Page 5158 – Christianity Today (2025)

Jack and Lois wanted to get married. They also believed God wanted them married. Jack had been divorced five years earlier and had two adolescent children. Lois had never been married but felt certain Jack was “the right man.” As they spoke with their pastor about their engagement, they were excited about the future, about the possibilities of being a “real family.”

But they also had a number of anxieties. Jack’s divorce had made him wary of another marriage, and his children weren’t certain they liked Lois. Lois was sure she and Jack should marry, but her family had been cold to the idea. She wanted children, but Jack wasn’t sure he could handle “another round of kids.”

As a pastor, I see more and more couples like Jack and Lois. People today are as enthusiastic as ever about marriage, and those who have been divorced are even more likely to get married than those who have never married: 83 percent of divorced men and 76 percent of divorced women remarry. And while many ministers offer premarital preparation, little attention has been given to the unique needs of those remarrying. Yet the statistics show they are even more in need of premarital preparation. While 35 percent of first marriages end in divorce, approximately 65 percent of remarriages end that way, many of them within the first few years.

Some time ago I recognized that the majority of my premarital counseling was being done with couples for whom this was not the first marriage. Out of my experience with these couples, let me offer some observations as a springboard for you to develop your own approach.

Clarifying Our Position

While not all remarital preparation involves divorce, most does. This meant I had to come to a clear personal stance on divorce and remarriage. We may apply the relevant Scripture passages differently. I personally feel the Bible allows for at least some remarriage after divorce. But even pastors who don’t accept that position will be confronted by widows and widowers wanting to be wed, and thus remarital counseling is still an important issue.

I also learned the hard way the need to understand the beliefs of the congregation. Early in my ministry, I made a decision not to marry anyone who had not undergone premarital counseling. My church leaders seemed supportive of this until I applied the rule to a remarital couple. Since they were older, they felt they didn’t need counseling, and they insisted I conduct the wedding ceremony anyway. When I stood firm, they went informally to one of my elders. It was then I learned that my understanding of the leaders’ stance was incomplete! This well-meaning elder explained in firm tones that I was a servant of the church and had no right to make the decision not to marry this couple “just because I wanted to do counseling with them.”

Eventually, the elder board upheld my stance, but I learned a valuable lesson about assumptions-don’t make them. Find out your church leaders’ understanding of divorce and remarriage. If they don’t have one, study the Scriptures together. As I discovered, the minister and the lay leaders need to agree on a stance. This protects the minister from being seen as arbitrary, and it involves the church much more in the ministry of remarital preparation.

Not Assuming Maturity

Rudy and Karen were a likable, seemingly mature couple. Everyone had been speculating on how long it would take them to decide to get married, so when they announced their engagement, no one was surprised. I thought I knew them well, and I had a high opinion of them. Both were older than I, and both had experienced much in their lives. I was tempted to forgo my usual premarital program because I figured they knew it all already.

Fortunately, they were honest enough to reveal some concerns to me, and they encouraged me to guide them through the sessions. As I did, I was amazed at how many difficulties surfaced in their relationship. I had assumed they had learned from their experiences in former marriages. I was wrong. Neither recognized his or her contribution to the failure of the first marriage and both had difficulty looking at their new relationship realistically.

I have observed many couples who married later in life. When either person has been divorced, it has almost always been a handicap to future healthy relationships. People can gain a great deal of experience, but they don’t always learn from it. Communication, role expectations, use of leisure time, vacation plans, sexual adjustment and birth control, conflict resolution, family background, personality issues, spiritual priorities, and church participation are some of the more important areas of any marriage, and they’re now among the issues I discuss with every new couple, regardless of how experienced they are.

The Ever-Present Former Spouse

One of the first steps in remarital counseling is to take an honest look at the first marriage. Describing those relationships is often uncomfortable for everyone, but it’s necessary. It should be done with both of the engaged parties present. They need to hear each other describe openly the relationship with the former spouse, which will continue to influence the new marriage.

I ask the couple what steps they have taken to resolve the problems that led to the breakup of their first marriages. I look for a mature response. Have they accepted their share of responsibility? Have they sought forgiveness? Have they addressed the personal problems that may have contributed to the marital stress? If they have not, they aren’t ready to enter a new relationship.

The goal of this process is to help each person own up to his or her own responsibility for the failure of the first marriage. It also allows the partner to gain a more realistic perspective on the potential problems in the new relationship.

This was the case with Steve, a minister in his late thirties. His wife had left him several years earlier for a close friend. Steve’s congregation was shocked, and a ground swell of anger at his wife began to arise. Steve was hurt and didn’t feel particularly positive about his wife, but he was able to go before his congregation and admit that he had contributed to her unfaithfulness. He confessed that he, too, had been unfaithful by making his wife compete with the church for his time and attention. For years he had given his best hours to the church. When his wife tried to talk to him about it, he accused her of being unspiritual. “I can’t blame her,” he said. “I left her years ago without moving out.”

Steve had made some significant discoveries and was able to forgive his wife and himself. He also sought help for his unhealthy way of looking for approval through growth in the church. Whether he ever remarried or not, his honesty allowed him to grow.

In addition to exploring past relationships, it’s important to look at the current status of things. If one person is still carrying a great deal of bitterness toward a previous spouse, the likelihood of strife in the new relationship is strong. On the other hand, it’s also good to be careful about close relationships with former spouses.

Julie had divorced her husband two years ago, but she was never able to handle maintenance tasks on the house by herself. She relied on her ex-husband, Wayne, to fulfill the maintenance role. This was awkward at times, but since they had two children and Wayne wanted them to have a positive environment in their home, he was willing to provide the assistance. The problem came when Wayne got engaged again. Carol, his fianc‚e, understood his feelings about providing a decent home for his children, but she had difficulty accepting his continued contact with his ex-wife. It seemed to Carol that the closer their wedding got, the more Julie expected Wayne to help her. Finally Carol told Wayne she didn’t want him going over there anymore. He couldn’t understand why she was being so unreasonable, and the subject was a regular source of irritation.

In counseling, I asked Wayne and Carol to explore the dynamics of this problem. What made Carol uncomfortable about this? What didn’t Wayne understand about her reaction? How much contact with his first wife was reasonable? How much could his new fianc‚e accept? What alternatives were there?

It’s also important, I’ve found, to explore the relationships with ex-in-laws. Grandparents usually feel they shouldn’t have to end their relationship with grandchildren just because there has been a divorce. One sister-in-law put it this way: “My brother may have divorced her, but I didn’t.” When this is the case, the continued contact with the former in-laws can be a source of stress in the new marriage if it isn’t handled delicately.

I’ve found that if contact with former in-laws is to continue, several ground rules are needed.

First, it should be explained at the outset that efforts by in-laws to reunify the divorced couple are not welcome. (If reunification is an appropriate goal, the in-laws still are not the appropriate people to be the driving force.)

Second, both the ex-spouse and the in-laws should avoid discussions of the marriage that could lead to blaming or “What ifs.”

Third, contact should be limited and open. Secret meetings cause suspicion and pain even if they are designed to avoid these things.

Finally, in-laws should not be used as go-betweens for ex-spouses. This places them in an awkward situation and prevents the open communication needed for important concerns, such as child rearing, that are shared by the ex-spouses.

Stepfamily Issues

George and Shana were getting married. George had two boys, ages ten and thirteen. Shana had one girl, age twelve.

Shana’s daughter, Shari, was physically mature for her age. Since her mother’s divorce, she had been more of a sister than a daughter to her mother. Now, she resented George’s assuming a parental role with her, as well as his desire that Shana act more like a mother than a sister to Shari. George felt that if he were going to be living in the same house with this young girl, she should be expected to obey him.

Then another situation arose. George’s 13-year-old son also was well developed for his age. And since the two weren’t really related, he and Shari found themselves attracted to one another. One night when George and the boys had been at Shana’s house, George started looking for the boys to tell them it was time to go. He found the younger boy watching television. When he asked where the older boy was, his brother said, “Oh, he and Shari are making out again.” George and Shana found the two entwined in Shari’s bedroom.

When two families are blended, they rarely relate to one another like the Brady Bunch. Conflicting loyalties, resentments, and differences in habits can surface. Without the God-given and cultural taboos against sex between natural siblings to temper emotions, the rate of incest in stepfamilies is much higher than in blood-related families. I encourage the couple to discuss these and other stepfamily concerns: adoption, name changes, inheritance, rules for relationships between stepsiblings, how relationships with friends and relatives might be changed by the marriage, child discipline (who will fill what roles and how these roles will be phased in), career changes, competition for love and affection and how jealousy will be handled (it can usually be assumed there will be some), and the setting of priorities for the new family.

Discussing a list like this might seem to cast a negative light on the new relationship. After all, it’s possible many of these issues won’t be a problem for a particular family. Unfortunately, however, we don’t know in advance which issues those are. The point of this discussion is to erect warning signs. The family can’t afford to be ignorant.

Including the Children

In remarital counseling, our tendency is to work only with the couple. After all, we reason, the children aren’t getting married. The fact is, however, as illustrated by Shana and George’s situation, that in many ways the children are getting married, and they will be one of the most important factors in determining whether the new marriage lasts. The number-one cause of divorce in remarriages is conflict over the children. This is true even if the children are old enough to take care of themselves. Children are tied so closely to parents that if the natural parent has to choose between the new spouse and his or her children, the new spouse usually loses.

I normally devote two sessions to discussing the issues with the children present. In the first session, I ask them to tell me their understanding of what’s happening and what concerns they have. If the children are hesitant to talk (as they often are), I’ll ask everyone to write the topics they think we should talk about; they don’t have to sign their lists. If there are children too young to write, I ask them to draw pictures of what they think the new family might be like.

Once I’ve received the children’s topics, I bring up the issues one by one. I find it’s usually best to give the people with the least power the chance to talk first. That way, they don’t feel they have to conform to what their parents or older siblings have said. I encourage the parents to truly give the children the freedom to talk without fear of penalty, reminding Mom and Dad of the penalty they will pay if they don’t allow the children to talk early on.

Checking Progress of the Grief Process

After suffering a great loss, the grieving person experiences shock, denial, anger, a desire to bargain, and eventually an acceptance of what has happened. Only after this acceptance stage is reached can the grieving person begin to build a new life on solid ground. In divorce situations, there’s the added element of dealing with guilt. If the wounds have not healed by the time the person remarries, chances are high there will be carryover problems in the new relationship, as Joan found out.

Joan’s first husband had been unfaithful to her. She was deeply hurt, but she decided to stay with the marriage and try to make it work. Unfortunately, her husband continued in his unfaithfulness, and a divorce followed. A year later, Joan met Paul at a church activity. After a brief courtship, the two became engaged and got married.

Paul’s job put him in situations where he met many women, some of them quite attractive. At first this didn’t seem to bother Joan. But after a few months, she became distrustful of Paul, eventually accusing him of unfaithfulness. Paul had never been unfaithful to Joan, but her distrust grew until it became too much for Paul. He finally insisted they see a counselor or he would move out. When they came for counseling, Joan’s old hurt and bitterness emerged. She had been reacting to her first husband all along, though she didn’t seem aware of it.

Active grief can be a problem for widows and widowers as well. One newlywed of six months confided that he was having difficulty accepting his new wife for who she was. He kept wanting her to be like his first wife. As long as the wounds of his grief remained unhealed, he wasn’t capable of accepting his new wife.

These wounds can be healed with time and work, but it’s difficult to maintain a marriage in the meantime. For this reason, if one or both of the engaged people are still working through the grief process, I suggest they delay the wedding. Normally, I don’t encourage remarriage within a year of the divorce or the death of a spouse.

The Importance of Premarital Purity

Connie was shaking when I first met her. After sitting in silence for a few minutes, she explained that she had been married for twenty years and now divorced for one. She was extremely lonely, so she had been seeing a number of men. When I asked her whether the relationships were providing the companionship she needed, she started crying again. She said they had all provided some companionship and had all led to sexual involvement. As soon as she slept with the men, however, the companionship, and the relationships in general, deteriorated rapidly. Before long the men were gone.

Finally Connie looked up at me and asked if I were married. When I said yes, she said, “How long could you go without sex after having it regularly for years? I’m normal, and I have normal needs.”

Her question highlights the problem faced by millions of divorced people. Connie was a Christian. She didn’t believe in sex outside of marriage. On the other hand, she had grown accustomed to sexual relations during her twenty years as a wife. Like many couples, even during the stormy ending of their union, she and her husband often enjoyed sex. Now she was alone, and she wasn’t doing a very good job of resisting temptation.

Surveys show that the majority of engaged couples whose partners have already been married are or have been sexually active. Often, even the Christians among them see this as acceptable. One such woman challenged me to give her scriptural documentation that her sexual activity was wrong. When I presented her with a simple word study on the word porneia, she reluctantly agreed that she was wrong. But she still wouldn’t believe God disapproved of her behavior.

I’ve learned to meet this problem head on. As with any premarital counseling I do, I routinely inquire about the extent of sexual activity the couple has experienced with one another. The couple is expecting this, because I explain what the counseling will involve when they first approach me. Interestingly, while I encounter a great deal of awkwardness, I have always found couples to be honest.

When I find they have been sexually active, I explain my understanding of Scripture on the subject, and I encourage them to seek forgiveness from God and each other. I then tell them that I hope they will remain chaste until they’re married, but that at least during our weeks of counseling, I will be asking them about their progress in this area. I know-and tell them so-that refraining from a sexual relationship won’t be easy. And even when couples are willing, relapses are common. But I make no apologies about calling them to the high standards of Scripture.

I’m careful to explain why I ask something so personal. First, they have come to me, a representative of the church. While our society tends to value individual freedom over accountability, the church exists to provide guidance to its members.

Second, I ask no more than what God has already commanded. This law is what’s best for us, since God’s commands are based in his love for us.

Finally, apart from all moral and spiritual arguments, it’s important for a couple to determine how much their relationship is based solely on sex. One young lady challenged my teaching on sex outside marriage, but it turned out she and her fianc‚ had little else they did together. When they finally agreed to abstain until their wedding, they were forced to look at the weakness of their relationship and consider ways to strengthen it. When they did get married, sex didn’t have to carry the burden of their entire relationship.

When couples object to my asking such personal questions, I explain these reasons and tell them I am not willing to do less than my best with them, so I don’t make exceptions. I have had many couples, particularly those coming to me from outside my church, elect to go elsewhere. I accept this possibility because I know that if I ignore these important questions, they will suffer for it at some point.

The Unavoidable Legal Issues

Legal issues are particularly important for remarital preparation, because the previous marriage often leaves lingering entanglements. When there are children from a previous marriage, for example, who will have custody? Where will the children live? What will the visitation arrangements be? Will anyone besides the ex-spouse have visitation rights? (It’s becoming increasingly common for courts to recognize the rights of grandparents to visit their grandchildren.) Is the stepparent planning on adopting the children? If so, is this likely to be opposed in court? Finally, what is the likely impact of these decisions on the children?

Financial questions also arise out of the legal aspects. Is either partner receiving-or paying-alimony or child support? How will this affect the overall financial picture? Will court action be necessary to make a modification?

I also alert the couple to inheritance issues. How should current wills be modified? Who will be designated guardians of the children should the natural parent die? Will the new marriage change the inheritance of the children? Is a trust fund needed?

Many of these legal questions are outside my expertise as a minister, and the best help I can offer then is to refer the couple to a competent attorney.

Because of the number and complexity of the issues in remarital preparation, I try to meet with couples for eight sessions. I realize that’s a heavy investment for any minister, but I’ve found that remarital preparation cannot be adequately carried out in one or two sessions. I also recognize that covering all the possible concerns may seem overwhelming. Nonetheless, I try at least to raise the questions. With careful thought and Christian support, couples who remarry can greatly increase their chances for a stable and lasting union.

Both Brad and Kim were married early in life, and both marriages came to an early end. Their divorces were painful, and the effects of their divorces on their children made it clear to both that divorce was wrong. Unable to undo that wrong, however, they sought support and guidance from the church and the Lord. Eventually they met one another and grew closer. After three years, they decided to get married. The church supported them, and the marriage was an occasion for celebration.

But no one is immune from the problems created by divorce, and Brad and Kim experienced many of the problems I have discussed. After four years of marriage, they are still struggling with problems like child visitation, resentment toward former spouses, and the need to let the new mate be his or her own person. They are struggling through it, however, with the Lord and his church. Their marriage has brought them closer to God, and they serve him eagerly.

We can help many couples like Brad and Kim as we have courage and the love to assist them in working through the unique needs of a remarital union.

Randy Christian is pastor to children and families at Beaverton Christian Church, Beaverton, Oregon.

* * *

The Bible was not given to increase our knowledge but to change our lives.

-D. L. Moody

Our soundest knowledge is to know that we know God not as indeed he is, neither can we know him; and our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence, when we confess, without confession, that his glory is inexplainable, his greatness above our capacity and reach.

-Richard Hooker

Copyright © 1988 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

I was jogging down the street, thinking about my new church (I had arrived only a few weeks earlier), when a man I had never seen motioned with his hand for me to stop. I slowed down, stopped, and tried to catch my breath.

“Are you the new pastor of Suburban Baptist?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, smiling.

“I’ll never go there again!” he hissed. Then he began an angry tirade about the church’s hypocrisy, its control by a few members, its lack of love. It took him thirty minutes to finish.

I could tell he had been deeply hurt, but I wasn’t sure what to say. I only knew this was going to be the most difficult pastorate of my ministry.

Following a Fallen Pastor

The previous pastor at Suburban, whom I’ll call Fred Sharpe, had resigned under pressure from charges of sexual indiscretions and aberrant theology. When I had candidated, the pastoral search committee described the problems in general terms, with a note of sadness. “Fred was a man of unusual abilities,” they explained.

Before Fred had become pastor, the congregation had been divided on whether to call him, but Fred had been highly recommended and demonstrated qualities the congregation sought: he was articulate, personable, and young, and held a reputation for leading churches into growth.

The church grew rapidly under Fred’s ministry. Many were attracted to his nontraditional approach to preaching and worship, and soon a second service was started. After about eighteen months, however, a few people started leaving the church, upset primarily by Fred’s theology and his practice of drinking beer in public. There were also rumors of sexual indiscretions.

As I considered the call to Suburban, Fred was still living in the community and had started a “Church without Walls.” The church staff was in disarray: one of the associate pastors had resigned; the other was having serious marital problems. I sensed the church’s financial condition was unstable, even though the interim pastor assured me this was not the case. (Time proved him wrong.)

For these reasons, I struggled for three months with whether to go to Suburban. But I accept as a good definition of God’s call “a task to be done and the ability to do it.” People told me they felt I had the abilities, so after much prayer, I accepted the call.

Trying to Get the Total Story

I thought I had the full story when I came. But about six months after I arrived, Fred moved in with his girl friend. Neither was divorced at that time. I learned that Fred’s sexual improprieties had been going on for several years and had caused severe strains in his marriage. The search committee had not covered the problem; no one knew the extent or severity of it until Fred and his wife separated.

Every member’s attitude toward me and the church was in some way colored by these past events, yet each person viewed those events in different ways. It was difficult to get a clear picture of what had happened.

The complexity of the situation can be seen in the different reminiscences of four members:

A strong supporter of Fred’s: “I’m not sure why I wasn’t aware of the moral problems, except that maybe I wasn’t in contact with anyone who disagreed with us. Those who agree with an embattled pastor tend to surround him and cut him off from divergent viewpoints. There were a few vague charges brought out at a couple of business meetings, but they were discounted.”

A female church leader: “Looking back, I realize Fred was making improper overtures to some of the women. Tales came back to me of such actions taking place at retreats, but they also occurred in the homes of the members.”

A deacon who opposed Fred: “My opposition began when Fred preached a sermon on ‘Open Marriage,’ the essence of which was biblically and morally unsound. Prior to that sermon, I had become concerned about rumors that Fred, in his home, encouraged young people to experiment with alcoholic beverages (though only in moderation).” When this deacon’s opposition became vocal, many members reported to him rumors of Fred’s sexual indiscretions. He took these rumors seriously because of the people who reported them. “By the time a vote of confidence was called for, I was convinced Fred was involved in extramarital affairs, and that was the major issue in my mind in seeking Fred’s resignation.”

One of the staff members who worked with Fred: “I was supportive of Fred’s program. I also feel the church leaders shielded Fred from the conflict. Fred was still in his twenties, so they didn’t want him to get hurt in the crossfire. I was concerned over the problems Fred and his wife were having, and as a result, I probably was not ‘hearing’ what was being said about Fred.”

A Plethora of Problems

Fred’s sexual behavior was not the only issue in the controversy, but when Fred moved in with his girl friend, immorality became the problem for members of the church. This public confirmation of their suspicions caused the members who were left at Suburban to forget the other facets of the problem, and therefore made the healing process more difficult.

Among the other problems, for example, was a power struggle between the old and new members. The rapid influx of new members had made the older leadership concerned over their own loss of power. Many leaders had been upset, for instance, the time Fred asked some older members to withdraw their names from consideration as deacons so that newer members could be elected. The older members also resented several new programs pushed through by Fred.

At one of the first business meetings I attended, a conflict erupted over whether a nonmember should teach a Sunday school class. The problem was seen as a clash between those who had caused Fred’s resignation and those who had been for him. The debate shed little light but generated much heat.

The two major adult Sunday school classes had identified themselves as conservative and liberal. The “conservative” class saw its task as combating any remaining influences of Fred’s theology and lifestyle. The “liberal” class saw its task as combating the rigidness they identified with the opponents of Fred’s ministry.

Meanwhile, Fred and his new church were still in the community. He sent a letter to selected members of Suburban inviting them to the new church he had started. I called him and questioned the ethics of that practice.

“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” he replied. “I have many friends at Suburban who would like to know what I’m doing. I won’t stop contacting those members or any others I might choose.”

These conflicts scattered the leadership at Suburban Baptist. A new Baptist congregation was started in town, and a number of members saw this as an opportunity to respond to a new challenge as well as a way out of a difficult situation. Fred took with him many of his followers. What was left were many members who were hurt and disillusioned. Some withdrew from active participation, but the rest became a united remnant committed to praying and working for the rebirth of the congregation.

As a result of these complex and overlapping problems, I learned to accept all reports with a grain of salt. I had to listen with a “third ear” for the feelings and hidden agendas behind each statement.

In many ways I proceeded like Abraham, seeking to follow God’s will but not knowing fully where I was going. My age, 50, was a definite asset. Had I been 35 or 40, I doubt if I would have survived, even if others might have. I underscore this point because so many churches believe that youth is a greater asset than experience. In any event, the problems I had gone through in three previous pastorates helped me to listen better and also to retain my hope for a positive resolution.

Leadership Strategies

I did, however, take some specific steps to rebuild trust in the pastoral office and unity in the church. These principles guided me.

Work with the formal power structure. Before I accepted the call as pastor, I asked the search committee to call a meeting of the twenty-one active deacons. At that meeting I began to build bridges with this vital group of leaders. Although I had every reason to believe the congregation would call me on the recommendation of the search committee, I felt I needed feedback from a larger segment of the church leadership. I also wanted them to have a sense of ownership in the selection of the pastor.

Shortly after I arrived, I scheduled an overnight retreat with the deacons to deal with whether to keep the two staff members who had survived the conflict. I decided to ask the deacons, rather than the personnel committee, to make the decision. Most of the standing committees were severely weakened by the exodus of trained leaders during the conflict, and therefore, the real power was with the deacons.

I indicated to the deacons that the decision had to be theirs; I was not going to decide for them. One deacon took me aside before the retreat and said, “Dick, you must be prepared to share your views. The deacons are looking to you for guidance.” I assured him I would share my views, but the deacons had to make the final decision.

The retreat proved exhausting. The first session on Friday evening went until midnight, and many of the deacons continued their discussions until 2 or 3 A.M.

On Saturday morning after prayer time and a devotional, we tested for a consensus. There was none. All of us were emotionally drained and discouraged. At that point I spoke up and told the group what the one deacon had asked me. I repeated that I was not going to make the decision for them but would at that time express my views. I made three specific recommendations: (1) that both the associate pastor and the part-time minister of music remain, because I needed their help, and it was unfair to dismiss them without notice because of the church’s financial problems; (2) that the associate pastor and his wife, recently separated, be given our love and support in this difficult time in their lives; (3) that the position of the associate pastor be reevaluated after one year. These provided the catalyst for further discussion, and we decided unanimously to present these recommendations to the church.

The recommendations were accepted with little discussion by the congregation. This was to be the pattern at the monthly church business meetings for several years to come. The church members were so tired of fighting that they would not voice any opposition or offer any suggestions. To those familiar with congregational meetings, this appears to be a godsend! It is only in part. You are left with no feedback, so it is hard to develop strategies and programs for which the members have any enthusiasm or sense of ownership.

I continued to use the deacons for several years as the primary, if not the only, decision-making group in the church. Today, however, the deacons are involved in family ministry and spiritual growth. The various committees-finance, personnel, missions, building and grounds, and others-are again functioning well and carry out their assignments with minimal input from the deacons.

Focus on the pastoral basics, preaching and visitation, rather than initiate new programs. At the first deacons’ meeting, I outlined my priorities. First, I would spend the greater portion of my time in visitation; specifically, my wife, Anne, and I planned to visit each deacon. Second, I would focus on my preaching. I stated also that I would not get involved in rebuilding or strengthening church programs. (However, three months later I did outline and execute a series of mini-retreats for middle school, high school, and college students, because I sensed the young people desperately needed pastoral care.)

Preaching and visitation are essential in any pastorate, but in a broken church, their need is magnified. At Suburban, the members needed to hear the good news of God’s love and power, to have their hope renewed, and to experience human concern and love. These aims can be best achieved through preaching and visitation.

A serendipity of my announcement that Anne and I would be visiting in the homes of the deacons was that many invited us for a meal. This meant there was the double benefit of giving and receiving love.

Combat the spirit of failure through constant encouragement. I’m not by nature a glad-hander and ego builder. I don’t make it a practice to write in my pastor’s paragraphs how great the church is and how great the services have been until it begins to grate. My preaching style tends rather to be “afflicting the comfortable.” However, four years before coming to Suburban I heard a series of lectures that taught we needed to model our preaching after Isaiah’s words, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people.” At first I rebelled against that suggestion, but later I turned to it more and more.

Twice I preached on Barnabas, “one who encourages,” and how he was an example of what we should be. The response was overwhelming, and people realized they needed to encourage one another.

To help the church feel it had a viable place in the community, I initiated an annual “Inter-Church Conference,” to which all the local churches were invited. We brought in major speakers and underwrote the expenses. As the conferences were enthusiastically received by others in the community, people in the church began to feel encouraged that they did have something to offer.

I felt instilling a spirit of encouragement was so important that one time I confronted the deacons about their discouragement. I suggested that they were not inviting anyone to church because they were ashamed of our church. Most agreed I was on target.

Help the church to focus outward. A fourth strategy was to encourage the church to focus on missions. Because my parents were missionaries for forty years, I have a strong commitment to missions, and I found the congregation already had several missions interests that I was able to nurture.

Missionary couples were invited to our church; one spent a whole week teaching all age groups, including adults, during our Vacation Bible School. Local mission needs were identified as well, and Suburban took the leadership in providing help to an unexpected influx of refugees. These efforts resulted in a dramatic increase in missions giving.

Celebrate. A broken church needs to focus on occasions when it can celebrate the blessings of God. We held services in which we focused on God’s goodness in the lives of individuals. We took time to express publicly our thanks for the service of various members and staff. When our church reached its centennial, we held a year-long celebration that included historical pageants, the writing of the history of the church, a homecoming Sunday, and a centennial banquet.

Personal Survival Tactics

In pastoring a hurting church, you expend so much that personal survival tactics are as important as leadership strategies, perhaps more so.

My first survival tactic was a redoubling of my efforts in personal spiritual growth. I had been aware for many years that I was often more concerned about leading worship than in participating in it. Anne gave me a framed copy of a prayer by Martin Luther that I pray before every service:

“O Lord God, Thou hast made me a pastor and teacher in the church. Thou seest how unfit I am to administer rightly this great responsible office; and had I been without Thy aid and counsel I would surely have ruined it long ago. Therefore do I invoke Thee. How gladly do I desire to yield and consecrate my heart and mouth to this ministry. I desire to teach the congregation. I, too, desire ever to learn and to keep Thy Word my constant companion and to meditate thereupon earnestly. Use me as Thy instrument in Thy service. Only do not Thou forsake me, for if I am left to myself, I will certainly bring it all to destruction. Amen.”

I requested the deacons meet with me for prayer prior to the service. Some saw it as a spiritual crutch and resisted the idea at first, but today “prayer with the pastor” is an important part of the role of the deacons.

I find myself spending more and more time in prayer-on prayer retreats, on Saturday evenings in the dark sanctuary. I have not been alone in trying to grow spiritually. One member in writing her recollection of the key events over the past years concluded by saying, “There is now a solid foundation being built in regard to the spiritual life-prayer, meditation, and Bible study.”

A second strategy was to be more open and to ask for help from the church members. My first major attempt at this came at the time of the marriage of our daughter. She was not known to the members of the church because she had already established her own career and home before we moved to Suburban. I announced she was to be married in another state and that Anne would be gone for a couple of weeks to help in the preparation of the wedding. I would follow later to perform the ceremony.

I received no response from the congregation. No one seemed to be interested. I had tried to “weep with those who weep, and to rejoice with those who rejoice,” but now those whom I had tried to serve were letting me down. I felt hurt and angry. While jogging late one evening, I decided to go to one of the families in the church and talk about it. The family listened to me, and they contacted others. By the time I left for the wedding, there was an outpouring of love through various words and deeds.

On the Sunday I returned, I preached on “Carry One Another’s Burdens.” It was to have been just another sermon, but somehow I was able to confess how hurt I had been, and also how much I had been helped by their love and support. I stood before the members of the church at the time of the altar call and said, “I need you, and I thank you for your love.” Many still speak of that worship hour as one of the highlights of the past twelve years. “Carry One Another’s Burdens” has become something of a motto for many in the congregation.

I have also given attention to the many other sources of renewal for a pastor: continuing education; outside interests such as writing, teaching, and speaking; travel; ministerial peer groups; exercise. Each has helped me stay in the saddle.

It “Took Far Longer”

I showed what I have written to one member and asked for comments. The member said, “Your strategies, conscious or not, worked, but the healing process took far longer than any of us would have thought.” The key words are not only worked but also took far longer.

There is yet much that needs to be done. Twelve years later we are still suffering from lack of leadership. Many dedicated members have done too much and have burned out. At times some members have had an Elijah complex-“I alone am left.” I have hurt some members-unintentionally, I hope. Some members have left the church because they felt they couldn’t work with me, and certainly many opportunities for ministry have not been seized.

But the healing process continues. Our church just finished a six-month search for a second associate pastor. The meetings of the personnel committee were marked by frank discussions; the committee members expressed their views and didn’t feel compelled to acquiesce to my views. I saw in the process that the church leaders are accepting greater responsibility for decisions. We are working as colleagues with mutual trust.

I knew real healing had taken place when the man who accosted me as I was jogging joined the church-ten years after our first meeting. Now he is active in worship, Bible study, prayer, and service.

Richard Porter is a pen name for a pastor in the eastern United States.

Copyright © 1988 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Pearl / Lightstock

While the story is now six decades old, the mere mention of Elmer Gantry's name is still sufficient to evoke a knowing smile. Author Sinclair Lewis, with an assist from Burt Lancaster in the title role of the Elmer Gantry movie, succeeded so dramatically in painting a portrait of a two-faced evangelist that the name has become synonymous with religious hypocrisy.

Any time a public religious figure is exposed in some scandal, Gantry's name is usually brought up. The question confronting us in Elmer Gantry-and in every recurring instance of real-life ministerial immorality-is this: How far must a minister fall in order to be disqualified from Christian leadership?

This is not just a twentieth-century question but also an issue the church has wrestled with throughout its history. Christians have taken several different stances, based on different conceptions of the church and church leadership.

Pastor as elder

Despite having the colorful heritage of the Jewish priests, the apostolic church assumed a concept of the ministry radically different from images of temple, sacrifice, or priesthood. Jewish priests gained their position by being born into the Levitical line. Early Christian practice, by contrast, was more in line with the synagogues of the day, led by respected elders.

Instead of an established priesthood created by Christ to serve the faithful, the dominant idea was that ministry belonged to the believing community, and ordination was primarily selecting an individual to lead so that the whole church could function effectively in worship, service, and outreach.

As Paul outlined the qualifications for church leadership in 1 Timothy and Titus, his criteria did not emphasize family line or some past rite. Instead the focus was on the leader's proven ethical character, on such qualities as being blameless, above reproach, not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to much wine, not pursuing dishonest gain.

"He must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined" (Titus 1:8).

"He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil's trap" (1 Tim. 3:7).

The basis for ministry was the leader's continual commitment to live up to these standards. If the minister proved sinful in any serious way, he was treated like any other member of the Christian community. His ability to minister was damaged or lost.

Pastor as priest

By the third century, however, images of priesthood, which earlier had been considered a metaphor for ministry, began to be taken more literally. This view of the ministry as a sacred priesthood eventually altered the common understanding of the importance of the minister's personal character.

The precipitating incident was the persecution of Christians by the Roman Emperor Diocletian in A.D. 303-305. One of his official edicts demanded the destruction of churches and confiscation of Christian Scriptures. This edict was enforced with particular severity in Palestine and Egypt, and a number of church leaders in North Africa, fearing for their lives, surrendered the Scriptures to be burned.

Eventually the persecution subsided, but the church was faced with a volatile conflict. A group of reformers known as Donatists argued that many North African bishops were not acceptable for Christian ministry: they had been ordained by these men who had compromised the Christian faith by surrendering the Scriptures.

In time, Augustine, the highly influential bishop, articulated the position that came to be adopted by the Catholic church. He said that ordination was a permanent possession of the individual wholly apart from his relation to the Christian community he served. The church conferred holy orders (ordination), to be sure, but the power to serve came from God through the established priesthood.

This position established two important precedents. First, it gave ordination an indelible character. Sin could not erase priestly power. Second, the validity of the sacraments of the church was not dependent on the moral character of the administering priest. The sacraments were holy within themselves and valid even though dispensed by a sinning priest.

The lasting effect was that personal sanctity was no longer assumed to be essential for ministry. Even if a minister had seriously compromised his faith, his ministry remained legitimate.

Pastor as monk

In the fourth century, the monastic movement spread throughout Christendom as a means for individuals to show special devotion to God. Many churches, after some initial resistance, came to accept the monastic ideals of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Through influential, reforming popes such as Gregory VII, celibacy became an ideal imposed upon Roman Catholic priests as well as monks.

This was an attempt to demonstrate that priests' commitment to God was on a higher level than that of ordinary people. But while the aim was to be slightly more than human, in actuality many priests proved to be very human.

Maintaining the priests' celibacy always posed a problem for the church, and many found ways around the official church policy. Concubines were the most common means. Even Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the pope's personal representative in England, lived with a woman for several years and had two children, and then gave her away to another man, complete with dowry.

These sexual sins, while not condoned, were never deemed sufficiently serious to revoke ordination, since ordination was considered indelible. In some extreme cases of public scandal, a priest or bishop would be removed from a particular position, but his moral lapse was not grounds for disqualification as a priest.

Pastor as spiritual leader

During the medieval centuries, the church never lacked critics of this less-than-holy priesthood. Peter Waldo, Francis of Assisi, and Jan Hus are some of the better-known critics. But the return to the character question for ministry awaited the burly German, Martin Luther, who began by disputing whether God recognized separate spiritual tiers for clergy and laity.

In his Appeal to the German Nobility, Luther wrote: "There has been a fiction by which the pope, bishops, priests, and monks are called 'the spiritual estate'; princes, lords, artisans, and peasants are 'the temporal estate.' This is an artful lie and hypocritical invention, but let no one be made afraid by it, and for this reason: that all Christians are truly of the spiritual estate. … Between laymen and priests … the only real difference is one of office and function, and not of estate."

While Luther provided the philosophical base, it was the English Reformation (especially the Puritans) that began to apply the principles most specifically to the expectations for church leaders.

Puritan leaders set aside the traditional designation of "priest" in favor of "minister." More than semantics was at stake. They removed altars in their churches and abandoned Eucharistic vestments because they believed that ministry focused not on the altar, with its stress on sacrifice, but on the pulpit, where the Word was preached.

A new spirit marked the Puritan ministry: deep devotion, earnest labor, and a high sense of calling. They expected clergy to exhibit spiritual leadership, to embody the gospel they preached.

Puritans considered pastors the sun and rain for the spiritual growth of the churches. On the title page of Richard Baxter's The Reformed Pastor, the adjective was printed in much larger type. But it was no advertisement for Calvinism. By reformed, Baxter meant renewed or revived. The Puritan expectation was a re-formed congregation under the leadership of a spiritually re-formed and vibrant pastor. Much of that leadership we would call "modeling."

William Perkins declared, "He must be godly affected himself who would stir up godly affections in others." He recognized that the greatest and hardest preparation for a ministry of the Word is within.

Eighteenth-century evangelicals, led by Baxter, Perkins, and Philip Doddridge, pointed to five standards in the examination of a candidate for the ministry:

the authenticity of his religious experience;

the acceptability of his moral character;

the genuineness of his call;

the correctness of his doctrine;

the adequacy of his preparation.

The examination usually stressed a "superior order of piety" and "a good report of them which are without." In other words, the ministry was more than communicating a religious message; it was a life commending the grace and holiness of God.

When a minister sinned in such a way as to destroy his spiritual influence, he forfeited his ministerial leadership, not because he was a poor minister but because he was a poor saint.

Pastor as therapist

More recently, pastors seem to have assumed a slightly different role. Instead of spiritual leadership, the ministry seems to be spiritual therapy.

As E. Brooks Holifield has shown in his A History of Pastoral Care in America, after World War II ministers in America began to speak a different language. They entered "the age of therapy." Pastoral theologians in the seminaries taught them that condemnation of the sinner was no longer appropriate. As a result, many of them adopted a new pastoral style in harmony with the growing cultural attachment to psychology and the counseling methods advocated by American psychologist Carl Rogers.

By 1968 public interest in therapy had shaped a popular vocabulary. The emphasis was on "hang loose" and on being "warm and accepting." Even ministers wanted to avoid appearing "uptight" and largely adopted a style that disdained legalism, stern judgment, or any hint of anger in public. The new style called for freedom, openness, honesty, sensitivity, and self-realization. In a word, a pastor was supposed to be "real," as weak and vulnerable as the members of his congregation. That made him "approachable."

The ministry has profited, no doubt, from this new sensitivity to human hurts. We have all discovered that people will go out of their way to find a church that reflects in some small way the compassion Jesus showed for the neglected and abused. Thousands have found help and healing from ministers and churches who genuinely care.

Unfortunately, the down side of this conception of the minister as "wounded healer" appears to be a heightened tolerance of sin, not only in others but in ministers themselves. Must "identification" with people include participation in their sin?

The term therapy suggests a life focused on the need for cure. But cure of what? In the minds of most people in our society, cure probably suggests new power to feel good about themselves and to relate successfully to others. But in the Bible, cure nearly always points toward healing our rebellion and disobedience in the sight of God. And what's cure for the people of God is especially cure for the pastor.

To be healthy is to be holy-not perfect, of course, but fit.

-Bruce L. Shelley

professor of church history, Denver Seminary

Denver, Colorado

Copyright © 1988 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Malcolm Muggeridge once called television the “Fourth Great Temptation.” He imagined TV as the Devil’s final attempt to appeal to the vanity of the Savior before he went to the cross. Roman tycoon and television promoter Gradus offers to make Christ the star of a new show sponsored by Lucifer, Inc. Gradus will “put [Christ] on the map, launch him off on a tremendous career as a worldwide evangelist, spread his teaching throughout the civilized world, and beyond. He’d be crazy to turn it down.” Christ overcomes the temptation to trade “fantasy and images” for “truth and reality,” and humanity is saved.

Ben Armstrong, executive director of National Religious Broadcasters, describes a far different scenario. God “raises up” communications satellites in the final days to proclaim the gospel around the globe before Christ returns. Satellites are the angels prophesied in the Book of Revelation: “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people” (Rev. 14:6). In The Electric Church, Armstrong says that broadcasting has “broken through the walls of tradition we have built up around the church and … restored conditions remarkably similar to the early church.”

The truth lies somewhere between such exaggerations of the medium’s demonic and redemptive powers. Television is not a neutral communications technology; the medium always influences the message. Neither is television inherently evil or good. Television’s benefits to kingdom and society depend both on the inherent biases of the medium and how it is used. The ways programs are financed and packaged shape the messages and influence audiences. So does the camera itself. Television represents both power and responsibility. Every televangelist should approach the medium with hope and fear, and the church should demand financial accountability and message authenticity.

At stake is not just the popularity or stature of individual televangelists, but the public image of the church of Jesus Christ. For many unchurched people around the globe, religious broadcasts are their only contact with the gospel. And just as gangster films created an international picture of life in Chicago, televangelism spreads its own portrait of the Christian life—for good and bad.

In America, televangelism is a public window for viewing the sights and sounds of evangelicalism. Scripture holds spiritual teachers to a high standard of truth telling. Might not the Lord hold televangelists and their supporters especially accountable for their public teachings in the name of Christ?

Television technologies and institutions are not neutral. Every televangelist is faced with some of the most underestimated dangers of any communications medium in the history of the church.

The Evangelist Up Close

On television the evangelist is immediately the focus of audience attention. The small screen accentuates his personality as the camera returns repeatedly to his face. No medium is more pervasively dependent upon the human face for message and meaning. Panoramic shots are ineffective on a 19-inch set compared to the large film screen. And even close-ups cannot capture fine detail because of the poor picture resolution. Understanding this principle, the television industry has built an empire out of the successful imaging of the heads of news reporters, sports celebrities, commercial characters, and especially dramatic actors.

In nearly all religious broadcasts, the evangelist is the attraction. Christian talk shows turn discussion into personality chats. The gospel may be preached, but cameras promote the preacher, whether he intends it or not, like the latest Hollywood star. On the tube, persona and message are so thoroughly intertwined that it is often difficult to determine where one stops and the other begins.

Successful televangelism carries the likely price of a personality cult. Few TV ministers are willing to de-emphasize their own role in the broadcasts, because a weak personality usually guarantees poor ratings and small contributions. Thus, the medium can create personas more potentially destructive than the early church rivalries in the church at Corinth. Quoting Jeremiah, the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord” (1 Cor. 1:31).

Television’s emphasis on persona is heightened even more because we watch it from our La-Z-Boys and make it the center of family togetherness. Television celebrities enter our homes much like relatives and neighbors. The televangelist, along with the soap opera star or the news anchor, soon is a friend of the family. Like the image CBS used to promote of anchorman Dan Rather, the televangelist seems to be trustworthy and compassionate. He is concerned about our spiritual condition, and he is given to prayer on our behalf.

More than that, the televangelist always accepts us as we are, regardless of our mood, looks, or actions. Unlike a spouse or an employer, the TV preacher loves us no matter what we say or do. He faithfully accepts us every week, if only we return to the same channel at the appointed time.

Salvation As Soap Opera

Television naturally packages everything as performance. From advertisements and news reports to westerns and detective programs, television is an enormous stage where everyone performs for the living-room audience. Even real life is packaged for the tube on “Divorce Court” and “People’s Court.”

Likewise, televangelism is gobbled up by the medium’s insatiable appetite for performance. The medium demands more than entertaining characters. It wants lively action to engage sleepy viewers and boost the response rate. Often preaching is not enough; there must be tearful soliloquies and “heartfelt” renditions of gospel songs.

Soon the electronic pulpit becomes a stage for histrionics. On some shows, broken bodies are healed and people are slain in the spirit. Prophecies and special “words of knowledge” are passed along to viewers. On other broadcasts, the performances are packaged more acceptably for middle America—as testimonials and talk shows, variety programs and revivals. Even appeals for contributions are cast as cosmic struggles to “fight Satan and deliver the gospel to every living human being.” The trend is clear: television turns religion into public entertainment. Religious programs are increasingly indistinguishable from secular fare. Today there are few distinctly Christian broadcasts; nearly all are a combination of show business and religion.

For this reason television is theologically biased toward emotionally dramatic formulations of the Christian faith. Pentecostalism and neo-Pentecostalism easily make for “great TV,” and charismatic worship visually overshadows traditional liturgy on the tube. On television, historic Protestantism is often dull and soporific unless it is properly packaged for the visual medium. Although there remains a significant audience for strong, exegetical preaching, television ministries will always be tempted to dramatize the message for the small screen.

Of course, any presentation of the gospel is a performance. Even the church pulpit is like a stage for the local pastor. Liturgies and worship services of all kinds must include human action, even if only solemn scenes of prayer and meditation. Moreover, the story of salvation itself is dramatic and life changing.

But the use of popular dramatic devices to communicate the gospel and depict the Christian life can easily confuse message and style. If the “performance” of the gospel on TV resembles secular programs, the Good News loses its distinctiveness. There is no authenticity because there is no difference in the message. Christianity is simply another expression of the Hollywood culture and the entertainment industry. The most difficult job ahead for televangelists is capturing the inherent drama of the gospel without succumbing to the techniques of the popular culture business.

Market-Driven Or Message-Driven?

Modern TV ministries, taking their cues from marketing, frequently define success in terms of audience ratings and viewer response. They tabulate telephone calls, letters, and, of course, contributions. Some even attempt to keep a running total of the number of viewers saved. All of this leads some televangelists to be far more concerned with the size of the audience and the scope of the ministry than the authenticity of the message.

Driven by the desires of the market rather than the content of the message, many of the “gospels” preached on television today are clever distortions of the historic Christian message. They offer salvation from sickness and poverty. They show viewers how to overcome unhappiness and create a positive attitude toward life. They inform audiences about enjoyable ways to spend their time and money. But they often skip over the heart of the gospel. Christ is merely a friend, a healer, a rich uncle, or a great teacher.

In a fallen world, the gospel does not always seem to be the most attractive message around. Compared to counterfeit gospels, the real one is not nearly so flashy and interesting. Even commercials offer far more compelling messages and seductive products. The gospel calls for faith and perseverance, while the culture preaches instant gratification and sensual pleasure. The forgiveness of sins hardly makes for great TV; there is nothing spectacular to show. Media evangelists must either alter the gospel, or it will be lost in the cacophony of media voices.

Every television evangelist faces this enormous paradox: A highly rated program will almost certainly require a counterfeit message. The gospel is a two-edged sword, not a popular romance or a happy-go-lucky situation comedy. Modern television ministries have frequently secularized and perverted the gospel, robbing it of its life-saving power. By making it conform to the desires and beliefs of the audience, they have pandered the greatest story for their own status and popularity.

The Gods Of Growth

Television thrives on numbers—mainly the numbers supplied by Nielsen and Arbitran. And modern televangelism is influenced strongly by this preoccupation with size and growth. Ministries are often committed to expansion—more stations, larger audiences, additional cable TV outlets. Although growth in itself is not evil, neither is it a raison d’être for any Christian organization. The important question is whether or not God is pleased both by the size of a TV ministry and the actions behind the growth.

Television is an enormously expensive medium. The cost of equipping a studio can easily approach a million dollars, and no equipment is worth the price without a staff of well-trained directors, producers, and technicians. But the real cost is television time, and the major TV ministries spend millions of dollars annually purchasing 30 minutes or more every week on hundreds of stations around the country. Television time is a bottomless pit that constantly drains the bank accounts of televangelists.

As a result, national television ministries become major deficit spenders. Thirty or sixty days later the bills come due, and the funds must be raised to cover the costs of air time. Of course, a ministry might drop a program from a station or time that results in few viewers and contributors. And any ministry could reduce the number of stations until the income and expenditures are about equal. In actual practice, this runs against the thinking of most TV ministries, which are geared toward unlimited expansion. These organizations are among the most expansionary in nonprofit work of all kinds. They frequently equate impact with size, as if the most popular programs necessarily minister to people more effectively than the smaller ones.

In fact, there is no such relationship. Is the highest-rated prime-time television drama the best on the air? It is only if we evaluate programs on the basis of popularity. The same is true of television ministries. Many are like fast food and popular movies—serving the masses, but offering little or no nourishment for body or soul. Far too often televangelists define success in the worldly terms of the broadcast industry. God “chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him,” wrote Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:28–29.

Consulting The Wizards

Because of the enormous expense involved in television, many televangelists live under constant pressure to pay the bills and turn to various marketing and media consultants for wisdom. These wizards work their financial magic, advising thousands of nonprofit organizations what to do on and off camera to attract viewers and maximize contributions. The major ones work on a fee basis, but some accept contracts that guarantee them a percentage of the income generated by their direct-mail appeals.

Consultants can greatly help TV ministries, especially in the shift from local to national programming. (Most of the national televangelists launched their organizations with the assistance of fund-raising specialists.) But “professional” direct-mail and on-air appeals often put effectiveness well ahead of ethics, and the techniques are sometimes at odds with a televangelist’s profession of faith. Among the questionable methods are highly personalized letters that suggest the televangelist cares deeply about the recipient and prays specifically for him. Other solicitations associate every setback of the ministry with the work of Satan and contrive one major crisis after another—sometimes every month.

Television fund raising mistakenly justifies all kinds of techniques on the basis of professional advice and experience. Although dozens of consultants claim to offer Christian advice, their methods often are grounded solidly in business savvy, not Christian ethics. In the end, the only real ethical standard is the result—the ends justifying the means. Fulfilling the Great Commission is the end; professional advice that sacrifices integrity on the altar of effectiveness is the means. Televangelists often listen more to the wizards of success than to the Lord of the Scriptures.

The Cult Of Secrecy

Television is in the image business. Public-relations people earn enormous salaries painting public portraits of celebrities. And in televangelism as well, the image often reigns supreme.

Probably nothing has tarnished the image of televangelism in recent years more than the secretive mentality of many ministries. Scandals come and go, but the cult of secrecy goes on. Televangelists project a public image of dishonesty and paranoia by refusing to provide contributors and especially the public media with accurate and comprehensive information about their ministries. Some ministries even refuse to grant interviews or provide information to Christian publications.

Why should television ministries be so secretive? Is there any justification for such an attitude toward the church and the public? In American society, personal salaries are considered private information. This might be a strong reason for not releasing the salaries of all employees of a ministry. But televangelists are public figures, and more important, they are public representatives of the church of Jesus Christ. Although there is no law or specific ethical responsibility for salary disclosure, secrecy creates the public impression that the church of Christ is more concerned about building a self-serving, worldly business than a godly kingdom of service and shalom.

Disclosure must go beyond salaries to perks of all kinds—from bonuses to homes, royalties, and automobiles. There is no doubt that some ministries have taken elaborate measures to “protect their privacy.” The PTL scandal has opened a few doors, but others are shut tighter than ever. Such secrecy works against the church regardless of whether not TV ministries actually have anything to hide. Secrecy suggests that the church is a cult, not the servant of a fallen humankind.

Fortunately, in September 1987, eight years after other parachurch ministries formed the Evangelical Council on Financial Accountability, the National Religious Broadcasters took an important step in policing themselves (CT, Oct. 16, 1987, p. 44). The board adopted a code of ethics that calls for full disclosure of all sources of income. And they created an Ethics and Financial Integrity Commission (EFICOM), which will deny the use of its seal to NRB members who fail to comply with the code.

It remains to be seen, however, whether or not most religious broadcasters will have the courage to follow the new code. In the past, the major televangelists refused to adopt even the less restrictive, but entirely reasonable, standards of ECFA. The new NRB code might separate the ethical wheat from the unethical chaff. However, enforcement of and compliance with the code are likely to be major problems.

Also, EFICOM will soon find that a “seal” is meaningless as a symbol of ethical conduct unless the public is educated about its significance. Along with enforcement, such publicity is expensive. Will televangelists fund self-regulation at a time when their own contributions are running so low?

Holy Deception

Nothing offers greater chance for such self-justifying opportunism than contemporary televangelism. In the name of Christ, some televangelists practice a style of “holy deception” that distorts the gospel, legitimizes lavish lifestyles, and approves of direct-mail chicanery. These are not isolated phenomena. They happen every day in the religious fund-raising letters sent to contributors and in the entertaining performances conducted on television.

Of course, accountability is ultimately the relationship of each person to God. Personal accountability cannot be legislated. As Reinhold Niebuhr once said, “There is no easy way of forcing people to be responsible against their own inclination and beyond their capacity.”

But the church of Jesus Christ is not merely a collection of responsible or irresponsible human beings. It is—or should be—a community in the service of Christ and a fallen humankind. The church should be outraged by the unethical practices of its members, speaking forcefully and directly against wrong and inappropriate practices.

In the end, it is not the televangelists who will keep their own house in order. They, too, carry the burden of the Fall. Rather, accountability must be sought by the Christian community, beginning with a televangelist’s associates and family, expanding to the local congregation, and ending with the church universal. This was true at Corinth, and it is true on the airwaves today.

The Players:

Who Can Tell Robert Schuller What To Do?

Robert Schuller has paid his dues. Like nearly every young minister of his generation, he started with a vision to reach as many people as possible. But what young minister today would set out with a rented trailer and a $50 grubstake to head for Southern California and preach atop the snack bar of a drive-in theater for five years? How many preachers can point to 3,500 house calls in one year as a foundation for their current ministry?

So if Schuller’s $41-million empire seems troublesome, blame it on something most American evangelicals hold dear: the Protestant work ethic. Whatever you say about him, Robert Schuller has worked hard to get where he is today. As he is so fond of saying to fellow Christians who criticize his flashy style, “I’m not trying to reach Christians, I’m trying to impress those who don’t believe.”

And while his personal wealth is an easy target for critics, Schuller has exercised restraint. True, he has earned nearly $2 million in book royalties over the past 25 years, but he has allowed his TV ministry to keep another $25 million in book sales generated through “The Hour of Power.” His three homes and salary, approximately $ 115,000 per year, are modest for the leader of a $41-million business.

A greater issue, however, is whether his hard-earned respectability has clouded his sense of accountability. Is Robert Schuller so big, so successful that no one in the body of Christ can tell him what to do?

Even on his own turf—in this case in his twelfth-story office dubbed “the eagle’s nest” and flanked by his board president and legal counsel—such questions do not go down well with Schuller. Yet they are legitimate, considering the size and scope of his ministry. Though an ordained minister in the relatively small Reformed Church in America (RCA), there is little the denomination could do to him since his organization, Robert Schuller Ministries, lies outside of the RCA’S jurisdiction. And a recent legal maneuver to transfer ownership of the Crystal Cathedral from the congregation to Robert Schuller Ministries does little to counter the notion of personal kingdom building.

Further, Schuller admits to having little patience with people who object to his dreams. In his most recent book, Your Church Can Have a Fantastic Future, he refers to former members who tried to block the building of the Crystal Cathedral as “negative thinkers.” When pressed, he says he would never allow such persons to hold positions of influence in his organization because “a negative thinker is basically a person who is an emotional obstructionist.” Dissenters are welcome to express their opinions to Schuller, but it is unlikely they will find themselves sitting on his board.

Moreover, Robert Schuller Ministries has refused to join the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, a group trying to establish standards of ethical fund-raising practices. “They have my blessing, but they’re johnny-come-latelys,” says Schuller. “They’re trying to sell me on something I’ve been doing for 37 years.”

Does this mean he always charts his own course? “Not at all. I am accountable to the Reformed Church in America and the board of directors of Robert Schuller Ministries, and am pleased to live under their authority. In fact, I’m concerned about large independent churches who do not have to answer to a denomination.”

Yet Schuller says nothing can keep him from pursuing what he feels God wants him to do. “If I genuinely believed God wanted me to build a new church and my board advised against it, I would resign and go someplace else to build it.”

Broadcasters’ profiles by Lyn Cryderman.

As part of a book project, I once interviewed the person I knew whose life most resembled Job’s. I met this man, Douglas, at a restaurant for breakfast.

Douglas seemed “righteous” in the same sense as Job: not perfect, of course, but a model of Christian faithfulness. He had declined a lucrative career in psychotherapy in favor of starting an urban ministry.

Douglas’s time of troubles had begun about seven years before. His wife, who had already lost one breast to cancer, discovered a new lump, and then doctors found that the cancer had spread to her lungs.

Just as Douglas’s family was absorbing that ominous news, they were dealt another blow. A drunk driver swerved across the center line and smashed into their car head-on. Douglas’s wife was badly shaken, but unhurt. His 12-year-old daughter suffered a broken arm and severe facial cuts from windshield glass. Douglas himself had the worst injury, a massive blow to the head.

After the accident, Douglas never knew when an incapacitating headache might strike. He could not work a full day, and sometimes at the office he would become disoriented and forgetful. Worse, the accident permanently affected his vision. One eye wandered at will, refusing to focus. He saw everything double, and could hardly walk down a flight of stairs without assistance. Douglas learned to cope with all his disabilities but one: he could not read more than a page or two at a time.

When I met Douglas for breakfast, I braced myself for a difficult morning. If anyone had a right to be angry at God, he did. I explained the basic thrust of my book, and asked about his experience of disappointment with God. What had he learned that might help someone else going through a difficult time?

Douglas was silent for what seemed like a long time. He gazed off beyond my right shoulder, and I fleetingly wondered if he was having a mental “gap.” Finally, he said this: “To tell you the truth, Philip, I didn’t feel any disappointment with God.”

I was startled. Douglas, searingly honest, had always rejected easy formulas for life or faith. And yet his response sounded like one of the “Turn your scars into stars!” testimonials I had heard on religious television. I kept quiet, waiting for him to explain.

“The reason is this. I learned, first through my wife’s illness and then especially through the accident, not to confuse God with life. I’m no stoic. I am as upset about what happened to me as anyone could be. I feel free to curse the unfairness of life and to vent all my grief and anger. But I believe God feels the same way about that accident—grieved and angry.”

Douglas continued, “I have learned to separate the physical reality in this world from the spiritual reality. We tend to think, ‘Life should be fair because God is fair.’ But God is not life. And if I confuse God with the physical reality of life—by expecting constant good health, for example—then I set myself up for a crashing disappointment.”

For the next hour, Douglas and I worked through the Bible together, testing out his notion of the separateness of “physical reality” and “spiritual reality.” Most heroes of the Old Testament (Abraham, Joseph, David, Elijah, Jeremiah, and Daniel) went through trials much like Job’s. For each of them, at times, the physical reality surely seemed to present God as “the enemy.” But each managed to cling to God despite the hardships of daily life.

“If we can have a relationship with God apart from the physical reality of our life circumstances,” said Douglas, “then we may be able to hang on when the physical reality breaks down. Isn’t that, after all, the main point of Job?”

We talked on, until Douglas realized he was already late for another appointment. He put his coat on hurriedly and stood up to leave. Then he leaned forward with one last thought. “I challenge you to go home and read again the story of Jesus. How ‘fair’ was life to him? For me, the Cross demolished for all time the basic belief that life is supposed to be fair.”

Douglas’s stark separation of the physical and the spiritual troubles me, since both are part of God’s creation, but his idea about the unfairness of life has stayed with me. I find myself meditating on it every year about this time, just before Good Friday.

Henri Nouwen tells the story of a family he knew in Paraguay. The father, a doctor, spoke out against the military regime there and its human rights abuses. Local police took their revenge by arresting his teenage son and torturing him to death.

Townsfolk, enraged, wanted to turn the boy’s funeral into a huge protest march. But the doctor chose another means of protest. Rather than dressing his son for the funeral, the father displayed him in the church as he had found him in the jail. The son was naked, his body marked with scars from the electric shocks and cigarette burns and beatings. All the villagers filed past the corpse, which lay not in a coffin but on the blood-soaked mattress from the town jail. It was the strongest protest imaginable, for it put injustice on grotesque display.

Isn’t that what happened on Good Friday? The Cross exposed the world for what it is: a breeding ground of violence and injustice. And that dark Friday can only be called Good because of what happened on Easter Sunday.

Good Friday demolishes the instinctive belief that this life is supposed to be fair. But Easter Sunday gives a bright and startling clue to the riddle of the universe. Someday, God will restore the physical reality of planet Earth to its proper place under his reign. The miracle of Easter will be enlarged to cosmic scale. It is a good thing to remember, when disappointment with God hits, that we live out our days on Easter Saturday.

When Black Kids Get White Parents

Transracial Adoptees and Their Families: A Study of Identity and Commitment, by Rita J. Simon and Howard Alstein (Praeger, 163 pp.; $29.95, hardcover). Reviewed by Mary Ann Kuharski, a free-lance writer and homemaker in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Kuharski is the mother of 12 children, 6 of whom are adopted and of mixed races with “special needs.”

Transracial Adoptees and Their Families: A Study of Identity and Commitment may do much to discard the decades-old prejudices that still persist against interracial adoption. It will certainly encourage and support those living in such multiracial families.

The Simon-Alstein report refutes the myths still being used in adoption practices by some caseworkers and agencies. They believe that transracial adoption is “unnatural” and therefore “bound to be unsuccessful.” One would expect such positions from the Ku Klux Klan, but shockingly and quite unfortunately, the most vocal objections have come from the National Black Social Workers. Since 1972, the NBSW has demanded a boycott of all such “un-matched” adoptions. Unfortunately, this has diminished the only opportunity for permanence for thousands of Indian, black, and Hispanic youngsters.

Simon and Alstein began their research in 1972, by conducting extensive interviews with 206 families who lived in five midwestern cities. (The Midwest has the heaviest concentration in the country of couples who adopt across racial lines.) Seven years later (1979) and again in 1983 and 1984, the same families were contacted again for follow-up. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that at the time of the recontact, most of the 218 children involved were adolescents or young adults, an age period when such interviews (without parents present) could have elicited all sorts of negative opinions.

And yet, to their surprise, Simon and Alstein found that 90 to 98 percent “enjoy family life,” are well adjusted, have a strong sense of racial pride, and demonstrate a healthy self-esteem.

No Racial Barriers

The minority boys and girls all scored high in their concept of having “special qualities, a sense of belonging, and family comfort level.”

In fact, say the authors, the transracial adoptees were “no more likely to wish they belonged to another race than were their white siblings.” According to Simon and Alstein, “the most consistent finding emerging from the latest survey is the sense of belonging felt by the ‘TRAS’ to their adopted families—the mothers and fathers are their parents and the brothers and sisters, their siblings; they are not viewed as substitutes or proxies for ‘real’ parents or ‘real’ family.”

More than 70 percent of the families involved in the study were Christian; over half of them said they went to church at least once a week. Obviously, to thousands of Christian families Saint Paul’s words, which remind us that through the Spirit of God we are all children of God with no racial or cultural barrier (Rom. 8:14; Gal. 3:26–28; Eph. 1:12–19), have special and very real meaning.

The portrait that emerges, say Simon and Alstein, is “a positive, warm, integrated picture that shows parents and children who feel good about themselves and about their relationships with each other.”

No one should dispute the notion that a minority youngster’s sense of identity, heritage, and culture is most ably preserved by parents of the same background. Where that is not possible, however, it seems a blatant injustice to deny such “adoptable children” the stability, permanence, sense of family ties, and—most of all—the love that can come only with a “forever family” through adoption. Children who are placed in orphanages, or those shifted from foster home to foster home, are denied all of these things.

The thorough research conducted by Simon and Alstein has reinforced what many of us know from experience: Bringing together ordinary people of varying races can truly be one of the most blessed events in a family’s existence.

Highlighted

Mice In The Cookie Jar

Evangelist Billy Graham has recently written what he considers his most important book to date: Facing Death—and the Life After (Word Books). In the following excerpt, he discusses Christian unity in the life to come.

“In heaven there will be no sectarian worship, no denominational differences, no church creeds. There will be no temple worship, for God and His Son, Jesus Christ, will be the centers of worship (Revelation 21:22). I was brought up as a Presbyterian later became a Baptist. But in later years I have felt that I belong to all churches.

Ruth has remained a strong Presbyterian, but deep in her heart she, too, belongs to all the other churches. We have never had major differences in our theology despite these backgrounds, but many people do get into heated arguments about denominational doctrines.

God did not invent denominations, man did. When we go to His home, He will invite us in, but will not ask us for our church or Sunday school credentials.

Only one question will be asked:

‘What did you do on earth with My Son, Jesus?’ It will make no difference whether we were Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile.

What matters is whether we believe in Him or reject Him. Attending a particular church does not guarantee anyone admission to heaven. Corrie ten Boom used to say, ‘A mouse in a cookie jar isn’t a cookie.’

Women And Children First?

Mothers and Divorce: Legal, Economic, and Social Dilemmas, by Terry Arendell (University of California Press, 320 pp.; $22.50, hardcover); Women and Children Last: The Plight of Poor Women in Affluent America, by Ruth Sidel (Penguin, 236 pp.; $9.95, paper); and For Crying Out Loud: Women and Poverty in the United States, edited by Rochelle Lefkowitz and Ann Withorn (Pilgrim Press, 397 pp.; $12.95, paper). Reviewed by Ruth A. Tucker, a visiting professor of missions at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois.

“In one of the richest societies on earth, the daily reality for millions of women—young and old, black and white, divorced, never married, and widowed—is the struggle to secure the barest necessities,” claims the publisher of a recent book on women and poverty.

The publisher does not exaggerate. And the massive problem of the “feminization of poverty” is multiplied many times over by the millions of children who are directly affected by their mothers’ poverty. It is a growing problem that the Christian community dare not ignore. Help in understanding this issue in American culture is available from three recent books.

In Mothers and Divorce, Terry Arendell powerfully challenges the misconception that women and men suffer equally the ill effects of divorce. Arendell investigated the lives of 60 divorced women. She shows that, contrary to popular assumption, the greatest stress associated with divorce is not the psychological effects of adjusting to singleness, but rather economic misfortune. And that problem confronts women many times more frequently than it does men. Arendell cites a 1981 study indicating that after a divorce, women suffer a 73 percent decline in their former living standard, while men enjoy a 42 percent gain.

The most heart-rending aspect of Arendell’s findings relates to the law and its regard for motherhood. The once praised no-fault divorce laws have been devastating to many women. A man can leave his low-salaried or homemaker wife for another woman without having to face the economic consequences of his actions. He generally has sufficient skills, salary, and job security to maintain economic stability, while she is economically vulnerable.

As Arendell writes, “Society’s promise to honor the role of motherhood proved hollow in divorce; the law, which at least theoretically represents society’s values, did not recognize these women’s contributions to family life and gave them no protection for carrying on their mothering activities. It simply left them alone, to cope individually with increased responsibilities.”

Still Waiting For Lifeboats

Women and Children Last opens with a description of the terrifying final minutes on the Titanic—the title is a play on the chivalrous custom of “women and children first.” Women and children were first on the lifeboats on that fateful night, but as Ruth Sidel points out, they were the first and second-class women and children. More than half of the women and children in the third-class steerage section died—some “forcibly kept down below by seamen standing guard.”

Like the poorer women and children on the affluent Titanic, poor women and children are last today in affluent America. “Statistics indicate that the fastest growing population living in poverty today is made up of women and children,” Ruth Sidel notes. Many of these women have been victimized by divorce, domestic violence, and discrimination in the job market. Yet, according to Sidel, there is little sympathy for their plight: “The most serious result of the Reagan administration’s economic policies, particularly the cutbacks in human services, has been the legitimization of the negative attitudes held by many Americans toward the poor.”

The book weaves case studies, current statistics, and history together in telling the story of the feminization of poverty, focusing on such issues as employment, welfare, and day care from both a historical and contemporary perspective. The final chapter is a call for more government action to curtail poverty among women and children.

The Right Of Public Dependence

For those wishing to delve even more deeply into the even impoverished, subject of women and poverty, For Crying Out Loud offers valuable insights from experts in various fields. The editors have sought to show that the problem is complex, and that it does not help simply to sum up the situation with the catch phrase “feminization of poverty.” The book will find critics on virtually every issue it presents, not the least of which is its perspective on welfare.

In the introduction, the editors write, “A major argument contained within this book, then, is that ‘public dependence’ is a right for all citizens and should be treated as such, not as a punitive ‘last resort’ for those poor souls who have failed at ‘independence.’ Many women at all stages of life do, and should, make rational choices to enter the welfare system.”

An important chapter, entitled “Toward the Feminization of Policy,” begins with a statement of fact that illustrates the crying need for changes that will alleviate the worldwide problem of women and poverty: “Throughout history, women have done most of the world’s caregiving work, but this work has rarely entitled them to control over resources in their own right.… The failure to regard care of humans as work has created the ancient trap of poverty for the female householder.”

The Old and New Testaments repeatedly and compassionately address issues related to women, children, and poverty, and the church today must come to terms with the implications of that message in modern society. These books are a helpful start.

The Road Most Sought

The Road to Wholeness, by Laura A. Mathis (Tyndale House, 253 pp.; $6.95, paper). Reviewed by John E. Roe, psychologist in private practice, Scotts Valley, California, and past-president, Christian Association for Psychological Studies, Western Region.

The theoretical underpinnings of The Road to Wholeness set it apart from other books that appear to be as practical yet lack its substance. Dr. Laura Mathis has given us the best of psychological theory in a highly readable style.

Responsibly, the book is not presented as a substitute for professional treatment. Throughout, the benefits of treatment are illustrated in Mathis’s rich and varied case references. And criteria for deciding when professional treatment is needed are suggested to the reader.

In the book’s opening chapter, Mathis uses the notion of “critical tapes” to identify the evaluations of self and others by which we experience our “belongingness, worthiness, and competence.” Critical tapes consist of negative messages, played by ourselves to ourselves, that sabotage self-esteem. As Mathis develops the rationale for low self-esteem, she simultaneously offers preventative help to parents so their children will develop fewer critical tapes.

Mathis is also concerned with forgiving the critical people who helped us write our critical tapes. The book here would have been enhanced by an elaboration of just how one can forgive those critical people who are unrepentant.

Mathis continues with a discussion of the difficulties arising from the failure to develop wholeness. She deals with depression, both as a normal and abnormal condition; guilt; and the healthy management of anger. The book concludes by distinguishing between false notions of self-love and those that lead to wholeness, as well as worship of the Creator of all self.

The depth and scope of this fine book are somewhat obscured by its glib chapter titles, which might lend the impression that this is “just another self-help book.” But it definitely is not. Mathis draws on all of her disciplines—Christian education, theology, and professional psychology—with creativity and thoroughness, and still communicates to the average reader. At times her explanations are so rich they must be read and reread, especially in those chapters that give a theological basis for the foundations of self-esteem.

Mathis states she hopes to “bring healing, freedom, wholeness and joy to the reader.” The Road to Wholeness will do just that for many.

An ear-splitting form of rock music known as “heavy metal” has careened its way into the hearts of millions of teenagers, but some parents say it’s time to muffle the music’s menacing message. Two recent events have cast a pall over the controversy:

• This past January, Thomas Sullivan, Jr., a 14-year-old boy from Jefferson Township, New Jersey, murdered his mother and then took his own life. Prior to the tragedy, reported the Chicago Tribune, the youth had spent several weeks studying the occult and listening to heavy-metal music.
• Two parents from Spark, Nevada, have filed suit against the metal-style band Judas Priest and CBS Records, the company that has produced the band’s music. The coming trial, scheduled for May, stems from a “suicide pact” two young adults made upon listening to Judas Priest’s Stained Glass album. As a result of the pact, one 18-year-old boy killed himself and a 20-year-old man was left badly disfigured.

Reno’s Gazette-Journal reported that the mothers of both young adults claim “the heavy-metal music mesmerized the youths, convincing them” to attempt suicide. While other similar suits have been filed, this is the first time such a case has been granted a trial date.

Metal Madness?

James Richardson, professor of social psychology at the University of Nevada-Reno, has been paying close attention to the Judas Priest case. One of his concerns revolves around First Amendment rights. “Once you strike a blow against heavy metal, where do you stop?” said Richardson.

Richardson is also skeptical over attempts to link a style of music to behavior. “To say that a record from Judas Priest controls a young person’s actions is to say that the music or lyrics have some magical or mystical quality. I have serious reservations about that.” Richardson has written extensively about religion, cults, and brainwashing, and may be called to testify during the May trial.

Others agree that metal music might not actually cause suicide, yet firmly believe certain styles of music belie a youth culture in crisis. “It would be naïve to say that if you take the music away, you eliminate problems like suicide and drugs,” noted Dave Hart, research analyst for Menconi Ministries, an organization that offers Christian perspectives on the entertainment media. “But it’s just as naïve to say the music does nothing but entertain. It’s a symptom of a greater concern.”

Hart calls metal music part of “a whole identity scheme” for a rapidly growing youth subculture. The music of this subculture, said Hart, reflects nihilism and a propensity toward violence, sexual promiscuity, and drugs.

Hart’s concern for the heavy-metal subculture has led him to become involved in a ministry to “head bangers” (a name used to describe kids deeply involved in metal music). There are currently around a half-dozen “churches” throughout California for head bangers (Hart pastors one of them).

Satan’s Music Or Positive Force?

One of the more troublesome aspects of heavy-metal music is its identification with pentagrams and other satanic symbols. Proponents claim that satanic symbolism is simply a fad and a trademark for some metal groups, but Chicago-area disc jockey Scott Loftus worries about such negative aspects of metal music. He refuses to play songs that reflect the “Antichrist in their lyrics.”

Yet Loftus is equally concerned about gross generalizations and stereotypes. “It’s wrong to lump all music under the same label,” said Loftus. He believes a lot of metal music offers many teenagers a means to express normal, positive adolescent feelings. “Music has always been the teenager’s friend,” said Loftus. “It gives him a place to belong.” Loftus also cites Christian metal bands such as Stryper and Bloodgood as examples of the positive lyrical force represented in metal music.

“I’m from the school of thought that [believes] if you don’t like something, get in and change it,” said Michael Bloodgood, founder of the Christian metal band bearing his last name. “Sex and drugs don’t have to go with rock n roll. We want to point our audience to Jesus Christ.”

What Can Parents Do?

Concerned parents have been looking to a variety of ways to curb metal’s negative influence, including album ratings (similar to movie ratings) and even censorship. And, like the parents who are suing Judas Priest and their record company, legal means represent a possible solution. But most observers of the metal music scene say parents can help by taking the time to discuss lyrics with their children.

“Parents need to stop overreacting,” cautioned Hart. “They need to stop saying that the music is turning their kids into zombies. They need to do a lot more talking with their kids about everything—including music.”

By Chris Lutes.

Just over two years ago, a Time magazine cover story, “Children Having Children,” reported on the nation’s high teenage sexual activity and pregnancy rates, saying if current trends continue, 40 percent of today’s 14-year-old girls will have gotten pregnant at least once by the time they are 20. Now a new survey released in Washington, D.C., last month suggests that teenagers in conservative churches are following the national trends when it comes to sexual activity.

According to the study released by youth speaker and author Josh McDowell, 65 percent of churched youth (defined as youth who attend church regularly) have had some type of sexual contact by age 18, and 43 percent have experienced sexual intercourse by that age. By age 13, 20 percent of the churched youth had participated in some sexual experimentation. McDowell said those figures are about 10 to 15 percentage points behind the latest general youth population survey numbers.

The survey, commissioned by the Dallas-based Josh McDowell Ministry, was conducted by the Barna Research Group of California. Nearly 1,500 young people aged 12–18 from the youth groups of eight denominations were surveyed. Participating denominations were the Church of the Nazarene, Evangelical Covenant Church, Church of God—Cleveland, Tennessee, Free Methodist Church, Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, Grace Brethren Church, the Wesleyan Church, and the Salvation Army. McDowell said the denominations were a “fair representation of the fundamental evangelical church.”

Family Influences

The study also found that the family has a strong influence on teenage sexuality. “Respondents who said home was a place where they felt loved and secure had tremendously less sexual activity,” McDowell said. Also, he said that when sexual information and education came from parents, the teens were less likely to have inappropriate sexual involvement.

Similarly, teens who are close to their fathers were found to have less sexual activity. However, McDowell said the survey found the average youth group teenager spends less than two minutes a day in meaningful conversation with his or her father, and one in four said they never have meaningful conversation with their fathers.

The media ranked high as a sexual influencer, with 57 percent of those surveyed saying they received at least “some” of their information about sex from movies. Seventy-three percent said they got “a little” or “none” of their sexual information from the church.

McDowell pointed out that the “number one” barrier to premature sexual activity was being “born again and committed to the Bible.” Teens who described themselves as born again were less than half as likely to be sexually active.

Putting Nature On Hold

Since 1985, McDowell has been conducting a series of “Why Wait?” campaigns to provide teens, parents, and pastors with resources promoting teenage abstinence. McDowell said his ministry is launching a national “Why Wait?” campaign directed at both Christian and non-Christian youth. The effort will involve books, films, curriculum products, and other materials.

“Our adolescent sexuality crisis is complex and will not be resolved easily or quickly,” McDowell said. “We are dealing with an erosion of basic moral convictions of our youth brought about, in part, by society’s false and distorted messages on love and sex.”

The survey is also providing church leaders with ammunition to promote teenage abstinence within their own communities and denominations. Jim Watkins, editorial director of teen ministries for the Wesleyan Church, said the results will help his denomination respond to some of the negative feedback they have received for dealing with explicit sexual issues in their youth curriculum and publications over the past few years. “It will help us convince people this is a problem within the holiness denominations as well as the high schools and junior highs,” he said.

David Marked, director of youth ministries for the Free Methodist Church, said he will be keying in on the “Why Wait?” campaign and urging denominational churches to obtain McDowell’s resource materials. Also, Markell said McDowell will be the speaker at the denomination’s annual international youth gathering this summer.

“We by and large followed the [national teenage sexual] trends, and the degree of sexual activity among our students is probably far greater than people have dared to realize,” Markell said. “One of the startling implications of the survey is how little information kids get on sex at church.… It’s an awesome problem, and the church can’t keep its head in the sand forever.”

Earlier this year, Ray Leith told a national television audience she would be willing to become pregnant and have an abortion so that tissue from her fetus could be used to treat her father, who has Parkinson’s disease. Leith’s father declined the offer, but the case dramatized one of the many controversial aspects of fetal-tissue research and transplants.

Researchers have speculated that fetal tissue could be used in the treatment of many diseases because it grows more rapidly and would likely cause less potential for rejection than adult tissue. In January, the New England Journal of Medicine reported on operations in Mexico where tissue from the brain and the adrenal gland of a 13-week-old “spontaneously aborted fetus” (miscarriage) was implanted in a man and a woman suffering from Parkinson’s disease. The Journal said the two had experienced marked relief from their symptoms since the operations. Fetal tissue has also been used on an experimental level to treat diabetes, and much research is being done on potential treatments for a host of other diseases.

Harvesting Fetal Tissue

Much of the controversy surrounding fetal-tissue research and transplants centers on how the tissue is obtained. Doctors in the Mexican operations said they obtained the fetus with the prior written consent of the mother, who had a history of miscarriages. However, nearly all tissues used in research have come from elective abortions.

One team doing research on fetal tissue and diabetes said in a report presented at the Sansum Medical Research Foundation in Santa Barbara that they attempted to avoid anything that might “be construed as coercion” when obtaining fetuses. In a summary report of the 1986 Sansum Symposium, the researchers said they had floor nurses ask women scheduled for abortions if they would allow “researchers to use the tissue in experiments that may lead to discoveries of better treatments for persons with chronic diseases.” The team said 92 percent of the women agreed, saying it would enable “some good” to come out of their abortion decision.

Dr. William May, professor of ethics at Southern Methodist University, believes fetal tissue donated as a gift by parents who miscarried a child is an appropriate procurement of fetal material, while abortion is not. “If one has imposed upon the fetus the trauma of abortion, it seems to me that further traumas of raiding it for fetal material are not justified,” he said. “One doesn’t have the moral standing to make that further decision, in my judgment.”

Prolifers and feminists both fear that if abortion is the accepted method of procurement, women will be manipulated into having abortions and coerced into later, more harmful abortion procedures that would yield more beneficial fetal tissue. Kate Michelman, executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League said, “There is a potential for abuse of women in this whole thing, and that worries us.”

In addition, opponents express fears that in some instances, because the tissue needs to be “fresh,” the fetus may not be dead before tissue is taken. Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends, has filed a petition with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) charging that the government-funded National Disease Research Interchange (NDRI) in Philadelphia does not “perform tests on aborted fetuses to determine whether they are dead prior to removing tissues or organs.” NDRI gathers organs and tissues, including fetal tissues, and distributes them to researchers across the country.

NIH would not comment on the investigation other than to say it is “ongoing.” NDRI president Lee Ducat told the Washington Post it is not her job “to assure that fetal tissues were collected after death,” but she believes that “hospitals and clinics supplying the tissues acquire them lawfully.”

Commercial Breeders?

Another major issue is the fear of commercial exploitation. Rifkin’s group has filed a second petition with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) asking that all fetal tissues and organs be placed under the Organ Transplant Act, which forbids the sale of certain body parts for transplantation. NDRI is nonprofit, but Rifkin said a California group, Hana Biologies, is conducting research with the intention to sell fetal products for profit.

“If we don’t get this under the Organ Transplant Act, there’s the troubling potential of women becoming commercial breeders and being paid to grow and harvest fetuses for spare parts,” Rifkin said. Rifkin, an activist who has taken on a variety of social causes, is recruiting congressional help through the office of prolifer Sen. Gordon Humphrey (R-N.H.).

Prolife activist Bernard Nathanson, maker of the Silent Scream and Eclipse of Reason antiabortion films, also sees dangers in fetal-tissue experiments. He recently criticized the Ray A. and Robert L. Kroc Leadership and Visiting Scholars Endowment for its funding of research that uses fetal tissue. Ray A. Kroc was the founder of the McDonald Corporation. The Kroc foundation, Hana Biologies, Chevron USA, and others sponsored the Sansum Symposium on fetal-tissue research.

For David Schiedermayer, a bioethicist at the Medical College of Wisconsin and a member of the Christian Medical Society, the issue comes down to the question of whether the ends justify the means. “We want to possess the ends of effective treatment of all our diseases, and yet not be responsible for the means of how we do it,” he said. “It seems to me we have an insoluble means-ends problem, especially if there is any incentive to have an abortion for the ends of transplantation into another person.”

By Kim A. Lawton.

The practice of hiring a surrogate mother to bear a child violates state laws and offends public policy, according to a sternly worded decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court. As a result, the court ruled invalid the 1985 contract between Mary Beth Whitehead and William Stern that produced “Baby M” and two years of legal wrangling. The landmark decision reverses the finding of a New Jersey trial court concerning the contract, but affirms the lower court’s decision to grant custody of Melissa Stern to her natural father and his wife.

Surrogate parenting agreements have offered a high-priced solution to infertility for couples unable or unwilling to bear their own children. Generally unregulated by law, the practice has come under attack from ethicists, the religious community, and proponents of adoption (CT, Mar. 6, 1987, p. 42).

William L. Pierce, president of the National Committee for Adoption, lauded the New Jersey ruling. He said, “It clearly demonstrates that where there are adoption laws in place, commercial surrogacy cannot exist. [The ruling] could be the death knell for the surrogate industry.”

Baby Selling

The legal adoption of children is regulated by state laws that prohibit the sale of unwanted babies. Surrogate arrangements, in which birth mothers such as Whitehead receive fees in the range of $10,000, violate those laws, the New Jersey court ruled. The decision states: “We find the payment of money to a surrogate mother illegal, perhaps criminal, and potentially degrading to women.” The lower court, however, had upheld the contract as a valid, legal agreement, noting that the child’s natural father, William Stern, could not purchase a child that was already his.

However, the Stern-Whitehead agreement was arranged by the Infertility Center of New York, which received $7,500 from Stern. The Sterns claimed they were paying only for “services” from the Infertility Center and Whitehead, not for an adoption. The court contends that this is disingenuous, since under the agreement the Sterns would pay only $1,000 if the child were stillborn, “even though the ‘services’ had been fully rendered.”

Referring to a New Jersey law against baby selling, the state’s supreme court notes the seriousness of the crime: The child is sold without regard for whether the purchasers will be suitable parents, and the natural mother does not receive the benefit of counseling and guidance to assist her in making a decision that may affect her for a lifetime. “Baby-selling potentially results in the exploitation of all parties involved,” the ruling states. The same negative consequences may result from surrogacy as well, the justices contend, “especially the potential for placing and adopting a child without regard to the interest of the child or the natural mother.”

In addition to violating specific state laws, the surrogate contract flies in the face of sound public policy, according to the ruling: “The contract’s basic premise, that the natural parents can decide in advance of birth which one is to have custody of the child, bears no relationship to the settled law that the child’s best interests shall determine custody.”

And the contract guarantees that the child will be separated permanently from one of its natural parents. This is not the sort of policy the state ought to encourage at all, the decision says. “The whole purpose and effect of the surrogacy contract was to give the father the exclusive right to the child by destroying the rights of the mother.”

Awarding Custody

Following the lower court’s ruling in favor of William and Elizabeth Stern, the judge effected an adoption, giving Mrs. Stern status as Melissa’s mother. The state supreme court, in contrast, restored Whitehead’s rights as natural mother. It sent the issue of visiting rights for Whitehead back to the trial court, which had denied her the opportunity to have a continuing relationship with her daughter.

At the same time, permanent custody of Melissa remains with the Sterns. She has lived with them for all but four months of her two years. During the first four months of her life, she was abducted to Florida by Whitehead and her former husband in their attempt to regain custody of the child. Whitehead, who has since been divorced and remarried, argued that she should have custody of Baby M even if the Sterns were found to be better parents. She said surrogate contracts would be discouraged more effectively if the Sterns lost custody.

The justices disagreed with her, saying, “Our declaration that this surrogacy contract is unenforceable and illegal is sufficient to deter similar agreements. We need not sacrifice the child’s interests in order to make that point sharper.”

By Beth Spring.