheepishly, “I’m not sure I’d want to explain that to Titian.”

What McElligott and Martin saw in Titian’s painting was stress. Like the biblical Daniel, Christians have often been at odds with conventional values and had to live with stress—and help each other cope. So Martin and McElligott put a headline above the painting: “Contrary to conventional wisdom, stress is not a 20th century phenomenon.”

The Ad Project got its start in 1975, when Martin became rector of Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis. “The church had lost its punch,” says Martin. “There was lots of gray hair, and I was doing 20-plus funerals a year. The funerals way outnumbered the baptisms.”

Martin realized that going door-to-door in a highly churched area would not have paid off much in increased attendance. Sixty-five to 70 percent of the residents in this city claim a church affiliation, and Martin was realistically trying to reach the relatively small fraction of the remainder who would be attracted to the Episcopal church.

So he started to write newspaper ads for his church. Those early ads showed some creativity, but they lacked polish. “People told me, ‘George, you need help,’” says Martin, and they suggested he talk to McElligott, then a rising star in the advertising heavens and himself the son and son-in-law of Episcopal clergy. Thus began a nine-year collaboration that has not only earned national awards but has also called the unchurched to worship.

The advertising “brought in a steady, small stream of people,” says Martin, “never an avalanche.” But by the time he left Saint Luke’s after 11 years of ministry and 7 years of advertising, attendance was up 30 percent, and the average age of the congregation had dropped from 55 to 40. And baptisms finally outnumbered funerals—a noteworthy achievement in a mainline denomination with stagnant growth statistics.

In mainline churches it is taboo to be “anti-ecumenical.” Martin’s ads may have helped his church, but they have been called anti-ecumenical, as well as arch, elitist, divisive, and irreverent.

Lingering over coffee in the downtown Minneapolis Lutheran Brotherhood Building, Martin counters the “anti-ecumenical” charge by pointing out that many non-Episcopal churches have expressed interest in the ads.

“We asked ourselves,” says Martin, “do we have a particular claim on these? Can only Episcopal churches use them? I don’t mind anyone using them, as long as they bring people to church.”

Martin tells of a Baptist church in Nebraska that wanted to use his ads. “That Baptist church sits across the street from a very stuffy Episcopal church. I told them, ‘Go ahead and use the ads, they’ll never use them at that Episcopal church.’”

People have their complaints, but Martin, who believes advertising is a contemporary art form (“one of the few where people are paid what they’re worth”), is unmoved: “Some church people just can’t imagine advertising the church. Yet the Bible says that everywhere Jesus went, great crowds followed him. There just had to be some kind of advance P.R.”

Martin has also been accused of tastelessness and irreverence. “We have stepped on the edge,” Martin says, “but the edge changes depending on who you are. Our primary market is ‘the person who goes nowhere’—not the churched, the easily offended.” And so a traditional haloed Jesus is captioned, “You can’t meet God’s gift to women in a singles’ bar.”

Martin and McElligott, however, have their limits. They realize that although their project is a private one, representing officially only Martin’s own parish, the ads are perceived by many as speaking for an entire denomination.

So wisdom has dictated that they not publish their all-time favorite. Available only unofficially, as an “underground poster,” it is a picture of King Henry VIII under the headline, “In a church started by a man who had six wives, forgiveness goes without saying.” Martin and McElligott, loyal Episcopalians that they are, know not to push their luck.

By David Neff.

Four times a year, the CHRISTIANITY TODAY senior editors gather at Chicago’s O’Hare Hilton. The agenda is fairly consistent: we discuss theological trends, news from the Christian world, and article ideas. We evaluate the past three months’ issues of CT and preview the major articles scheduled for the coming quarter. We pray and enjoy one another’s company.

The meetings have all the good features of a family reunion. Our patriarch, Ken Kantzer, drives 20 miles from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School with a carload of wisdom born of years of service to both Trinity and CT (which he served as editor from 1978–82).

“Favorite Uncles” Jim Packer and Dennis Kinlaw come from opposite ends of the continent—Vancouver, British Columbia, and Wilmore, Kentucky—to act as good-natured advocates for their theological passions: Calvinism (“The purest form of theology,” purrs Jim) and Arminianism (“A too-often neglected perspective,” smiles Dennis).

Co-executive editor George Brushaber breaks away from his duties as president of Bethel College and Seminary to offer his extensive network of Christian contacts. And former CT editor Gil Beers (1982–85) brings meticulous lists of article ideas as fodder for the vigorous give-and-take of the day-long discussions to follow.

Ah yes, the discussions. Like all good family gatherings, we have “discussions.” Consensus on the fundamentals of the faith is the glue that holds us together; different opinions on the implementation of those fundamentals are the inlays that make this richly decorated design so fascinating.

Predictably, each of our senior editors brings a slightly different view. When the topic was the American Catholic Church, for example, systematic theologian Packer insisted on drawing the theological distinctives as clearly as possible, while philosopher Brushaber encouraged us to recognize the diversity of thought within the Catholic church itself. Homiletician Beers acted as advocate for an accurate portrayal of the “Catholic in the pew.” The result was a series of articles that won an Evangelical Press Association award for best single-theme issue.

Occasionally, however, the different perspectives do not mesh so well. One family member thinks a topic like women in the church should be approached one way, while another disagrees—with vigor. And periodic discussions over the place of investigative journalism in the news department reveal still other strong differences. Yet the good spirit of these family discussions invariably yields fruit as compromises and hard-won plans of attack are worked out.

It is that unity of purpose and diversity of attack we hope CT reflects. In order to achieve the diversity, our senior editors are arranged in rotating classes. With our summer meeting, Dennis Kinlaw and Gil Beers completed their terms. Both have served with distinction and have our loving thanks.

With our fall meeting, we welcome two new senior editors, Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen and John Akers. Mary is currently on leave from her post as professor of interdisciplinary studies at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her Ph.D. is in social and cross-cultural psychology from Northwestern University, and she is author of numerous books, including The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: A Christian Looks at the Changing Face of Psychology and The Person in Psychology: A Contemporary Christian Appraisal.

John is special assistant to Billy Graham, working out of Montreat, North Carolina. A church historian by training, John did his Ph.D. at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and taught and served as dean of Montreat-Anderson College before joining the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in 1977. He has served on Christianity Today, Inc.’s board of directors since 1978.

We welcome both Mary and John to our senior editor family. 1 Timothy 5:4 tells us to practice taking care of the larger family of Christ by taking care of our smaller families. We have discovered it is a God-given joy to take care of the larger CT readership by interacting together with love in this smaller group.

TERRY C. MUCK

The Church and AIDS

CT should be commended for tackling the “high-risk issue” of AIDS and ministry to persons with AIDS [“High-risk Ministry,” Aug. 7]. It is indeed time for evangelical churches to follow the compassionate and healing steps of Jesus in our world. As Andrés Tapia says, in responding to persons with AIDS evangelicals need to “define the church’s view of hom*osexuality.” It is also helpful that he notes there is no consensus on the nature of hom*osexuality or on the possibility of reorientation. It is not correct, however, to state that “evangelicals agree that hom*osexual activity is sinful.” But, as David Schiedermayer points out, plagues have always offered opportunity for superstitious generalizations to grow into outright persecution.

Encouraging evangelicals to jump on the AIDS ministry bandwagon is no substitute for dealing with the underlying ignorance evangelicals exhibit in response to lesbians and gay men. What kind of gospel is it that rushes to the bedside of a dying gay person with AIDS to talk about God’s love when living lesbians and gay men continue to be exploited, ridiculed, and avoided by the evangelical church?

TIMOTHY PHILLIPS

Evangelicals Concerned

Western Springs, Ill.

The lottery: Less harmful than taxes?

Chuck Colson’s attitude toward a lottery ad seems a bit melodramatic [“The Myth of the Money Tree,” July 10]. Why doesn’t he criticize our government for having become a business? His attack on the lottery is misguided—it is the income tax that is an act of political cowardice, that mocks the integrity of government. After all, if the same standard the government applies to cigarette companies were applied, truth in paying income taxes would demand a caution—“Warning: Income taxes have determined that you have no right to all of your earnings, only to what the almighty state has decided to leave you.” Isn’t the income tax, which is taken forcibly out of a poor man’s income, also a part of his grocery money?

NICHOLAS AKSIONCZYK

Sacramento, Calif.

Maybe we all contribute to lottery deception by forcing legislatures to seek dubious schemes for raising revenue. Colson is right: “If revenues are necessary, legislatures should raise taxes.” Have evangelicals in their “antitax-increase frenzy” forced legislatures to seek alternative, perhaps unsound, strategies to support education and other programs?

JOHN BOWER

Bethel College

St. Paul, Minn.

A curious ambiguity

Clark Pinnock’s glowing review of Michael Novak’s Will It Liberate? [Books, July 10] is accompanied appropriately enough by Doug Bandow’s equally glowing review of two procapitalism books. I find a curious ambiguity, if not contradiction, in the two photos that highlight these reviews: Lee Iacocca, champion of U.S. capitalism, and Mary Kay Ashe, exemplar of American beauty and fashion. Are you purposely being ironic in choosing these images? They are certainly prototypes of capitalism, which Novak, Nash, Berger, and Pinnock promote in the name of Christianity; but they are also—behind the veneer of “hard work” and “initiative”—images of capitalism at its most troublesome: indulgently and decadently wealthy, catering to egotism, materialism, elitism, and greed.

WILLIAM O’BRIEN

The Other Side

Philadelphia, Pa.

All writers and reviewers in your July 10 Books section seem to think the economic debate related to liberation theology is a question of which system can most quickly create a society of wealth defined by consumption. However, that misses the point entirely. I lived for the past eight years in two socialist countries: one is socialist because of free democratic elections, the other because of maneuverings of power among the allies after WW II. Neither country has as high a standard of living as the U.S. measured by energy consumption. But both countries are rated significantly higher than the U.S. in terms of quality of life, measured by lack of street crime, availability of free education, medical attention, employment opportunities, and so on. Are “Quality of Life” lists even publicized here? The last one I saw ranked the U.S. a low twentieth.

DR. DANIEL LIECHTY

Stenton House

Philadelphia, Pa.

The New Electronic Church

Have you seen those new laser guns kids are playing with? In this high-tech version of cowboys and Indians, each player sports a chest pack and laser gun. Fire the harmless, thin red beam into your opponent’s chest pack and beep! He’s out.

At first I thought these toys were expensive encouragements to violence. But I’ve changed my mind. In fact, if used properly within Christian circles, the laser guns could actually reduce conflict and save money.

When Elder Smith squares off with Elder Brown over whether to repave the church parking lot, why keep the whole board up past midnight to hear the wrangling? Simply move to the parking lot, give each elder a laser gun, and the correct view would quickly emerge.

Or why spend all that money for a three-day inerrancy conference? Gather the participants in a Photon arcade, and the last scholar standing can declare the single authoritative position. It’s cheaper and faster than scholarship and dialogue.

The possibilities are limitless. And in the wake of all the sad events of the last several months, these laser guns might be just what we need to give a whole new meaning to the phrase “electronic church.”

EUTYCHUS

A fine point

Mark Noll’s statement that “the founders … recognized that government was not religion” shaves a very fine point [“The Constitution at 200,” July 10]. The founders recognized that government was not to be controlled by a church, but they certainly granted that it should be built upon a religion, assumed by all of them to be the Christian religion. The point is that our founders faltered when they wrote the preamble; no mention of any higher authority of their Constitution than “We, the People.” There is no reference to God, Christ, or the Laws of God, as the 11-year-old Declaration of Independence has.

REV. RAYMOND PATTON JOSEPH

Southfield Reformed

Presbyterian Church

Southfield, Mich.

Heretical teachings?

The Bruce Barron article [News, July 10] “Faith Healers: Moving Toward the Mainstream?” leaves readers with more misinformation than facts. In quoting from our book, The Born-again Jesus of the Word-Faith Teachings, he pulled an “if” clause out of context, when context is sorely needed. Out of context, the statement “If Jesus is a born-again man and is now exalted … then you and I who are also born-again are equal with this God” implies doubt on our part to the reader. To the contrary, this statement concludes a series of facts.

E. W. Kenyon, (the real father of the Word-Faith movement) and his follower, Kenneth Hagin, state that Jesus took on “the nature of Satan” in the Garden of Gethsemane, received punishment in hell, and was then born again in hell, the “first-born of many brethren.” This teaching decimates the Trinity, Christology, and salvation in one blow. Our book clearly presents the Gnostic Word-Faith system begun by E. W. Kenyon. Thank you for allowing us to correct the false impression. Unfortunately, wishful thinking will not change heretical teachings.

JUDITH AND EDWARD MATTA

Spirit of Truth Ministry

Fullerton, Calif.

Esteeming MacDonald

The news of Gordon MacDonald’s moral lapse [News, July 10] is the most disappointing, distasteful, and depressing news I have encountered in my Christian life—perhaps because I hold him in such high esteem. But his posture of repentence strikes me as being utterly sincere. I hope CT will not cease advertising his books, nor Christian bookstores take them off their shelves, unless they also plan to refrain from selling Bibles—or at least remove the Psalms from them.

BERNIE SMITH

Bridging the Gap

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Loving Israel

So Pastor Byron Spradlin believes Christians can love Israel too much [Speaking Out, July 10]. Well, let’s check the record: (1) Tertullian, living in the second and third centuries, declared the Jews were the Cains, the murderers. (2) In the fourth century, Saint Chrysostom called the synagogue “a refuge of the devil, citadel of Satan” and declared, “God hates the Jews and has always done so.” (3) In 1543, Martin Luther wrote: “What then shall we Christians do with this damned, rejected race of Jews? Their synagogues should be set on fire … their homes be broken down … their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach anymore.” (4) On November 11, 1939, a Catholic, a Lutheran, and a Pentecostal, all members in good standing in their churches, donned their Nazi S.S. uniforms and fulfilled the Führer’s wish by shooting my grandfather in Poland because he was a Jew. (5) In 1981, a leading spokesman for a major evangelical denomination stated God doesn’t hear the prayers of my people. In 1987, the same man reiterated this conviction. (6) In 1987 the Vatican still has not recognized the State of Israel.

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

GABRIEL A. GOLDBERG

Northridge, Calif.

A general remembered

I was sorry to read in your July 10 issue of the death of Lt. Gen. William Harrison. He was a splendid Christian gentleman as well as an effective military officer. I treasure a personal memoir my late husband recorded in his diary.

In 1942 my husband, newly out of chaplains’ school, was assigned to Camp Butner, North Carolina. General Harrison was also serving there, but they had not met. One Sunday morning at the appointed hour for a Protestant service, no one had showed up but my husband and the organist. Chaplain and musician were casually chatting in front of the chapel, about to call the whole thing off, when a staff car pulled up bearing the general’s insignia on the front bumper. Out climbed General Harrison, and immediately chaplain and organist snapped to attention.

“Chaplain, is there not a service at this hour?” came the question.

“Well, yes, sir, but no one has come, so I thought we might cancel it,” came the embarrassed reply.

“Chaplain, do you believe in the words of our Lord, ‘Where two or three are gathered together, there am I in the midst’?”

“Oh, yes, sir, yes, indeed.”

The general started up the steps. “Then let the service commence.” And possibly the oddest service in military history took place, with an organist, a general, and a chaplain with a very red face.

FLORENCE E. ARNOLD

Muncie, Ind.

There is an oft-stated belief among editors that an interview or forum discussion is the “easiest” kind of article to pull together. There are no long hours of research. No original writing. There are just some questions awaiting the interviewees’ creative answers.

If only it were that easy.

First, there is the matter of scheduling, which, in the case of our four-member forum leading off this issue, called upon associate editor Rodney Clapp to do some creative date-book maneuvering. (Research never looked so good!)

Then there was the forum itself. Participants came to Chicago’s O’Hare Hilton unusually well prepared to deal with a ticklish topic. Author Richard Foster, for example, came with a briefcase full of books, spoke for 20 minutes about the history of Christian meditation, and later read from several books to demonstrate the historic Christian use of the imagination. All participants had copious notes on the presubmitted questions.

This, of course, not only assured an outstanding give and take, but a gargantuan editing task for Rodney—who spent two weeks cutting thousands of lines down to magazine size, taking changes over the telephone, and working for one entire day with a participant who felt his viewpoint had been too weakly presented in the “final draft.”

After two “final” drafts made their way past the forum foursome, we finally had the discussion beginning on page 17. And Rodney was ready for his next assignment—and some original writing.

HAROLD SMITH, Managing Editor

Everywhere I have traveled in recent weeks, people have been asking me what I think of American’s number one folk hero, Oliver North.

The questions are understandable; 15 years ago I sat (figuratively speaking) in the same seat. It can be intimidating to confront some of the most powerful personages in government under the glare of television lights in that grand, high-ceilinged caucus room. (Testifying can be more than just psychologically intimidating; in the less-civil Watergate era, one committee member threatened to break my nose.)

But North was not intimidated, charging up the Hill the way he led his combat platoon in Vietnam. He wrestled his congressional tormentors to the ground in a swashbuckling performance; they, in turn, fought their way to the microphones to praise him.

And I was on my feet, shouting, “Get em, Ollie! You tell em!”

There were some parochial reasons for my undignified conduct. As an ex-marine, I was proud that the honor of the corps, tarnished in the Moscow embassy scandal, was being regained. And I was not unmindful that North is a Christian; he attends church with several of my friends. And I had to admire his chutzpah, secretly wishing I had dared to do the same thing during Watergate.

But there were other, more significant reasons that I and millions of Americans cheered Ollie North.

For one, we’ve needed a hero. These have been lean times for national honor—spy scandals, Wall Street insider trading, double-dealing political leaders, and ministers betraying their most sacred trust.

So along comes a decorated marine who loves God and country. Abandoned by his superiors, pilloried in the press, he comes bounding back—and with bravado and pure grit, he wins the day.

A second reason for North’s popularity is the public reservoir of resentment toward politicians. Most Americans are offended by the self-righteousness of members of Congress who so often attack others for doing what they so gleefully do themselves. For example, only months ago Congress allowed a pay raise to take effect automatically by operation of law—then the next day went on record as voting it down overwhelmingly. (A moot point, in that the increase could not actually be voted down after going into effect.) They managed to get their cake and vote against it too.

Thus many cheered North for turning the tables on the posturing Congress. Even his admitted indiscretions—backdoor dealings with sleazy arms dealers, altered documents, and misleading of the Congress—were swept away in Ollie-mania. Barber shops were jammed with patrons requesting Ollie cuts; buttons and bumper stickers proclaimed “North for President.” Polls showed that almost a third of all Americans would vote North into office. Two-thirds opposed him being prosecuted.

One senator who announced eight months ago that “It is going to be a cold day … before any more money goes into Nicaragua,” wryly commented during North’s testimony, “… the outside temperature [has] dropped about 60 degrees.” Surveys show that public support for the contras has surged to its highest level ever.

Why such a dramatic shift in public opinion? Was it North’s explanation of policies, the rational discussion of issues, or a sudden public enlightenment?

No. And here is where I began to have some sobering second thoughts. For what made public opinion swing so wildly was image—the power of the television tube. It was not thoughtful discourse, but emotion. As one political satirist puts it, “Ollie North’s performance is a triumph of his telegenic personality—the charm, the charisma, the presence—over substance.”

This point was well illustrated by the next witness, a rather colorless bureaucrat, Adm. John Poindexter. He announced blandly that he alone had approved the covert plan and had deliberately not told the President. Coming after North’s charismatic testimony, Poindexter’s disclosure was viewed as a political coup: Reagan had been telling the truth, was vindicated, and started regaining lost ground in the polls.

But wait a minute. What Poindexter said was that the President knew nothing of extremely sensitive covert operations involving the diversion of millions of dollars, arguably in violation of the spirit if not the letter of the law. But in the wake of the country’s emotional orgy over Ollie, most folk seemed not to care.

I happen to be a supporter of Reagan’s policy. I cannot imagine looking the other way while the Soviets arm a proxy state (which is, by the way, persecuting Christians) a few hundred miles from our borders. Under our system of laws and carefully designed checks and balances, however, it is the President who must conduct foreign policy, not rear admirals and lieutenant colonels in the White House basem*nt.

While I was in the White House, every foreign policy decision, certainly covert actions, had to have the President’s approval. I, for one, would sleep better if it turned out Reagan had approved the scheme. It frightens me to think that he didn’t.

This leads to the most crucial—and underdiscussed—issue in this whole episode. When serious policies are made apart from the constitutionally prescribed system and ratified in an emotional public reaction, the rule of law is in jeopardy. And that should be of grave concern, especially to Christians. The belief that law must be grounded in the transcendent truth that comes from God’s revelation has been a cornerstone of American democracy for 200 years. Rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition, it has been the principal bulwark to protect the weak and the powerless, and to preserve free institutions.

The question we should ponder, then, is more important than Ollie North’s charisma—or even our policies in Iran and Central America, crucial as those are. It is whether we are still governed by the rule of law and intelligent discourse—or whether this great legacy is being swept away by the national hysteria the electronic tube instantaneously induces.

It is ironic that as we celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution, the quintessential expression of the rule of law, we also mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of full-scale network news. The Ollie North affair should cause us to question which has the greater influence on American life and values today.

As they say in television land, ABC’S “Moonlighting” is “hot.” Last year it paraded 16 Emmy nominations before the nation’s television critics (though it took only one home). After two years, the unusual program has established a loyal following and solid ratings among the top ten shows.

Its success is a combination of ingenious scripting and merry mythmaking. In a period when commercial television is filled with dull, predictable drama, “Moonlighting” is anachronistic. But it certainly does not hark back to a Christian era. It fits well with the golden age of the yuppie. Christians ought not to be so dazzled by the show’s entertaining qualities that they lose sight of its wicked message.

A Show For All Genres

In one sense, the program is a situation comedy, set in the offices of the Blue Moon Detective Agency. There the main characters, Maddie Hayes and David Addison, fall into mischief and complication. Various clients and staff (interesting characters all) oscillate from one room to the other as plots unfold and conflict builds.

In another sense, “Moonlighting” is a detective or mystery program. Maddie and David do solve crimes—though at times their methods are highly unconventional, as are the cases. In walk spies, adulterers, con artists, extortionists, and even egomaniacal parents. This is no world of the good guys and bad guys of stereotypical television. In their place are murderers and other heavies of the oddest sort, who are both laughable and lamentable.

The show’s producers use further fascinating and entertaining devices: an episode structured loosely after Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, iambic pentameter and all; episodes based on the style and imagery of Alfred Hitchco*ck; Hollywood “camp” scenes in which the heroes speak out of character directly to the viewers; musical interludes during which Maddie and David play like the Keystone Kops. Such unusual techniques have made “Moonlighting” the most expensive and time-consuming hour-long television drama produced.

Gumshoes In Bed

But the real attraction of “Moonlighting,” and the source of its wickedness, is the romance of Maddie (Cybill Shepherd) and David (Bruce Willis). At times the program is, to use a phrase from Dorothy L. Sayers, a “love story with detective interruptions.” From the first episode, it was clear that sooner or later the detective agency would become the setting for romance between the blonde ex-model and her brash, sexist partner. Unfortunately, the program increasingly uses the love story to weave a message that largely ignores agape while glorifying eros.

Last May, after two seasons of audience anticipation, the writers finally led the pair to the same bed to consummate the expected. Without love or commitment (but with birth control), the two detectives repeatedly solved the modern crime of sexual unfulfillment. In the process, the show’s producers revealed the sensibility and sexuality of the yuppie era.

“Decent” Hedonism

The success of “Moonlighting” reflects in part the creative way it has harmonized two contradictory values—hedonism and decency, or, more generally, personal freedom and social tradition. Maddie and David alternately represent one or the other; more important, each is jibed while both are upheld in a form of video magic. David is mocked for his insatiable sexual thirst and sexist attitudes. Maddie is mocked for her puritanical stance in the face of her obvious delight and pleasure in her sexual relationship with David.

Earlier programs developed the same theme in dialogue between David and Maddie about the existence of God. Then, Maddie played the agnostic, questioning the very existence of a Supreme Being. David, this time the “decent” one, argued that no one should voice such skepticism. David, of course, gave no verbal evidence of his faith in the existence of any particular god, or of his commitment to any religious tradition. The modern sense of decency requires only that one accept the possibility of a god; it neither requires nor accepts true piety.

The message is clear: “Don’t take life too seriously. Enjoy it. Moral codes are restrictive. Have a sense of decency, but don’t let it turn you into a cold fish!” Here is the yuppie credo: Seek pleasure as long as you leaven self-indulgence with moderation and good taste.

The program, like the ’60s generation that especially enjoys it, pretends to challenge the establishment while actually flying with the prevailing winds of modern culture.

By Quentin J. Schultze, professor of communication, Calvin College, and author of Television: Manna from Hollywood? (Zondervan).

Another step in Steven Linscott’s quest for permanent freedom is complete. In July, the Illinois Appellate Court ruled two-to-one that the case be retried. Prosecutors, however, have appealed that ruling to the Illinois Supreme Court.

In 1982, the 33-year-old former Bible college student was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the 1980 murder of Karen Phillips, a 24-year-old nursing student (CT, Feb. 4, 1983, p. 42). A jury found Linscott guilty largely because he had told police about a dream that bore similarities to the actual crime. Linscott had the dream the same night Phillips was murdered just a few blocks from his apartment in Oak Park, Illinois. A few days after police combed the neighborhood looking for leads, Linscott went forward to tell investigators about his dream. They concluded he was the killer.

In a two-to-one decision in 1985, the Illinois Appellate Court overturned Linscott’s conviction, the majority concluding there was insufficient evidence to establish guilt. Linscott was released on bond and has been free for almost two years.

Last October, the Illinois Supreme Court overruled the appellate court’s ruling of insufficient evidence. It returned the case to the appellate court for consideration of issues related to the fairness of the trial. In what Linscott’s supporters regard as a favorable sign, the Supreme Court allowed Linscott to remain free on bond despite prosecutors’ efforts to return him to prison.

In remanding the case to a lower court for retrial, the appellate court’s majority stated essentially that prosecutors had lied to the jury during closing arguments in the original trial. According to the opinion, “[t]he prosecutor’s choice of words was clever, but definitely misleading. Gamesmanship has no place when a person’s liberty is on the line. There is simply too much at stake.”

At another point, the appellate court ruling stated that in Linscott’s trial, “the American ideals of fairness in our system of justice were not just ignored, they were trampled upon.” However, one justice said in a dissenting opinion: “I do not believe that any of the claimed errors warrant reversal, and I would affirm defendant’s conviction.”

Linscott is a full-time student at Southern Illinois University, where he is studying psychology. His wife, Lois, teaches the couple’s three children—ages nine, seven, and five—at home.

Linscott said his “greatest hope is that the [Illinois Supreme] Court will consider several years of judicial review long enough and agree that what is needed is another look at the case.… My contention from the beginning has been that if the facts would be revealed in the proper context, I would have nothing to worry about.”

A Chronology

November 1980

Steven Linscott is arrested and jailed.

January 1981

Linscott is released on bond.

June 1982

Linscott is convicted of murder and returned to jail.

November 1982

Linscott is sentenced to 40 years in prison.

August 1985

The Illinois Appellate Court overturns the guilty verdict, citing insufficient evidence. The state appeals to the Illinois Supreme Court.

November 1985

Linscott is released on bond.

October 1986

The Illinois Supreme Court overrules the appellate court’s conclusions. The case is returned to the appellate court.

July 1987

The appellate court remands the case to a lower court for a new trial. The state appeals that decision to the Illinois Supreme Court.