OUR CHANGING WORLD

 

A “Wanted: Minister” ad in The Australian Christian caught my eye because of some of its details. “He should be a committed Christian with Elders qualifications,” the ad reads, which ought to say it all, though we in America hardly ever put it that way. More qualifications: a good preacher, able to relate to elderly and young alike, innovator, good home and hospital visitor, not liberal in theology, not charismatic, Bible study leader, responsible to Eldership, and “sound in Churches of Christ N.T. Teaching.” And they don’t bother with the small c “Church of Christ”! Just thought you’d be interested in how your Australian brethren do it.

Our dear friends, David and Ann Reagan, celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary last summer while in Jerusalem leading a tour. We congratulate them. In the same letter Dave tells of lecturing in Lexington at the University of Kentucky campus on cultism. He was attacked as “intolerant redneck fundamentalists” by a Unitarian minister who admitted he did not even believe in God. The head of IBM, Lexington’s largest employer, who is a Mormon, did not appreciate Dave’s workshop on Mormonism. The ACLU also got involved by going to court and trying to get the seminar kicked off campus. The judge, apparently influenced by the Constitution (which is not always the case even in court these days!), threw them out of court. Have you noticed that everybody has a right to speak on campus —Communists, secularists, atheists, socialists, even occultists —except Christians, particularly those that have something to say? You can believe that Dave’s meetings enjoyed overflowing attendance from the students, especially when efforts were made to run him off. College kids do not buy such tactics. We must speak out and lay claim to our freedoms. That is what America is all about.

Do you realize that a majority of the Christians in the world is in what missiologists now call the Two-Thirds World, mainly Africa, Asia, and Latin Amcrica?

And that by 2000 A.D. Africa will be the most Christian (in terms of numbers) continent on earth? But this same Two-Thirds World is also the most deprived among the nations of the world in terms of poverty and oppression. These facts have sharpened the church’s awareness of social responsibility. Even leading evangelicals are saying that they no longer believe that the church’s mission is only to save souls. International conferences have been held at Wheaton College on evangelism and social responsibility, and it is evident that even conservative churches have a growing awareness of “the holistic approach to missions.” As The Wheaton Declaration, growing out of these conferences, put it. “We have failed to apply Scriptural principles to such problems as racism, war, population explosion, poverty, disintegration, social revolution, and communism.” Do you think Churches of Christ/Christian Churches share in this growing awareness. Such vigorous responses to starvation in Ethiopia and the earthquake in Mexico City would indicate that there is a growing concern, along with numerous other “social” concerns.