Page 4688 – Christianity Today (2024)

The following list is a sampling of exhibition spaces, outside of Christian seminaries, college art departments, and churches, that are operated as professional galleries and that openly welcome art involving Christian themes.

– Biblical Arts Center, Dallas, Texas; nonprofit, nondenominational museum housing a permanent 125′- wide canvas with light and sound show about Pentecost, as well as rotating exhibits featuring contemporary Christian, social issue, and biblical art. Curator: Susan Metcalf; (214) 691-4661.

– Foxhall Gallery, Washington, D.C.; commercial space in the embassy area of the nation’s capital; owner administers the Christian-based Washington Arts Group lecture series and exhibits. Director: Jerry Eisley; (202) 966-7144.

– Eastbrook Gallery, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; a small foyer space, with rotating exhibits, on the edge of the inner city in a building that also houses a school of fine arts, community projects, and a theatre, all run by Christians. Director: Helene Pickett; (414) 332-7730.

– Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, Topeka, Kansas, respected locale for permanent and rotating exhibitions housed on the University of Oklahoma campus, site of the 1996 juried show “The Living Tradition,” which will center on contemporary artists’ depictions of the biblical narrative. Director: Thomas Toperzer; (405) 325-3272.

– Gallery W, Sacramento, California; this gallery of permanent and rotating exhibits features contemporary, international artists and is recognized as a professional gallery within the local arts scene. Director: Eric Pleishner; (916) 364-1111.

– Genesis Art Gallery, Chicago, Illinois; commercial gallery representing Christian themes in art, plus networks to put artists together with commissions for sacred spaces. Curator: Ronald Zawilla; (312) 247-2454.

– Jubilee Center, New York, New York; a new effort in a SoHo loftspace to bring New York artists into conversation with Christians within the setting of exhibitions informed by Christian themes. Founder: John Van Tao Szto; (718) 658-1151– for messages.

– La Band Art Gallery, Los Angeles, California; a recognized L.A. gallery space housed on the campus of a Catholic-founded university. Director: Gordon Fuglie; (310) 338-2880.

– MOCRA (Museum of Contemporary Religious Art), St. Louis, Missouri; a relatively new effort with permanent as well as rotating exhibits, centering on modern and postmodern art informed to various degrees by Christian tradition. Director: Terrence E. Dempsey, SJ; (314) 658-7170.

If you have information about other professional, university, or church-based or Christian college art galleries, please contact J. Bohlig, CIVA Gallery Project, 1680 Blackhawk Cove, Eagan, Minnesota 55122-1210.

Copyright © 1996 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

“Objective,” “balanced,” and “fair” sum up what we often hear from readers commenting on what they like about our magazine. While we enjoy hearing these adjectives used to describe our work, they are not the most important criteria for judging our success. The questions that haunt our hallways are not about fairness, or even readers’ responses. Every editor here knows our bottom line: Are we honoring God? Are we being true to what he revealed and to what the Holy Spirit is doing today? One way we have to measure our work is our statement of faith. Not all who write for us hold to every tenet, but what they write will not contradict it. So to reveal our bias:

We believe that:

1. The 66 canonical books of the Bible as originally written were inspired of God, hence free from error. They constitute the only infallible guide in faith and practice.
2. There is one God, the Creator and Preserver of all things, infinite in being and perfection. God exists eternally in three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who are of one substance and equal in power and glory.
3. God created Adam and Eve in his own image. By disobedience, they fell from their sinless state through the temptation by Satan. This fall plunged humanity into a state of sin and spiritual death, and brought upon the entire race the sentence of eternal death. From this condition we can be saved only by the grace of God, through faith, on the basis of the work of Christ and by the agency of the Holy Spirit.
4. The eternally pre-existent Son became incarnate without human father, by being born of the Virgin Mary. Thus, in the Lord Jesus Christ, divine and human natures were united in one person, both natures being whole, perfect, and distinct. To effect salvation, he lived a sinless life and died on the cross as the sinner’s substitute, shedding his blood for the remission of sins. On the third day he rose from the dead in the body which had been laid in the tomb. He ascended to the right hand of the Father, where he performs the ministry of intercession. He shall come again, personally and visibly, to complete his saving work and to consummate the eternal plan of God.
5. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Triune God. He applies to us the work of Christ. By justification and adoption we are given a right standing before God; by regeneration, sanctification, and glorification our nature is renewed.
6. When we have turned to God in penitent faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are accountable to God for living a life separated from sin and characterized by the fruit of the Spirit. It is our responsibility to contribute by word and deed to the universal spread of the gospel.
7. At the end of the age, the bodies of the dead shall be raised. The righteous shall enter into full possession of eternal bliss in the presence of God, and the wicked shall be condemned to eternal death.

Copyright © 1996 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

– I was impressed by the prophetic and sacrificial ministry of Eugene Rivers and feel he deserves the utmost respect and support from the evangelical community [“Separate and Equal,” Feb. 5]. His incarnational ministry and Christian world-view scholarship set an excellent example for anyone.

I was disappointed CT put a controversial “spin” on this article. Rivers is outspoken, does not follow exactly in the tradition of King, and dares to be critical of integration as a means of progress for the black community. A reading of the article reveals, of course, that his emphasis is on biblical faith and spiritual transformation rather than on politics, he is not opposed to integration per se, and he is both a clear thinker and committed disciple of Jesus Christ.

– Skip RungCorvallis, Oreg.

Eugene Rivers’s “dream” has helped crystallize the vision for my life’s work recently impressed upon my heart. I now know more clearly than ever that I’ve been called to participate in the process of producing and practicing “state-of-the-art policy,” which embodies the authentic, sacrificial call to follow Jesus. Rivers’s poignant insights, practical wisdom, and courageous example provide more than enough conviction for us all to stop playing the church and start being the church.

– John Loren DotsonPowder Springs, Ga.

James Cone writes in “Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare:” “No black thinker has been a pure integrationist or a pure nationalist, but rather all black intellectuals have represented aspects of each.” Martin Luther King, Jr., and Eugene Rivers are no exceptions. Therefore, to present their views on your cover and in the article as polar opposites is misleading at best, and sensationalistic journalism at worst.

– Kirk Byron JonesAndover Newton Theological SchoolNewton Centre, Mass.

I spent one afternoon talking with two young men who had been rescued from the gangs by Pastor Rivers’s ministry. They were full of the joy of the Lord and clearly articulated their new-found faith. Both were returning to the streets, compelled by God’s love and this man’s ministry, to rescue others. Isn’t this what Christianity’s to be about?

– Pastor Wayne HoagSierra Bible ChurchTruckee, Calif.

BEAUTIFUL—AND DISTURBING

“Muriel’s Blessing” [Feb. 5] is such a beautiful and disturbing story. It is disturbing to our culture of self-fulfillment, which says, “I don’t have to take this. I’m going to get on with my life.” Disturbing because the vow, “in sickness and in health … till death do us part,” was made with no crossed fingers. It is actually being kept. Beautiful, because Robertson McQuilkin knows him who says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.”

– David ManzanoRockwood, Tenn.

McQuilkin’s allowing us to partake to a degree of his most moving and sacred experience is overwhelming.

As a young pastor’s wife a few years ago, one morning, at the crack of dawn, I looked out our kitchen window and saw a very elderly woman in our congregation, likewise afflicted, walking down our alley in a downpour of rain. In her hands was a glass filled with water containing a few cut flowers. She was looking for me with a gift from her heart. I learned more about love that morning than ever before.

– Gladys TeagueYork, Pa.

– I teach physics at Tamalpais High School, a small secular high school in Marin County, California, where the rudder seems often to be missing from the lives of students. For the past several years, I have read excerpts from Robertson McQuilkin’s article “Living by Vows” [CT, Oct. 8, 1990]. My aim has been to tell about the life of a man who lives excellently—that is, living a life of honor and commitment. So when I looked through the latest issue of CT, his article was the first that I read. I was struck and driven to tears when I read “Muriel’s Blessing.” My next move was to read it to my students. There weren’t many dry eyes. Thanks to Robertson McQuilkin and his wife, Muriel, I have an example of true love and devotion that my students can relate to—and, hopefully, emulate.

– David R. LappPetaluma, Calif.

McQuilkin wanted to know why God took him out of the game and put him on the bench. Reading his account, I wanted to know the same thing. As I pondered the situation, it came to me that God had not put McQuilkin on the bench. God had switched him to another playing field. Perhaps the reason has something to do with God being more concerned about the ministry he accomplishes in a person than the ministry he accomplishes through a person.

God’s valuation of what is and is not important is radically different from our own. We think the work that changes the world is the work of the greatest value to God. But if God should want to change the world, he could do so without us, through us, or in spite of us. God does not need us. Furthermore, it is only the work that we do by the power and grace of God that counts for anything.

– Rebecca Merrill GroothuisLittleton, Colo.

GROWING SPIRITUALLY

Indeed, Richard Foster [“Becoming Like Christ,” Feb. 5] may think work is the most fundamental experiential means that shapes us spiritually. But how like a man he thinks!

Certainly family life is still more foundational than paid labor or daily chores. Each of us is sculpted spiritually by those who raise us, and the dynamics of having to learn to live with others shapes our ability (or lack of it) to share, to compromise, and to play fair long before we have to learn to work with others.

Those who are serious about spiritual disciplines need to begin at Deuteronomy 6: In the heart of Israel’s great confession of faith is the conciousness of family as the center for spiritual growth.

– Stephen FredericksWheaton, Ill.

– I want you to know that God has used Richard Foster and CT to powerfully touch me and my church. The article came at “just the right time.” God’s timing is perfect.

– Dave BodinKelso, Wash.

GULLIBILITY AND “SUN SALUTES”

– Thank you for the excellent article “Nursing’s New Age?” [News, Feb. 5]. Only in a time of amazing gullibility and lack of discernment can Christians embrace these techniques. In her original work, Deloris Krieger recommended the use of mandalas and divination, consulting the I Ching as a most useful aid to the practice of therapeutic touch (TT). Nurses at a major medical center at which I served as a chaplain do “sun salutes” in preparation for practicing TT. It is paganism through and through.

– Daniel E. DeatonSan Marcos, Calif.

It seems to me CT is more interested in raising controversy than creating a forum for dialogue. Labeling therapeutic touch as a New Age practice was like waving a red flag in front of a bull.

When I agreed to be interviewed, I never dreamed my support for TT would lead to the assumption that I was a New Age nurse. I am not a New Age adherent. I do think, however, the practice of TT by nurses needs thoughtful consideration and prayerful discussion within the Christian community. Here are some reasons: (1) Although some TT research is better than others, there is enough empirical evidence to convince me that clients benefit from TT. I do not think God is absent when healing occurs, whether it is a result of penicillin or TT. (2) Healing by touch falls in the category of human gifts that Calvin would call “common grace.” Humans have been healing by touch in this manner for centuries. (3) Healing by touch is not a new controversy in the church: eighth-century church fathers usurped common touch healing practices for their own power agenda; women who healed by touch were banned as witches; religious groups using touch healing have been labeled “cultish.” (4) An exploration of the history of Christian contemplation provides the common ground needed for dialogue with tt practitioners. Who can blame TT practitioners for turning to other traditions for practical guidance in meditation when most of evangelical Christianity seems to have forgotten how?

– Dr. Sara WuthnowPrinceton, N.J.

As a student nurse in the sixties, one of the first things we learned was how to give a back rub. Thus, the mystical spin now associated with therapeutic touch would be laughable if the Theosophical influence were not so serious. By the way, the only reason the emphasis on back rubs was devalued in nursing practice was to cut costs.

– Kathleen R. KuhnsWyomissing, Pa.

BOYCOTT OR NOT?

After reading your February 5 lead editorial, “Mad at the Mouse,” I feel compelled to say that I don’t think author Roberto Rivera successfully made his point that boycotts are not Christian. He himself suggests, “A simple changing of the television channel or choosing not to enter a turnstile may be the best Christian response to a questionable Disney production.” Does he not see that as a boycott? Personally, I like the way the boycotters are doing it better than the way Rivera is not doing it!

– Albert C. OsbornMiami, Fla.

JOHN STOTT: A MODEL

– Thank you for your article on John Stott [“Basic Stott,” Jan. 8]. He is truly a model of biblical depth, practicality, balance, and godliness. Would that the entire body of Christ exhibited such characteristics in our own articulation and defense of the faith “once for all handed down.”

– Pastor Tim LaneClemson Presbyterian ChurchClemson, S.C.

Regarding Stott’s reference to “headship” referring to responsibility rather than authority: I have always understood that the cardinal rule for mental health is never to accept responsibility for something over which you have no authority.

If Christ and the church are the model for husband and wife, I see “saviorship” as Christ’s gift to the bride and “lordship” as the gift of the bride to Christ. I can’t imagine anyone understanding the awesomeness of “saviorship” and not willingly making Christ Lord.

– Dave GrantEncino, Calif.

McCloughry’s article quoted Stott as saying, “because one (i.e., Catholicism) seems to major on authority with little room for liberty… .” After learning to admire the man so much, his statement fell like a dull thud, much to my dismay. He should know better that I, as a Catholic, am required to hold firm belief only in the articles of the Creed. All else is up for grabs as far as dispute, interpretation, and disagreement are concerned. There are no anathemas for those who choose to discuss controversial theological points. In fact, I don’t know a time I felt intellectually constrained. Shame on him for bringing up this old shibboleth.

I have enjoyed an intellectual freedom in exploring theology and philosophy, and even reading CT regularly without fear of papal disapproval. In fact, John Paul would commend me for my efforts. I feel I’m a better Catholic for it.

– L. PetrusRocky River, Ohio

Does Stott really want us to believe the Holy Spirit makes people fall only on their faces, never on their backs? Having attended a recent Toronto Vineyard conference (I thought of myself as a sympathetic but detached observer), I spent many hours on my back, and I have not the slightest doubt Who it was holding me there, blessing me and flooding me with his love.

– Rev. Philip PearceSeaside, Calif.

While most of us have been grateful for Stott’s books, his agnosticism in the area of eternal punishment disqualifies him from being our premier teacher.

– Gary L. HamburgerAlbuquerque, N.Mex.

While the world looks to Hollywood for heroes, those of us who recognize the hero, the spiritual giant, we have in John Stott are deeply encouraged by your interview. I join CT’s managing editor Maudlin in claiming Stott as one worthy of imitation, just as early Christians were asked to “be imitators” of the apostle Paul.

– Dana WichtermanWashington, D.C.

GENTLE CONFRONTATION

I do not know Darrell Bock, but my spirit resonated with his gentle article, “My Un-American Faith” [Jan. 8]. I am amazed how progressively, over the last 20 years, North American churches, parachurch organizations, and “Christian” corporations and businesses have inculcated and co-mingled North American cultural values with biblical principles into their agendas. This “mission statement” is then offered as God’s plan for them. The result is a Christian community, and many of its leaders, confused as to what God requires of them. Every Christian educational institution in this country desiring to train leaders to influence our society needs a Darrell Bock on its faculty to gently, but forthrightly, confront them in these critical days.

– Victor L. OliverPresident, Oliver NelsonAtlanta, Ga.

DIALOGUE WITH ISLAMIC GROUPS

I read with interest the interview with Brother Andrew [Conversations, Dec. 11]. There is much that Brother Andrew spoke about with which I agree. I did notice the statement that he “cannot find any Christians who are willing” to dialogue with Islamic groups in Lebanon and Gaza. Mennonite Central Committee has had programs and people in Lebanon, including the war-torn south, for the last 17 years. We have had people and programs in the West Bank and Gaza for 40 years. Our policy has been not only to work with people at the level of basic human needs, but also to live in those very communities. In doing so we participate in an ongoing, living dialogue with people, including Islamic people.

I also commend Brother Andrew for his statement that new initiatives need to be supported by the “local church.” Too often Western evangelicals forget that there is a local church in the Middle East. Our efforts must take into account their lives, history, and community witness. Without support and input from local Christians, our efforts are a form of religious colonialism.

– Ed EppMennonite Central CommitteeWinnipeg, Man., Canada

BONNKE’S DISMAL RECORD

– My heart sank as I read the article on evangelist Reinhard Bonnke’s plan to target the U.S. and Canada with the booklet “From Minus to Plus” [“Bonnke Targets 285 Million,” News, Dec. 11]. My wife and I moved from California to work in England and were here when the initiative came to Britain. Our church was one of a large number that participated in the distribution of the booklet here in Great Britain. Regardless of the official statistics, the “results” were dismal. In our town of 50,000, only 5 people responded by asking for more information. I work for an organization that places me in contact with church leaders around the country, and I have heard similar stories.

I am an enthusiastic believer in evangelism, but I do not believe that this is the answer. In my mind, the $10 million that was spent did not deliver on the promises.

– Rick BartlettBewdley, Worcs., England

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Brief letters are welcome. They may be edited for space and clarity and must include the writer’s name and address. Send to Eutychus, Christianity Today, 465 Gundersen Drive, Carol Stream, IL 60188; fax: 708/260-0114. E-mail: ctedit@aol.com. Letters preceded by – were received online.

Copyright © 1996 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Last year, a 19-year-old youth from a small Iowa town, unable to face his large gambling losses, penned a short note, saying, “I’m out of control.” Then he killed himself. Last spring, three New Jersey high-schoolers were arrested for running a $6,500 per week sports betting operation. In another case, a 16-year-old paid off his gambling debts by turning his girlfriend into a prostitute.

These and other published accounts illustrate how exorbitant a price American teens are paying for our ill-fated social experiment with legal gambling.

As more teens are being drawn into the culture of chance, gambling is influencing American society in deep and unexpected ways. Robert Goodman’s new book “The Luck Business,” while mostly an economic analysis of the gambling explosion, spells out how the pervasive worship of Lady Luck—on riverboat casinos, televised live lottery drawings, and at tempting theme-park casinos—alters our perspective on life. The idea that “hard work pays off” is now believed by only one of three people surveyed. In the 1960s, nearly 60 percent believed in the work ethic. We can count on this attitudinal sea change to affect our youth (and our nation’s future).

Some experts believe problem gambling has become the fastest-growing teen addiction, suggesting there are as many as 1.3 million teens with problem gambling behavior. “We will face in the next decade or so more problems with youth gambling than we’ll face with drug use,” says the director of the Harvard Medical School Center for Addiction Studies.

The $480 billion lottery, wagering, and casino industry has spared few dollars in cultivating a cheery public persona. In Atlantic City, the gambling establishment’s enticements have proved so irresistible that 30,000 underage, would-be gamblers are barred or ejected from that city’s casinos every month.

Starting in the late 1980s, 19 states legalized commercial gambling enterprises, thus launching a massive cultural experiment in which a generation is being raised in a climate of socially accepted gambling. In Massachusetts, researchers have found that almost 90 percent of teens had illegally purchased lottery tickets by their senior year in high school.

As low-paying service jobs replace the better-paying industrial jobs that are being shipped outside the U.S., real rewards no longer seem to accompany the work ethic. Teens who lose hope in the American dream are prime targets for the psychological sales pitch the New York state lottery director dubbed “anticipatory dreaming.” Because very few win, while everyone can dream, lottery advertising has shifted to daydreams. And teens, many of whom are still learning how to work, save, and defer gratification, are prime targets of the “with a dollar and a dream” campaign.

TURNING THE TABLES?

How can we turn the tables on the nation’s powerful “merchants of chance”? If industry analysts and critics fully expose gambling’s true costs, public opinion is certain to turn against it. Research persuasively reveals how gambling spawns more street crime, cannibalizes economic activity, corrupts the political process, and destroys families.

The House of Representatives has voted in favor of creating a federal commission to study and publicize the long-term consequences of gambling. Uncovering the truth is an important initial move in reining in the gambling industry.

A backlash is now emerging against legalized gambling. But to be effective, the antigambling coalition must not see this problem solely as economic or cultural. There is a theological dimension—God is not mocked: what we sow, we reap. Unless we address the spiritual issues underlying gambling, America’s next generation may perish, having no vision, but only a daydream.

Copyright © 1996 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

A SISTER SPEAKS

I began my itinerant ministry in response to God’s call in my life, which was confirmed by Acts 26:15-18. I knew from his Word that I was to be his servant and a witness of Jesus Christ that would involve evangelism and discipleship around the world. One of the invitations I accepted was an opportunity to address approximately 1,000 pastors and church leaders. But when I stood up to speak, some of the men in the audience rose, reversed their chairs, and turned their backs to me. I went home and prayed, “Lord, you know that addressing an audience that includes men has not been a problem for me. But it is obviously a problem for them, and I can’t continue to stand in the pulpit and ignore this.”

As I searched the Scriptures for an answer, God seemed to remind me from John 20 that, following his resurrection, Jesus had commissioned Mary of Magdala in a similar fashion. God also seemed to speak to me from Jeremiah 1:7-8, commanding me to be obedient to my call, unafraid of “their faces”—or their backs. He reinforced this in verse 17, clearly commanding me to “Get yourself ready! Stand up and say to them whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them.” In other words, I was not accountable to my audience, I was accountable to him.

What a blessing I received following my plenary address on the last morning of the International Conference of Itinerant Evangelists at Amsterdam ’86. A young African evangelist came to me and said, “I thought God had called me to come to this conference, promising to speak to me here. I went to every meeting, to every workshop. I fasted and prayed and wept and pled with God. But he still did not speak. I thought I had come halfway around the world for nothing. I was in despair, deeply discouraged, until this morning, when you spoke. Through you, I heard God speaking to me again and again.” His eyes widened as he looked at me with astonished wonder, and he concluded, “And I can’t believe God spoke to me through a sister.”

– Anne Graham Lotz, itinerant Bible expositor, AnGeL Ministries.

GULLIBLE WOMEN?

I was reared, and still live and worship, in ecumenical and mainline Protestant churches. So my whole experience in Christian circles has been largely affirming of women’s gifts and calling. I don’t ever recall being denied the ability to do what I felt called to do. My struggles have come more recently, however, as I’ve watched the development of radical forms of feminism in the churches. And I’ve had moments of discouragement, embarrassment, and anger as I’ve wondered, “Is it true that women are more easily led astray, more gullible?”

As for myself, I hold strongly to the fact that I’m created in the image of God. That is the source of my confidence. Christian women need to find their identity before God, which means discerning their gifts and their callings within the context of committed relationships. There is too much emphasis in our society and in the feminist movement on individualism and autonomy. Yet the two communities that God created us for are the family and the church. We must each work out our own salvation with fear and trembling before God and in committed relationships with our families and our Christian communities.

Practically speaking, in terms of working out one’s calling and gifts, I do not advocate that women pay a whole lot of attention to the formulas people give, like “the man’s the head of the home; the woman should submit.” If you try to apply formulas, you’re liable to feel either more oppressed or more liberated than you ought to feel.

As I have gone through the process, I have found conversations with individuals who know me well-trusted friends and godly people (men and women) that I admire-to be extremely helpful as I have worked out these life choices.

– Diane Knippers, president, Institute on Religion and Democracy.

WOMEN AND THE CHURCH

Over the past 20 years there has been a real improvement in evangelical churches regarding treatment of women. There are more churches today who are not afraid to put women on committees, for example, to let women give testimonies, or to carry certain positions. Because of God’s teaching about women, I do not believe that we should be ordained as the senior minister of a church. Still, women can have a real ministry to people in their churches and in their communities through humanitarian aid, Bible studies, and personal caretaking, among other areas.

On the other hand, the church needs to take a stronger stand in protecting women from some of the secular policies so that they can raise their families, be better wives, and speak out when necessary. I think of sexual abuse, of rape, and of other areas in which women struggle. So often when a woman in the church has been raped, she has to bear it by herself. The church instead needs to wrap its arms around her and, as a body, protect and support her through the emotional trauma.

– Beverly LaHaye, president and founder, Concerned Women for America.

WHERE CONFUCIANISM AND CHRISTIANITY MEET

As someone who has attended Chinese churches for almost the entirety of my life, I have appreciated the Confucian and Christian values of that community. Over the years, the Chinese church became my extended family, loving me in a multitude of ways. Yet, at the same time, I have been disturbed by a lack of reflective thinking in the Chinese church about how Christian and Confucian values intersect and/or conflict. What has typically resulted in these churches is an affirmation of traditional Confucian hierarchy and patriarchy.

I taught a college Sunday-school class once in a Chinese church, but then was not invited back because a concerned layperson talked with the church pastor about my teaching men. While my positions in InterVarsity have given me many opportunities to speak to and teach collegians and church leaders, in some of the Chinese churches I have been a part of, I have never been invited to preach. In others, I have been given the chance to preach on “Women’s Sunday,” which has amounted to about one time in ten years. So while my Chinese church experience has certainly nurtured me over the years, it has also broken my heart. I had a hard time knowing that what I could offer, what I wanted to offer, was never allowed.

Women are affirmed in leadership in certain areas—like teaching Sunday school for children. But women with gifts traditionally considered more “male” gifts, like preaching, teaching, and leading, are prevented from exerting those gifts in all but a few areas of church life.

Partially as a result of these experiences, I have recently joined a church plant targeting second-generation Asian-Americans in which we use a team ministry approach. All may exercise their gifts regardless of race, age, socioeconomic background, or gender. Our hope is that those who could not use their gifts in other contexts will find appropriate opportunities—and healing—in our church.

– Jeanette Yep, divisional director, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

STRONG AND UNGODLY?

I have a propensity to want to make things happen, so I naturally gravitated toward leadership positions throughout my life. But while I was working for Young Life in the sixties and seventies, I noticed that I did not fit into their mold for women in ministry. There were no women in leadership at the top at that time, few role models I could relate to, and I found that I was a threat to some men there. As a result, what was communicated to me was that strong women are ungodly. You were made to feel less about yourself if you were strong, aggressive, or desired to do things that were not done the way that women usually did them. Overall, modern church culture has encouraged women to be passive. We have been stroking ourselves for a quality that doesn’t move us forward.

As for the present, I think the church has heavily relied on the perspective of the ministers, who have been almost exclusively white males, and the gifts of many women have been overlooked. I’m afraid that as long as the current pyramid structures of leadership exist in Christian organizations and companies, the stained glass ceilings are going to continue to be there.

– Julie Anderton, executive director, Center for Christian Women in Leadership.

Copyright © 1996 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

In 1969, Charles Blake began pastoring a COGIC church of 100 members in Los Angeles. It had been founded in 1943 during the denomination's golden age of expansion out of the South. Blake represented a new generation, and though he had personally seen and heard COGIC founder Charles Mason, he was not of the pre-World War II generation. He was armed with college and graduate degrees and fresh ideas.

All those ideas seemed to blossom in 1971 during a life-changing visit to Robert Schuller's Garden Grove (Calif.) Community Church (now the Crystal Cathedral). As Blake sat in the massive congregation, God grabbed his attention. "My mind was suddenly opened to the possibility of pastoring a big church," Blake recalls. "All of the boundaries were removed. I could conceive of being as big as God would make me."

Today, Blake's West Angeles Church of God in Christ has 13,000 members—the largest in the denomination—with 155 paid staff, an $8 million budget, more than 100 weekly ministries, four Sunday morning services, and a new 5,000-seat auditorium in the works.

Blake, 54, is a shining example of COGIC's success at growing big, urban churches. He notes that virtually every major American city has at least one, and often two or more, COGIC churches with more than 1,000 members.

In a day when many denominations point with pride to one or two "mega-churches" in their midst, how has COGIC managed to grow them en masse? George McKinney, 63, pastor of the 3,000-member Saint Stephen's COGIC in San Diego, offers an analysis similar to his colleague's. Both he and Blake say the key to COGIC's growth as a denomination as well as to individual COGIC churches' impressive growth is the fact that the denomination has held to a high view of Scripture, has emphasized the immediate work of the Holy Spirit, and has always fostered a vibrant brand of worship that has a high expectancy of miracles and encountering God's presence.

Although some pastors do flirt with elements of "Word-Faith" or "prosperity-gospel" teachings to increase their numbers, observes McKinney, it is not the norm. Adds Blake, "We have always taught that the Lord will provide and deliver, but that does not translate into Christians by their faith being the most wealthy people in their community. It is not about wealth; it is about service to God."

The underpinning ingredient to COGIC's numerical success, say both men, is its commitment to the nation's urban communities. "When many churches were fleeing, COGIC and other Pentecostal groups were digging in to serve the hurting homeless and the masses of common people," explains McKinney.

McKinney estimates that 60 percent of his church members at one time were on the streets. These form his target audience. Every Friday night, church members go into San Diego's red-light district, seeking converts. "We have been cowed and intimidated by 'drive-by shootings,' " says McKinney. "Now our members are doing 'drive-by praying' by the prostitutes and drug houses. We welcome people who have been caught up in crime and drugs. We rejoice in God's grace to deliver."

Still, many COGIC pastors, including Blake, don't shy away from using basic church-growth techniques. West Angeles sponsors four special days a year when members are challenged to bring guests. As many as 126 people have been saved in a single guest-oriented service. Says Blake, "Any church that is going to sustain growth must put to work the best principles, marketing ideas, and service strategies. We seek to provide a positive experience for visitors by insuring adequate parking, good facilities, honest preaching, and good music. We try to make it user-friendly."

What does God want from Eve’s daughters? A forum with Jill Briscoe, Mary Kassian, Jean Thompson, and Miriam Adeney

Times have changed in the hall-ways of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. In the past two years we have added to our ranks an assistant editor, an associate editor, and a design team who have strengthened the “feminine voice” in our magazine. CT, like many aspects of evangelicalism, has incorporated women into its structures in greater numbers.

Women in all sorts of Christian service are finding new avenues of ministry. Jill Briscoe highlights below the unprecedented number of women entering seminaries today. Mary Kassian affirms that women are discovering and exercising their spiritual gifts in inspiring innovative ministries. However, both concur that ambivalence about women’s roles still exists: seminary-trained women don’t always receive a call to a church; women gifted in leadership are not always encouraged to lead.

Last December associate editor Wendy Murray Zoba and assistant editor Helen Lee met with Miriam Adeney, Jill Briscoe, Mary Kassian, and Jean Thompson for a live forum on women’s issues. These participants represent a broad scope of perspectives, ranging from advocacy of women in ordained leadership roles to submission under a male headship model. But rather than focus on the “debate” about who says what women can or cannot do, they explored affirmations that can be agreed upon regarding women’s roles as active members of the kingdom of God.

HAVE WE “COME A LONG WAY” AS WOMEN IN THE CHURCH?

Kassian: In the early church, ministry was something that belonged to everybody. Everyone was a minister. Everyone was commissioned and “called by God” to have a ministry. And so women were very involved. But as the church became more institutionalized, the “ministry” became owned by professionals—the clergy.

So as we institutionalized the church, we lost a lot. Women lost a lot. Because, if you hold to the view that church leadership ought to be male, and that church leadership is the only arena in which you can minister, then there’s no ministry open to women. In a sense, we’ve been clawing our way out ever since.

Briscoe: In New Testament times, women were being given permission to submit. They had no option before. When Paul said, “Submit to your husbands,” they answered, “We’ve been doing that.” But he gave them the choice to do it. That is so foreign to us.

Women in America have incredible freedom. I know a woman who is an evangelical leader in an African nation, who told me that she literally has to kiss the ground in front of her husband—still. She could not relate to the sort of freedom we’re talking about here.

When I visit seminaries, I’m overwhelmed at the wonderful, bright young women who are being trained. This has never before happened in the history of the church. But then we send them back to churches that are not as far ahead as the seminary in their thinking about women, and there is no place for them to minister. So, yes, we have come thousands of miles in some ways, but, at the same time, we haven’t come a very long way in churches making opportunities for godly, gifted, trained women on staff.

Thompson: We’ve come a long way when you think about what happened during the so-called Dark Ages, when a lot was lost. People were not reading Scripture for themselves such as we do today, and so, over time, some truths got twisted, including the apostle Paul’s teaching. He really encouraged women. He said that we’re neither male nor female, neither bond nor free, neither Jew nor Gentile, but we’re all one in Christ Jesus. When he spoke of Phoebe as a “minister,” he used the same word he used to describe male ministers. And he said to “give her whatever she needs” because she risked her life. She was a minister in the full sense.

The Lord has himself broken down the walls of partition that used to separate us. Paul would argue that we should accept one another regardless of the race and regardless of the gender. So we’ve “come a long way” since the Dark Ages, but we’re just beginning to get back to where the Lord Jesus Christ wants us to be.

Adeney: Have we come a long way?

I would say no, although there are exceptions. But I think the overriding reality is that there is a wave of restrictions on women that seems to be recurring—not just in Christianity, but also in Islam. Dana Robert wrote about how at the turn of the century there were some 3 million American women involved in over 40 denominational women’s mission societies. “A celebration in 1910″—I’m quoting here—”listed 2,500 women missionaries, 6,000 indigenous women workers who were in fellowship with these missionaries, 3,263 schools, 80 hospitals, 11 colleges, and many other institutions being supported by American Christian women.”

But she observes that when these women’s societies became co-opted into general and denominational mission boards, the impetus behind grassroots mission education waned, and it has never fully recovered. Robert concludes: “In some ways women involved in mission today face greater barriers than they did in the early twentieth century.” I would say that is not “coming a long way.”

Briscoe: That trend is due to the fact that in a lot of places there aren’t any women making the decisions for women. So we need men to go to bat for us. I’m usually the first woman to do this or that—one of the first women on the board of CTi, or the first woman on the board of World Relief. And it has been men who have made that possible, not women, because women aren’t making the decisions about who we should have on an all-male board.

I’m often telling men, “We’re in your hands. The opportunities we have are yours to make, because women are not now in a position to make those choices.” In the last ten years, I have seen many men who are very prominent speak up for women. My husband wrote an article for Moody about 15 years ago on women’s gifts and how we must not bury our talents—as in the parable. He asked in the article, “What would happen if we buried somebody else’s talent?” And then he talked about how he did not want to stand before God and hear God say: “You buried your wife’s talent, or your daughter’s.” And so he began to see his responsibility as head of our home as making sure we were equal. You should have seen the letters he got from women thanking him for affirming them—for using his influence to encourage their gifting.

Thompson: It’s good to see men who are encouraging women. My husband is my greatest encourager. He’s said, “If God calls the women, who is the one that is big enough to send them back?” I see a similarity with blacks, when they, along with women, were shunned. But God isn’t shutting anybody out.

Kassian: Jill, you mentioned the headship of your husband in terms of serving and encouraging you in your giftedness. Do you see that as the role of men also in the church?

Briscoe: I accept headship as a biblical concept. I also accept equality as another biblical concept. And just as I cannot bring predestination and free will together, I cannot bring headship and equality together, but I embrace them both. And sometimes I model submission to my husband as head, and sometimes I model equality with my husband. Just as sometimes, if I’m in trouble, I’m a Calvinist. And if I’m talking to someone on the plane, I’m an Arminian, because I’m going to lead him to Christ, and I believe he’s got a free will. At that moment, I cannot reconcile both predestination and free will. And so my husband, in his headship, makes sure I’m equal, but it’s no less headship for that.

Kassian: I agree that all women are gifted, that women’s gifts are vast, and that they ought to be exercising those gifts in the church. And yet, I see a difference in how that works out in terms of being male and female. What often happens is that headship is taken to mean what Scripture never intended—as a means to lord it over someone else. But in Scripture, authority exists for the purpose of service. The last thing Christ did before he died was to wash the disciples’ feet. He said, “I have set an example for you.” And so you lead by laying down your life, by pouring yourself out completely. I’ve seen that so vividly in my marriage. I can’t help wondering what the church would look like if we had church leaders doing that on a consistent basis.

WHAT MESSAGES HAVE YOU RECEIVED FROM YOUR CHURCHES IN TERMS OF YOUR ROLE AND YOUR PLACE AS A WOMAN?

Briscoe: You can be caught off guard such as I once was. I was the speaker on the last day of a convention for 3,000 young people. I introduced my subject and opened the Scriptures and read them and began to explain them. At that point, a pastor stood up and told me, “Stop, in the name of the Lord!” and said that I was out of order. He then rebuked my husband, saying that he should be ashamed to allow his wife to usurp his authority. He then took his young people out, and several other people followed. The good thing was that 3,000 rather bored kids suddenly became very attentive. But it left me feeling vulnerable and shocked.

Kassian: I come from a Baptist church structure, and yet, in my denomination the churches are very autonomous, and there’s very little interference from the denomination. There is a lot of freedom, because there has been a lot of emphasis on the giftings that God is putting on women and men by the Holy Spirit.

We have women who are gifted in evangelism. In fact, one woman could be considered the evangelist of the church. We have women who are gifted prophetically. We have women who are pray-ers—one woman prays for people three to four evenings a week, three to four hours an evening. We have women who have a heart to pray for healings. So if somebody’s sick they send the elders and the women’s prayer team there with a pot of oil to pray for healing.

And yet, there is a leadership structure in our church where certain authority roles are reserved for men—not because of particular giftedness or virtue, or because they’re more capable, but simply because we believe that there was a structure set at Creation, and even in the Godhead. That structure is there for protection, and it gives a lot of freedom if it is allowed to work in the servanthood model of the Bible.

Briscoe: Being English and coming from a very conservative background that held to a hierarchical, male-oriented view of the church, I happily submitted for years. I never had a question about it. The role of the women in that mission was the work role, physical work.

But my husband observed back then that there wasn’t a place in that conservative situation for the gifts I had spiritually. And while he was concerned about keeping the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, he also saw it as his job to make sure I was able to exercise my gift of evangelism. And so he made it possible. He said, “There’s a great big world out there, Jill. Go get it.”

And for eight years I preached and taught and saw people come to Christ on the streets. The hierarchy of the mission was thrilled and affirmed that gift in me. And the place for me was made not by argument or disruption, but by doing it, and being a blessing. The people who have set me free to minister to men as well as to women have been men, not women.

In my own church, through my husband and the elders, women have gained huge freedoms—we have “come a long way.” We have women pastors on staff. We have women in every echelon of leadership, apart from the council of elders.

And so I would say thank-you to all the men who have stepped out of that traditional conservative role on behalf of a woman.

Adeney: I think when you have a pioneering church a lot of your “women’s problems” are solved, because there are lots of opportunities for women to use their gifts in diverse ways. “Women’s issues” usually come up for discussion when the church is trying to consolidate and become a bureaucracy. Then everybody has to have at least an M.Div. in order to do anything, and the women start getting the coffee and doing luncheons.

My own church, which is not a typical church, provides an extremely positive experience. Our bulletin says, “Every member a minister”—though, mind you, the clergy have their retirement benefits. But there is a strong feeling that the people there are generally very capable people. So people are encouraged if they have a dream.

Thompson: At Harvest Church we try to apply Ephesians 5:21, “Submit to one another,” and we ask, “Who does God want to use for this responsibility?” Once my husband and I were invited to speak at an evangelistic meeting, and I said to him, “You preach. You give the altar call.” He sensed that I was picking up that it was a male setting, and that I wanted to be respectful and submit to whatever authority was operating there. (I don’t mind sitting in the background.) But my husband said, “I believe the Lord wants you to give the altar call. And if I speak when God didn’t tell me to, maybe nobody will come to Christ.” And so I went, and I ministered, and over 50 people came to Christ. Usually the Lord does make room for your gifts.

HOW DOES THE CONCEPT OF ORDINATION COME INTO PLAY, THEN, FOR WOMEN OR MEN?

Kassian: The whole “women’s question” is not a women’s question at all. It’s a question of how we do church—how we view ministry and the Spirit’s gifting. I have a problem with “ordination,” because I think that it is God and the Spirit who ordain people. But we will not “recognize” it unless someone has an M.Div. or has gone through Bible school. So engineers who might also be evangelists or intercessors aren’t ordained. Well, why not? God’s calling is on their lives. Why aren’t we laying hands on them and recognizing God’s call?

When people ask me, “Do you believe in the ordination of women?” I stumble, because, on the one hand, I do think certain leadership offices in the church are restricted to men. But, on the other hand, I do believe in the “ordination” of women if you mean recognizing God’s gifting on her life. I believe in ordaining anyone whom the Spirit ordains—but not in the traditional sense that once you’re ordained you receive your salary and a title.

Thompson: At Harvest Church, ordination is not a question of whether or not they are male or female but if there is fruit in their lives. We look to see who God is using and if they will radiate the love of the Lord and not personal ambition.

I think of one brother who had been diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. When I came to pray for him, he said, “A woman!” But God has a sense of humor. He’s alive today. We don’t look at one another and say, “What are you, male or female?” or, “Where did you come from?” Instead, we ask, “Do I see Jesus in you?” My husband knows that, at first, I wasn’t excited about being a pastor. But God called me, and I accepted the call, and I’m glad I did.

Adeney: If you don’t make a big division between laity and clergy, then the “issue” of ordination doesn’t make so much difference. If you do make a division, then it’s a much more serious thing.

Copyright © 1996 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

HAS THE SECULAR FEMINIST MOVEMENT INFLUENCED WOMEN TO ASSERT THEMSELVES MORE IN THE CHURCH?

Briscoe: I think what drives the secular women’s movement, to be fair to them, is the notion that women are people. And you can’t argue with that. That’s something I share as a Christian. In the way that works itself out, of course, I would differ with them. But I think those issues ought to be raised in the church. How many of us refer to the “pastor’s wife”? You don’t say the “garbage collector’s wife” or the “engineer’s wife” when you’re introduced. She has a name. She is a person. And I see a lot of Christian women struggling with that.

Thompson: Some of the issues that the feminist groups have brought up have been very good and needed to be addressed. Some have wanted simply to help women gain basic rights, and God has used these gains in the church. But a philosophy has also crept in that, if you are at home with your children, then you’re enslaved—and we’re going to free you. Women are being taught that if the child is an inconvenience to you, get rid of it. Take care of you, no matter what.

That’s not all feminists, of course. But some, I believe, desire to destroy the family. That’s where the church needs to step in and affirm women who choose to bear children, and then help them if they need help.

Kassian: There have been advances in opening up different professions and arenas for women as a result of secular feminism. But I also think that there has been a destructive backlash, and you see horrific crimes against women now to a greater extent than ever before. And men are not protecting women as they used to. December 6 was the sixth anniversary for a horrendous slaying at the University of Montreal. A fellow who had been denied a place in the engineering school went into a classroom with a semi-automatic and methodically separated the women from the men, telling the men to leave the room. He pointed his gun at the remaining women and said, “You are all feminists” and shot them. There were 14 killed, numerous others wounded. Fifty years ago those men wouldn’t have left the room because they would have seen it as their duty to protect the women. There were enough of them that they could have easily jumped the gunman.

The feminist movement has sent a number of confusing messages to men. They’ve been told that “maleness” is responsible for all the evils in the world. And there is a frightful trend toward identity confusion.

Adeney: When it hasn’t been extreme, the feminist movement has raised our awareness of some important themes. And Christian women have taken some of the best of it and have become salt and light around the world. I’m thinking about some women who are now with World Vision, or Food for the Hungry, or World Concern, or others who are involved in inner-city ministries. These women leaders are very concerned about women in poverty, here and around the world, who are true victims. They’re aware, for example, of the feminization of poverty, of sexual harassment, of the problems in health care—especially in the Third and Fourth Worlds. These women are not only concerned about basic health and education, but even about the possibility of having access to water or land. These are life-and-death issues for a lot of women in the world. And our gains as women leaders in Christian service—due in part to feminist sensitivities—have enabled some to “love our neighbors” and have a concern for other societies.

DO YOU THINK THERE IS A RETRENCHMENT IN SOME CHURCHES AS A REACTION AGAINST SECULAR FEMINISM?

Adeney: When we’re thinking about influences of feminism, we have to know how to deal with lesbianism and goddess worship and even witchcraft. And these are real forces that I think the church hasn’t been able to address effectively. You have women for whom coming to Christ is a stumbling block because they are into relating to Mount Rainier and to whales. And the church hasn’t always made it easy for women from a feminist orientation to find a home. But the “retrenchment” of some churches, I think, is a reaction to more than that. It’s a reaction to the feeling of wanting order in a world that has become “disorganized.”

Briscoe: The Boers used to put their wagons in a circle, and they all got inside in their defense. And that’s what I think the church has done. They have seen the fallout of society and the disintegration of the family, and in their eyes, the feminist movement has been responsible. So they go inside a circle and turn their guns out. So I do see a retrenchment in some areas.

But I also see freedom and opportunity. In America, if you don’t like something in a church—their view of women, for example—you just go to another one.

WHAT POSITIVE STEPS ARE BEING MADE IN EVANGELICALISM IN THIS AREA?

Briscoe: I think the Promise Keepers movement has had a very positive effect, not only for men, but for women. Men are going off in hundreds of thousands and hearing the message to take care of your pastor, take care of your wife, take responsibility to release your wife to be all that she should be, and make it possible for her to serve in church.

One of my colleagues in our Women’s Ministries recently solicited interest in our church bulletin for women to lead a Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) program. She had 35 women show up for the first meeting, only two of whom had previously been involved in our women’s ministry. Just out of interest, she asked, “What will your husbands say?” They answered, “Oh, they went to Promise Keepers. They’re telling us to do it.” She said this would not have happened even two years ago.

HOW DO YOU ANSWER THE CALL OF GOD IN TERMS OF YOUR GIFTS AND STILL ANSWER THE CALL OF MOTHERHOOD AND FAMILY NURTURER?

Adeney: I don’t see it as an either/or. For me, it has not been an impossible problem, because I have always been a thinker and a writer, and I would do that if I had 20 children.

Also, we need to talk about Christian mothers exercising dominion in ministry. Christian women today need some role models. Catherine Booth is one of my great role models. She had eight children. She wrote eight books. She had no word processor. She regularly went out and spoke to 2,000 or 3,000 people a night in the slums. She had no Billy Graham Evangelistic Association to train counselors for her. She had to counsel them. And they were unemployed. They were, in fact, thieves and prostitutes. So she also had to do job training and placement for them. And yet, at the same time, she spoke to the wealthy. The Lord gave her a sense of dominion.

There are many ordinary Christian women who are doing things that are admirable. We need to fill our minds with these examples that will encourage and inspire us.

We also need to develop a sense of sisterhood—groups of women doing things together. Many times we encounter negative experiences that can be demoralizing and discouraging. We start to think, “I don’t really quite have it.” But if we have a supportive sisterhood, together we can be encouraged to keep trying.

Another thing women have to do is learn how to say no. I have a phrase over my desk that reads: “Writing is planned neglect.” (Unfortunately, I’m not planning enough neglect, so I’m not doing enough writing.) Jill was asked to write commentaries on Habakkuk, Psalms, and John for the Women’s Bible. So she writes Habakkuk. Now, that’s a very nice way to say no to the others.

Finally, when we talk about the nuclear family, we must also talk about single people. I’m thinking about childless single people; but also we have a lot of single parents. We need to affirm them and make sure that our churches are user-friendly for them. We need to keep in mind that there are people in a lot of different roles and affirm them in what they are called to do for the kingdom of God and the world.

Briscoe: I counsel pastors and wives where the husband will say, “I don’t know what’s the matter with my wife. She’s falling apart.” Well, she’s wearing seven hats, that’s why she’s falling apart. She’s had to go back to work because the church doesn’t pay him enough; she gets criticized for it by the church. Then I ask him, “Did you lower your expectations of her in the home when she went back to work? Did you pick up some of these responsibilities? Did you help the children get organized and disciplined?”

Each couple is different—their capabilities, their gifts, their ages, their child rearing, their time, the season of their lives. How can one of us say to the other, you should put God first or church first or family first? There has to be a partnership in how we do ministry. Whatever Jesus says is first today is first. Today he might say you should stay home and look after the children. Tomorrow he might say you should leave, and somebody else is to look after the children. The art of it is being brave enough to be close enough to God to hear what he says is first today.

Kassian: We also need to recognize that ministry can happen where we’re at, as we’re going. There are phases and seasons of a woman’s life that shape what she’s capable of doing. If you’re nursing a young baby, you cannot be gone for more than two hours. That’s just reality. It took me a long time to come to the understanding that I don’t need to stop my life in order to do ministry. Ministry is my life.

I had a lady over last week who’s anorexic. She was helping me make supper, and my kids were pulling on her and doing this and that. Before I would have thought: okay, I’ve got to set up a meeting, get a sitter, get out of the house, have it all structured. But I think that there is power in the home to have ministry. I don’t think you ever need to sacrifice ministry for the sake of your family, because I think the family is ministry, and the family is salt and light to the world.

Thompson: We need to ask ourselves, will my kids rebel if they’re brought up in a home where we’re always putting the church first and they’re left out? Or on the other hand, are we so protective of our family that we shut ourselves off from ministry? I think the husband and wife need to help each other make God the God of their family and not allow ministry or family to become as “god.” But rather, we should make family and home the environment where ministry happens.

WHAT ABOUT THE MOTHER OF YOUNG CHILDREN WHO HAS A CLEAR SENSE OF CALL ABOUT HER VOCATION, ARRANGES CHILD CARE, AND THEN RECEIVES CRITICISM FROM HER CHURCH COMMUNITY?

Kassian: I’m always struck at how women are robbed of their joy of being who they are. You’re made to feel guilty for having kids—whether you have interests outside of the home and use daycare, or if you want to stay home and that’s all you want to do. Because you’re supposed to be everything. There’s this superwoman pressure that you ought to be able to juggle seven or ten or fifteen different roles. It’s a tragedy to see all these women who have all the joy sapped out of them for doing and being who God wants them to be.

Briscoe: You can sacrifice family on the altar of ministry, or you can sacrifice ministry on the altar of marriage and family. Because so many marriages have fallen apart, we’ve emphasized family so much that, in some cases, the family has become god instead of God being God of the family.

Every couple is unique. If the man is helping the woman to be all that God wants her to be, what she ends up doing will be unique. But whatever you do, you’ll be criticized for it, and so you have to refuse to live under the expectations of the church. Work out for yourselves: What does Jesus say is first for us?—in our unique gifting, coupleness, training, time of life—and then do it.

So I think it comes back to being brave enough to break stereotypes, if necessary, and saying God is God of our family, and this is what he’s told us, as a family, to do at this stage. And there’s freedom in that.

Adeney: It helps to have either the sisterhood I mentioned or even a few good friends that you can share with who understand what you’re about. I have some. We are all so busy that we don’t get together more often than once every six weeks or two months at a time. But that’s okay. We all know that we could call each other up if we had trouble.

Thompson: When we look at Proverbs 31, which is supposed to be the model of the virtuous woman, we find this woman dealt in business, in real estate, and she knew how to delegate and manage. When we look in the Scriptures, we find our stereotypes are shattered because we can’t find everybody doing marriage, doing family, exactly the same way.

Kassian: Our culture is against us at this point. Work used to be centered in the home, where there was usually an extended family. So you’d have gobs of kids and aunts and uncles, and it wouldn’t be a big deal to run out because there were enough adults around. The home was the whole center of society. But it is fragmented today. We’ve split work and home, and it has become very difficult for women. Women have a strong pull toward nurturing the home, and yet there are still external interests that pull them as well.

REGARDLESS OF HOW ONE DETERMINES WHETHER WOMEN HAVE “COME A LONG WAY,” HOW CAN WE BE WHERE GOD WANTS US TO BE?

Briscoe: When Jesus said, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden,” he used a nautical word meaning “overloaded.” Around every boat is a waterline that determines how much weight it can carry. Every one of us women, and men too, are like a boat; we each have a waterline. If you load us beyond the waterline, we’ll sink. If you do not allow us to carry the burdens we’re built for, we’ll drift. We need to help each other discover what kind of “boat” each of us is, and what our carrying capacity is.

Thompson: In Acts 5, both Ananias and Sapphira were called to give an account. They asked her the same question they asked him, and she answered with the same lie. The marriage relationship did not absolve her from her own responsibility. We all must give an answer for ourselves. Whoever is in authority has the obligation before God and to the people being served to encourage and inspire. We must be good examples for one another.

Kassian: It has been men that have encouraged me in my writing and speaking and, in a sense, have protected me. Many times the structure of authority is perverted and used for power, but that is a distortion of the Word. It grieves me when I see women bottled up. The authority structures in church ought to be freeing for women rather than oppressive.

Adeney: There is a great deal to be said for being a Sunday-school teacher of girls all your life and for raising a godly family. To strive to be a leader for its own sake is not necessarily a good thing, and we ought not to champion it unduly. For me, the reason to aim to be a leader would be the call of stewardship, love of your neighbor, and the desire for God’s glory to be extended.

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Miriam Adeney is research professor in missions at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and associate professor of cross-cultural ministries at Seattle Pacific University. She has lived and traveled extensively and authored many articles and books, including “A Time for Risking: Priorities for Women” (Multnomah). She is also a senior editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. She resides in Seattle with her husband and three sons.

Jill Briscoe is the lay adviser to the Women’s Ministry at Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin, where her husband, Stuart, serves as pastor. She and her daughter Judy work as a mother/daughter speaking and writing team. Jill has spoken all over the world and has authored over 40 books. She is the editor of “Just Between Us,” a magazine for ministry wives and women in ministry, and a board member of Christianity Today, Inc., and World Relief. She recently coedited with her husband “The Family Book of Christian Values” (Chariot). She is the mother of three children and the grandmother of nine.

Mary Kassian is the author of “The Feminist Gospel” and “Women, Creation, and the Fall” (both Crossway) and is section editor and contributor for the NKJV Women’s Study Bible. She is a member of the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and has taught women’s studies courses at various colleges and seminaries. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, with her husband and three sons.

Jean Thompson copastors the 1,200-member Landover, Maryland-based Harvest Church International with her husband, James Thompson. She is the founder and president of the International Black Women’s Network, and she also founded the Great Potential Program, which promotes inner-city outreach. She lives in Maryland with her husband and their daughter, Sherah.

Copyright © 1996 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

A frail Charles Harrison Mason lay coughing in an Arkansas swamp shack, hot and dying from tuberculosis. His parents, who were former slaves, stood by helplessly as the late summer air suffocated their 14-year-old son. Then on Sunday, September 5, 1880, the glory of God appeared. Mason sensed the Lord’s presence. Suddenly, “[Charles] got out of bed and walked outside all by himself,” recalls his wife, Elisa Mason, in the book The Man: Charles Harrison Mason. “There, under the morning skies, he prayed and praised God for his healing. During these moments [Charles] renewed his commitment to God.” And American religion would never be the same again.

This was the first of many supernatural experiences Charles Mason had during a life that some say rivals the lives of Christian heroes like John Wesley in its range of piety, social reform, mysticism, and evangelistic scope. “I see him as a part of the mainstream tradition in Western spirituality,” says Robert Franklin, director of black church studies at Emory University in Atlanta.

Today, the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), the Pentecostal denomination that Mason founded in 1897 (it didn’t assume its Pentecostal leanings, or its final name, until 1907), sits notably in the middle of the American Christian mainstream. President Bill Clinton has personally traveled to COGIC’s November convocation in Memphis to nurture their political friendship. And in 1994, a delegation of Pentecostal leaders from several white denominations traveled to Memphis to repent for excluding COGIC and other black Christians from their Pentecostal Fellowship of North America, which they formally disbanded, creating the new cross-racial Pentecostal Churches of North America and placing COGIC Brooklyn Bishop Ithiel Clemmons at the helm. The unprecedented event was dubbed “The Memphis Miracle” in newspaper headlines across the country.

COGIC’s rising profile is partly due to its astounding growth. With its 6.75 million members—more than twice the size of the Assemblies of God—COGIC has been gaining an average of 200,000 members and 600 congregations per year since 1982, making it America’s fastest-growing and fifth-largest denomination. The denomination grew by more than 48 percent between 1982 and 1991, compared to 22.3 percent for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 22 percent for the Assemblies of God, 14.4 percent for the Roman Catholic Church, and 9.1 percent for the Southern Baptist Convention.

But COGIC’s numerical growth is not the sole reason for attention. More important, the denomination has produced a remarkable legacy of African-American piety and self-help—one that step-by-step mirrors the advancement of blacks through this century and stands on its own as deserving deep reflection.

From glory to glory

Church begins at noon in Jackson, Mississippi, at Bishop Hollis Musgrove’s Liberal Trinity Church of God in Christ. The congregation worships just an hour south of where Charles Mason birthed the first COGIC denomination in Lexington. While some COGIC churches have adopted a more subdued Pentecostal service, Musgrove’s congregation maintains many of COGIC’s traditional worship distinctives, including exuberant singing and dancing and a floor open for personal testimonies.

“How many of you are blessed of the Lord today? If you are blessed of the Lord, give him some praise,” an elder beckons from the pulpit, eliciting hallelujahs and clapping from some 200 worshipers. With hand fans waving all around, members gather in a nicely appointed sanctuary that could pass for Baptist or Presbyterian with its upholstered pews, choir loft, high ceiling, and shiny brass chandeliers.

A large woman emerges in place behind a microphone in the choir loft. “We have come into this house to gather in his name and worship him,” she sings a cappella; congregants join in. On the second verse, the organ joins the mix. “Forget about yourselves and concentrate on him and worship him.” Now a drummer adds a beat, then a bass guitar slides in; a few tambourines rattle. “Oh, what he’s done for me!” the congregants continue.

After an extended time of singing and testifying, several people read Scripture aloud before a gray-haired Bishop Musgrove preaches on rooting one’s whole life in the Bible, “the only infallible, written Word of God” that portrays “holiness as a way of life.”

The service is at once charismatic and evangelical in spirit. In fact, many of COGIC’s chief doctrinal tenets can be grasped from a single sitting at a local COGIC assembly like Musgrove’s. For instance, the Church of God in Christ is Trinitarian and adheres to the infallibility of Scripture, the need for regeneration, and the subsequent baptism of the Holy Spirit. The church emphasizes holiness as God’s standard for Christian living and observes Holy Communion, water baptism, and foot washing as its prime ordinances.

These and other characteristics of COGIC, including its episcopal government, were shaped by founding bishop Mason, who presided over the denomination from its inception until his death at age 95 in 1961. Indeed, in the face of constant criticism and opposition, Mason—a slender, articulate, mustached mystic—managed to combine evangelical theology with African culture in a manner that continues to flourish to this day.

The last decade of the nineteenth century was full of hope for Southern blacks. Reconstruction opened new access to advancement; Jim Crow laws had not yet arrived. And black pastors freely traveled Dixie evangelizing and church planting. Among them was Mason, who was licensed to preach by an Arkansas Missionary Baptist Church.

In November of 1893 he enrolled in one of the many private, self-supporting black colleges speckling the Southern landscape: Arkansas Baptist College. Three months later, discouraged over what he saw as a lack of emphasis on the Scriptures, he left the school for good. “The Lord showed me that there was no salvation in schools and colleges, for the way that they conducted themselves grieved my soul,” Mason recounted later. “I packed my books, arose, and bade them a final farewell to follow Jesus, with the Bible as my sacred guide.”

Despite Mason’s abandonment of formal religious training, in future decades many would comment how thorough his Bible knowledge was. In 1895, Mason met Elder E. P. Jones of Jackson, Mississippi. Both were heavily influenced by the growing holiness and Wesleyan movement. With interest in their teachings about complete sanctification growing among the masses, they held meetings in 1897 in Lexington, Mississippi—first in a local’s home, and then in an abandoned cotton gin house, which became the meeting place for the first “Church of God in Christ,” a name Mason says he received from God while walking the streets of Little Rock, Arkansas.

Despite his early successes, Mason was troubled by the conviction that his own sanctification was not complete. Those doubts were cleared in 1906 when he traveled to Los Angeles to take part in the early stages of the legendary Azusa Street revival. There Mason encountered God’s Spirit as never before. He later wrote:

There came a wave of glory into me, and all of my being was filled with the glory of the Lord. So when I had gotten myself straight on my feet there came a light which enveloped my entire being above the brightness of the sun. When I opened my mouth to say “glory,” a flame touched my tongue which ran down to me. My language changed and no word could I speak in my own tongue. Oh, I was filled with the glory of my Lord. My soul was then satisfied. I rejoiced in Jesus my Savior, whom I love so dearly.

Mason remained at Azusa for five weeks before returning home, where his new experience was rejected by his friend Jones, who, along with others, quickly excommunicated him from fellowship. Refusing to renounce his belief in a baptism of the Holy Ghost, Mason called a gathering in Memphis of others convinced of the tongues experience, and they formed their own church body. Years later, after a long court battle with Jones’s allies, Mason’s church won exclusive rights to bear the COGIC name.

Under Mason’s leadership, COGIC growth followed black migratory patterns during two world wars; Mason sent his new, mostly agrarian pastors into northern and western cities by the hundreds. “By World War II, the COGIC had become an urban church,” Franklin says. In fact, COGIC has remained planted in urban areas, even during the last three decades when numerous denominations fled to suburban locales. According to bishop and board member Charles Blake, this commitment to urban America is perhaps the chief reason the denomination has experienced such rapid and sustained growth in recent years. Blake himself pastors the 13,000-member West Angeles COGIC in Los Angeles’s rough inner city (see “Church Growth in the ’Hood,” p. 27).

COGIC has produced a legacy of African-American piety and self-help that mirrors the advancement of blacks throughout the twentieth century.

From the start, Mason inspired members to believe in God and their own abilities to accomplish things: storefront urban churches gave way to massive, black-funded edifices, such as Blake’s. Indeed, when Mason orchestrated the building of the 3,000-seat Mason Temple on Memphis’s South Side with all-black craftsmen—the largest black-built American structure at the time—it stood as “a sort of ecclesiastical counterpart to Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee experiment; concrete proof that black people could build, own, and operate their own nationally recognized institutions,” notes Franklin.

What continued to set Mason’s COGIC apart from the older black denominations, including the African Methodist Episcopalians and National Baptists, was COGIC’s conscious nurturing of African worship and religious forms compatible with Christianity. “As black people sought to assimilate the dominant culture, there was a tendency to exchange African-oriented religious practices for those of Euro-Anglo Christians,” says Franklin. “But by stridently reintroducing drums, spontaneous song celebrations, call-and-response preaching, dancing, and emotionally liberating worship, Mason sought to re-Africanize black churches.”

Bridging racial divides

Despite his focus on traditional black culture and regular demonstrations of racial bigotry on the part of his white colleagues, Mason’s vision for COGIC also sought to underscore interracial harmony. It was not an easy road.

Some early white Pentecostal leaders, such as Charles Parham of the Apostolic Faith Movement, attacked Mason and COGIC’s worship customs, arguing that they reeked of voodoo culture and animal spiritism, observes Fuller Theological Seminary professor Cecil Robeck. But Franklin and others say Mason simply was a “virtuoso of the slave religion,” able to draw for his mostly agrarian flock practical nature lessons much as Jesus did.

People like Parham poisoned the water against black charismatic leaders like Mason. Yet Mason—whose COGIC was at one time the only Pentecostal church in America to have government-licensed clergy—ordained about 300 white Pentecostal pastors in 1910; these white ministers, who typically sought official ordination in order to get discounted railroad rates, found Mason’s denomination to be the only one that would welcome them.

It is a subject of debate as to how much fellowship actually occurred early on between white and black COGIC pastors; Robeck, himself an Assemblies of God (AOG) member, believes it was “a marriage of convenience,” especially since the white pastors soon after reorganized as the Assemblies of God.

Both COGIC and AOG share several Pentecostal doctrinal distinctives, notes Bishop George McKinney of Saint Stephen’s Church of God in Christ in San Diego, including belief in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. COGIC also emphasizes total sanctification or “holiness” (a Wesleyan throwback from Mason’s early days).

Though it is not clear just how intertwined the early COGIC and AOG were, one thing is certain: Mason never showed racist or hostile intent. After whites dropped his church’s name, Mason still accepted the AOG’s invitation to speak to their 1914 organizational meeting. Says one COGIC leader, “A favorite saying of Mason’s was that the church is like the eye: it has a little black in it and a little white in it, and without both it can’t see.”

Mason’s words were not empty platitudes. He traveled regularly with his aide, William B. Holt, a blond-haired German who was also a COGIC pastor. “They were like blood brothers,” recalled the late Louis Henry Ford, the noted COGIC presiding bishop who died in March 1995.

The odd duo of Mason and Holt sparked far more than the standard suspicions over black-white alliances. FBI files show that the agency monitored Mason and Holt during World War I, especially since Mason preached pacifism. Still, Mason preached strong allegiance to the United States and condemned the Kaiser; nonetheless, his close friendship with Holt led the FBI to think Mason might incite American blacks to align with Germany. “The secretary of war could not reason why a white man (Elder William B. Holt) would be connected with an almost all-Negro church,” recounts COGIC churchman and historian Donald Weeks.

Once Mason was arrested by federal agents and thrown into a Lexington, Mississippi, jail on charges of “violation of the Sedition Act.” Holt eventually gathered the money to bail out Mason, who continued to fellowship with whites, while condemning segregation and the widespread burning of black soldiers’ uniforms upon their return home from overseas.

In spite of such conflicts, Mason’s church continued to grow, establishing the Young People’s Willing Workers program for youth in 1914, the Sunday-school program in 1924, the home and foreign mission board in 1926, and numerous women’s auxiliaries. By Mason’s death in 1961, the church’s membership numbered about 1 million.

Dilemmas of tradition

Today, the massive, newly refurbished Mason Temple presides over Memphis’s tiny Mason Street; it was here on April 3, 1968, that Martin Luther King, Jr., gave the last speech (“I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”) before his assassination. The meeting hall is now surrounded by an iron fence and low-income housing that is spray-painted with gang graffiti. Visitors entering the foyer see on three walls gold and purple listings of COGIC bishops from even state.

From the beginning, the hope of becoming a bishop has been a key motivation for many COGIC pastors in their tireless planting of local churches. But some bishops, including McKinney, acknowledge that not all the byproducts of this policy and the rapid growth it has fostered have been handled well.

“One of the things that has been most positive and negative is that we have honored the call [to the ministry] that members have professed and have not required that a man or woman complete college or graduate school before practicing as a proclaimer of the truth,” explains McKinney. Indeed, although the denomination does offer elementary training for the pastorate through lay ministry experience and a system of more than 70 nonaccredited Bible colleges, it has only one accredited seminary (Mason Theological Seminary in Atlanta).

“Anti-intellectualism is an ongoing battle,” adds McKinney. “There are those who are anti-intellectual who are in positions of great power in the Church of God in Christ. We’re a church that boasts millions of members and thousands of churches, yet we have only one theological seminary—that reveals our failure to grasp the reality of this age, that we must develop regional centers for training of workers and evangelists.”

McKinney, however, contends that the denomination’s traditional de-emphasis on pastors acquiring college and graduate-level training is changing. Some once interpreted Mason’s own premature departure from college as being an anti-intellectual gesture. This inaccurate assumption—Mason actually left the Arkansas Baptist College because of what he viewed as liberal Bible teachings—led for decades to an anti-education climate among many COGIC members who were already inclined not to pursue higher education due to their lower socioeconomic status and lack of access to higher education. But today many bishops and pastors, including McKinney and Blake, have graduate degrees. And their children, with greater opportunities for education now available, are following suit.

A changing landscape

The death of 80-year-old COGIC presiding bishop Louis Henry Ford last year left an unexpected void in denominational leadership. Ford, who assumed command in 1990, was only the second bishop to take the COGIC helm since Mason. Ford nurtured Saint Paul Church of God in Christ in Chicago from a small storefront to an entire city block after moving north from Lexington, Mississippi. He first garnered national media attention in 1955 when he eulogized Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Mississippian who was brutally killed and dumped in the Tallahatchie River. Many believe that Ford’s address at Till’s funeral helped inspire the early civil-rights movement.

Under Ford’s administration, COGIC grew more politically active. Ford himself sought links to various social power structures; he was friends with boxer Joe Louis and singer Lena Horne, as well as the late Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley, who appointed him to several political positions.

“Not unlike the Reverend Adam Clayton Powell [of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church fame and the United States House of Representatives], Ford’s personal flamboyance often brought him into conflict with more conservative church members,” observes Franklin, who grew up in Ford’s congregation.

Last November, COGIC minister C. D. Owens was named as the denomination’s new presiding bishop. Nonetheless, the aftermath of Ford’s sudden death brought many to the realization that COGIC’s course has been less than certain since Mason’s unchallenged and revered reign as presiding bishop. “During Bishop Mason’s lifetime, he had plenipotentiary powers which he used wisely and discreetly,” states an official COGIC polity book. “Since his demise, the balance of power still rests with the presbytery or clergy by tradition, yet the General Assembly came into a new focus and presently maintains a significant place in the government of the Church.”

Among the 12 who now preside on COGIC’s general board, two traits seem common: (1) These leaders, many of whose parents migrated north and west from the rural South, now hail from mostly urban areas, and (2) they are now all members of the middle to upper-middle class, arriving at their Memphis meetings in new luxury cars and wearing the finest tailored suits.

“The COGIC is possibly the prime example of the self-help tradition in America,” says general board member Ithiel Clemmons. “It is a people that started as the children of slaves—sharecroppers, farmers, oppressed people. They asked no one for anything. They migrated to the major cities of America and became successful. They felt that the experience of the baptism of the Holy Ghost took the apostrophe and the t from the word can’t, so they could say, ‘We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.’ ”

A new generation

It is this dynamic sense of faith and purpose among COGIC members that drew Frank Robinson to the church. And it is people like Robinson, 40, and his good friend David Moore, 40, whose stories reveal generational adjustments now taking place in the denomination.

Robinson recalls his reckless years of shooting dope and “chasing women” while growing up in California during the late sixties and early seventies. He found a friend at school in Moore, who eventually left the wild life to embrace God in his family’s COGIC church. Robinson started hanging around Moore’s mother, who talked to him about God and brought him to their church.

This was not so unusual except that Robinson is white. “It was way on the other side of the tracks, almost in no-man’s land for white people,” he recalls. At first, Robinson was taken aback by the lively worshipers, who shouted and danced and clapped and raised their hands. “They were very exuberant, almost cartoonish, but there was something very legitimate about them.” With time, Robinson came to Christ in that church and never left.

For the last several years, Robinson has been an ordained COGIC pastor and special aide to Charles Blake in Los Angeles. And now Robinson is pushing a new border, having just accepted a call to be the white pastor of a mixed-race California COGIC church.

Robinson can get advice from his old friend Moore, who also broke new ground. While many COGIC ministers pastor more than one flock, Moore is the first to pastor both a COGIC congregation (New Covenant Worship Center in Santa Barbara) and one from a separate, predominantly white denomination (Church for the Nations Four-square Gospel in Oxnard). Moore cites not only the formative influence of COGIC pastors like Blake, but of white pastors like Jack Hayford of the Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California.

Moore and Robinson’s generation, with its new ways of thinking, shows that times are changing for COGIC churches. Still, as with many denominations, sociological differences have produced some generational gaps among COGIC leaders. For instance, notes Moore, many COGIC pastors still want to use agrarian sermon metaphors about cows and creeks; but most black youth now speak a cowless urban language.

Emory’s Franklin agrees: “Many [COGIC] preachers and parishioners assume that ministry consists in proclaiming the gospel in traditional terms. Too little attention is given to the difficult work of reinterpretation and adaptation to modem sensibilities.”

COGIC observers note several post-Mason, late-century questions the denomination must cope with:

• What final stance will COGIC take on women in ministry? Currently women minister in many official areas but do not hold ordained pastorates. Many are regularly noted as COGIC heroines.

• How will COGIC reconcile its modern leanings with original bans on such things as women wearing slacks and make-up? Indeed, many women are finding such stringent rules either sexist or nonsensical.

• How will COGIC resolve the ongoing debate about whether tongues is for some or all believers? The current COGIC stance says it is not necessarily for everyone, a decided departure from Mason.

• And how, as Moore and Franklin note, will the church remain relevant to younger generations?

The hope continues

Perhaps the answers to the crucial questions facing COGIC can be glimpsed by returning full circle in the denomination’s history to its place of origin—Lexington, Mississippi. There, on the very land where Mason established the first COGIC church, Goldie Wells, a distinguished woman leader in COGIC, is now president of Saints Academy, a thriving junior and senior high school that is funded generously by the denomination and admits children and faculty of various Christian backgrounds.

Mason originally opened Saints Academy in 1918 as a private school for local black youth. And under the guidance of Arenia Mallory, another COGIC heroine, it nurtured generations of COGIC and civic leaders, including the late presiding bishop, Louis Henry Ford.

Today, with many of America’s urban public schools turning into war zones where few absolute values can be taught, Saints Academy in two years has drawn 26 boarding students from 13 states along with 124 local students to study in a safe, nurturing environment where they can also learn biblical principles. At least 25 other COGIC private day schools also exist around the country.

Wells, a fourth-generation COGIC member, became Saints Academy’s president after 29 years in the North Carolina school system, most recently as the state’s Chapter 1 director. “Here [at Saints] students are going to get the Bible,” she assures. “They are going to get Bible and prayer as part of their total education.”

The denomination pumps $1.4 million yearly into Saints Academy; tuition averages $2,800; and recently COGIC leaders paid off the mortgage on a pristine new COGIC meeting hall that sits high on a hill at the back of the academy’s campus, looking down on two tiers of steps and two fountains that double as baptismals. Atop the building is a white steeple with a light that flashes around the clock—a symbol of COGIC’s ongoing theme of “love and hope and reconciliation,” Ford declared before his death.

How this theme is embraced and shaped by the future generation of COGIC leaders, like those here at Saints Academy, may decide the lingering questions faced by this flourishing denomination.

Almost every day, William Dean, now in his early 60s, who himself attended Saints Academy and now pastors Saint Paul’s Church of God in Christ of Lexington—the original local church founded by Mason—travels by the spanking new COGIC meeting hall. He thinks of Mason and Mallory and Ford and others who have gone before him. He looks at the children playing basketball in the parking lot down the hill.

What would the African-American mystic and social reformer Charles Harrison Mason think of this new Saints Academy in the town where his still-expanding movement began nearly 90 years ago? It is likely he would feel the same way about the denomination as a whole, posits Dean. “He would have a reassurance that what God gave him was really the work of God, and that the vision he had to nurture and train a person not just spiritually, but to train the holistic man, is preserved. I really think Bishop Mason would be smiling.”

Joe Maxwell is a freelance writer and a national correspondent for World magazine.

If you go to your psychotherapist complaining of depression, anxiety, a sense of emptiness in your life, a collapsing marriage, uncontrollable children, headaches, and ulcers, one thing he probably won’t say to you is: “Herb, you’re greedy. You need to change your whole attitude about money, turn your mind to healthier objects. The therapy I would suggest, for starters, is that you give away something that is of great value to you, and that you volunteer for a couple of weeks at the Salvation Army soup kitchen.”

Our culture is little inclined to see greed as a major source of human troubles. Rather, it is seen as what makes the world go ’round. It’s not a vice but a virtue.

Still, we have the apostle’s words, “The love of money is the root of all evils” (1 Tim. 6:10). As a form of idolatry (Col. 3:5), the love of “goods” cancels out faith in God, since no one can have two absolute masters (Luke 16:13). Greed can create the anxiety, depression, and loss of meaning that often comes in middle age after a “successful” life of acquiring the “goods” of this world. Greed tempts us to other forms of corruption, such as lying, swindling, cheating clients, and cheating the government.

The psalmist says the righteous will hold in contempt those who trust in abundant riches (Ps. 52:6-7). A camel slips more easily through the eye of a needle than a rich person into the kingdom (Luke 18:25). To a wealthy man who has kept the law but still seeks salvation, Jesus says he must give his riches to the poor and follow him (Luke 18:18-22). A rich man who builds bigger barns so that he can use his agricultural fortune to secure himself is called a fool (Luke 12:15-21).

James puts the point more strongly than any: “Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days” (5:1-3; the following Bible references are all from the NRSV). No wonder rich people who believe in the authority of Scripture are so alarmed!

WHY WE GO TO MALLS

Why are shopping malls so popular? Why are they a place not just to make purchases, but to be entertained without even buying anything?

One answer is greed. Greedy people seek out stimulations that arouse and titillate their acquisition fantasies, just as lustful people seek out stimulations that arouse them sexually. If lust finds a certain frustrated gratification in perusing the pages of Playboy or Playgirl, greed finds similar satisfaction in ogling stylish clothes, computers, furniture, and kitchen appliances.

Greed and stinginess are twin vices concerned with the taking and giving of things of value. The greedy take too much, the stingy give too little. Greed is not just the behavior of taking too much and giving too little. The heart of greed is certain attitudes, thoughts, and emotions concerning things of value.

The importance of attitudes can be brought out by thinking of one of greed’s cousins, covetousness. Covetousness is not just wanting lots and lots of something, but wanting, in an improper way, something that belongs to another. Imagine a farmer who covets his neighbor’s rich land. For 20 years his mind dwells on it, turning over schemes to get it for himself, but none of his plans ever comes to the point of execution, and finally he dies. Even though he never took a single thing unlawfully from this neighbor, his coveting corrupted his spiritual attitude toward his neighbor, preventing love and friendship, and it filled his heart and mind with this futile and unworthy wish.

It is not vicious to want to acquire things. Having possessions is as natural as eating and sexual relations. It would be a sign of ill health if we took no interest at all in these things. Desire is not by itself vicious; it becomes vicious when disordered, when the desire for food or sex becomes obsessive, for example, or directed toward improper gustatory or sexual objects.

A sure sign of greed (the disordered desire for wealth) is that your wanting things always outruns your having them. Greed is the successful business person who tells you, without blinking, that he is on the brink of poverty. It is the middle-class couple who say they cannot afford to have another child. It is “upward mobility,” the climb that ends not in satisfaction and peace, but in exhaustion, disappointment, and emptiness. “Sweet is the sleep of [poor] laborers, whether they eat little or much; but the surfeit of the rich will not let them sleep,” says the Preacher (Eccles. 5:12). Greed in its advanced stages will not let us rest content.

Jesus connects greed with anxiety: “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed… . Do not worry about your life …” (Luke 12:13-34). Anxiety about our “security” drives us into a pattern of acquiring more and more, but the acquiring of more also leads to anxiety: the more we have to protect, and the higher the “standard of living” we must maintain, the more fragile we become, the more vulnerable to changes of circ*mstance.

THE ANTIDOTE

If greed, covetousness, and stinginess are the vices of exaggerated attachment to possessions, generosity is the proper disposition. The generous person is loosely attached to goods and wealth and more deeply and intensely attached to God and his kingdom. Stinginess is not just a pattern of bad behavior, but a bad attitude, a bad state of the heart. Generosity, likewise, is not just giving away one’s goods, but having a certain mind about them. The generous person acquires goods in a different spirit from the greedy, and unlike the stingy, she does not cling to the ones she has. She sees her possessions differently, because she sees both herself and other people in a different light.

When Paul wrote to the Corinthians about their contribution to the church in Jerusalem (2 Cor. 8-9), he told them to give not reluctantly, or under compulsion, but gladly. Paul saw that the Corinthians might give lavishly but still not be generous. They might give to avoid embarrassment when Paul visited them, or in a spirit of competition with other givers. But God is unimpressed with such giving, “for God loves a cheerful giver” (9:7).

What is this gladness that goes with generosity? Not just any cheerfulness will count: God takes no special joy in the toothpaste manufacturer who cheerfully gives out lots of free samples in hopes of future profits. The generous person is glad that her beneficiary is being benefited, and glad for the beneficiary’s sake. It pleases her that the gift will help the recipient out of some trouble, or will give him some pleasure, or be useful to him in some way. She has the good of the other in view.

The generosity of a believer is a response to Jesus Christ and never merely a “human” virtue. The gospel is about the generosity of God: God owed us nothing, and yet, out of sheer enthusiasm for us and desire for our well-being, God sent Jesus Christ to dwell among us, to reconcile us to God, and to usher us into God’s fellowship. Through the influence of this welcoming word, our minds are renewed, and we come to see all things in a new light: God is our benefactor, our neighbor is a precious brother or sister, and our possessions are good, in large part, because they are things with which we can serve God and bless our neighbor. When the Holy Spirit has written this word of grace on our hearts, we become generous.

The generous person is not indifferent to possessions. He does not say, like the Stoic, that possessions are of no real importance. But they do not have the same importance for him as they have for the greedy person.

Consider someone’s attitude toward a car. To the stingy person, the importance of the car is strongly tied up with its being her possession at her disposal. She will not be inclined to let other people use it, unless they pay her for its use. For the generous person, the value of the car is not nearly so tied up with its being his. So when it would be helpful or pleasurable for someone else to use his car, he is glad to have it so used. He takes pleasure in someone’s getting some good out of it, even if loaning it out is inconvenient.

The generous person also has a distinctive attitude toward the recipients of her generosity. She sees them as fellow travelers on life’s way, or as brothers and sisters in the Lord. She has a sense of being in some sort of community with these people with whom she shares. They are not alien to her, but united with her in bonds that make their pleasures, convenience, and safety important to her.

Christians do not have a monopoly on generosity, but generosity is very characteristic of the Christian who has taken the gospel to heart. At the center of that rebirth of self is the perception that fellow Christians are brothers and sisters in the Lord, and that even the non-Christian and the enemy are our neighbors whom God loves with the same concern with which he loves us.

The idea of a “Christian” who sees some other humans as aliens, whose well-being is of no interest to him, is a contradiction. And the idea of a greedy Christian does not make sense, though, of course, many people are struggling to be Christians, and part of their struggle is the battle against their own greed.

There is a difference in self-concept between the greedy and the generous person. The self-concept of a greedy person is very tied up with her possessions, which make her feel secure. Such a person sees herself as weak or vulnerable to the extent that she is short of possessions, and strong and secure if she has them.

The generous person, by contrast, does not think of herself as built up or secured by what she possesses. Her security and her substance come from elsewhere, so she can give away her material goods and do so cheerfully. Again, Christianity has no monopoly on generosity, for there are a number of different ways the self can be conceived as secure and substantial independent of possessions. But the truly converted Christian thinks of herself as a spirit, secured and made real by her relationships in a world of spirits. She trusts God for her security and is made real by God’s loving intention. And she finds her substance as a person, her integrity and solidity, precisely in those acts of sharing her possessions, time, attention, and concern that most express the Christian virtue of generosity.

It is in giving to others that we find ourselves; it is in letting go of the ordinary securities of life that we find our true security.

HARMONIC CONVERGENCE

So how do we make sense of what appears to be blatant appeals to self-interest by Paul and Moses on behalf of generous behavior (2 Cor. 9:6-11; Deut. 15:10)?

The Stoics had the idea that to live well is to live in harmony with the universe, to live in a way that reflects the real order of things. On their view, generosity is the natural or appropriate way to live, because it reflects how human nature and the universe are arranged; greed is a disharmony with the universe.

Christian teaching agrees, though it differs about what human nature is and what the universe is like, and so it has a different view of generosity and what’s good about it. The Puritan Urian Oakes put the matter this way:

Man had originally an Empire and Dominion over these creatures here below. But sin hath inverted this Order, and brought confusion upon earth. Man is dethroned, and become a servant and slave to those things that are made to serve him, and he puts those things in his heart, that God hath put under his feet.

We were made for spiritual attachments to God and neighbor, to find our life’s purpose in them. Generosity expresses such attachments. But the greedy person is out of harmony with her spiritual nature, for she tries to find the meaning of her life in possessions.

Jesus made a statement about human nature when he said, “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of one’s possessions” (Luke 12:15). It should not surprise us if a being that is made to find life in God and neighbor gets messed up when she tries to find it in her possessions. It is like being created to eat vegetables and meat but trying to live on Hostess Twinkies; it is not natural and won’t work!

The whole idea of a possession in the mind of the greedy person is out of harmony with the nature of things. From a biblical perspective, we have dominion over material things, but we are stewards (temporarily appointed caretakers) rather than possessors of them. This fits the temporary nature of our mortal life on earth better than the greedy person’s idea of a possession.

Tuberculosis was once called “consumption,” because it causes people to waste away. Greed is a form of spiritual consumption. To the greedy person who is “successful” in his pursuit of possessions, it may seem for a while that he is gaining a more substantial and robust life through his accumulations; in truth, as his soul becomes more and more invested in his possessions, and his heart becomes more and more identified with them, he becomes less of a person.

It sometimes happens that a rich person comes face to face with this emptiness of life. Although the Preacher accomplished great works, he came to see that as so much “chasing after wind” (Eccles. 2:4-8, 11, 17). He no doubt thought he was enthroning himself by accumulating this world’s goods, but he was dethroning himself, becoming a servant to what was made to serve him.

Having a self is a spiritual matter of finding meaning in one’s life, and possessions cannot supply meaning that endures. Contrary to their fondest intentions, the greedy pursue a course of self-loss and emptiness. So being generous is in our self-interest.

GENEROSITY 101

How can we become more generous and less greedy? Jesus said: “The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil” (Luke 6:45).

The influence of thinking on greed was argued in a study conducted by Cornell University researchers. In a survey of U.S. college professors, they found that, despite having relatively high salaries, economists, most of whom assume that self-interest drives behavior, were more than twice as likely as those in other disciplines to contribute no money to private charities. In responding to public television appeals, their median (and most common) gift was zilch. In laboratory monetary games, students behave more selfishly after taking economics courses. These researchers concluded that economists need an alternative model of human behavior, one that teaches the benefits of cooperation. (The study, conducted by economist Robert Frank and psychologists Thomas Gilovich and Dennis Regan, is entitled, “Is the Self-interest Model a Corrupting Force?” [ms., Cornell University, 1991].)

If we can get greedier by digesting the selfish ideology of some economic theories, we might become more generous by taking to heart the Word of God: “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit” (Rom. 8:5).

Christians have an “alternative model of human behavior” and of the universe; setting our minds on certain aspects of that “model” is a discipline by which to root out greed. In trying to become more generous, Christians are trying to change not just their behavior, but their minds. What are some things we might do to cultivate a Christianly generous mind?

First, we might think about possessions. What is a house, a car, a wardrobe, a library, a television set, a well-equipped kitchen, a computer? As useful and pleasant as they may be, are they what life is about? Would life be desperate without them? Do they improve a life that is not otherwise in good order? In the Christian “model,” such things are good but optional. Life without them would be different—more difficult in some ways, but also perhaps more deeply meaningful.

Mission workers in primitive circ*mstances attest that the lack of possessions and conveniences is not all loss; it is also gain. They can identify with Paul when he said, “I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circ*mstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need” (Phil. 4:12). His secret seemed to be his life in God, which relativized these goods, making them good but not necessary.

Jesus thought it easier for a camel to get through the needle’s eye than for the rich to enter the kingdom of God; God’s reign is foreign to those who think their possessions are necessary. So Jesus prescribed radical therapy for the rich ruler: that he give away his possessions. Nothing short of experiencing the absence of possessions could make him see their true significance.

We can try setting our minds on the biblical concept of possessions by contemplating people whose lives are happy without them. But in all likelihood we will not put material possessions in proper perspective until we start giving them away. Try this exercise. Look among your possessions for something that is quite meaningful or useful to you, something you’re inclined to think you can’t do without and that you can’t easily replace. Then give it away. The experience that will follow may help you to see possessions in gospel terms.

Second, try thinking about others’ needs in connection with what you have. Imagine how some of your money would help a school in the Sudan, or some of your time would bless the elderly man down the street. Put yourself in the shoes of those who could profit from these goods; imagine the convenience or opportunity or comfort they may mean to these people.

Thinking changes us most when it’s put into action, when we deliberately “go out of our way” to do something for someone else. Doctors can volunteer for short-term assignments in Third World clinics; teachers can give special attention, after hours, to certain students; husbands can take an afternoon off from “their” work to prepare a festive dinner for the family.

I am such a stingy person that taking some real care in selecting a birthday gift expands my horizons! I once helped paint a house being built by Habitat for Humanity. Seeing that house, working on it hands-on, meeting the people who were to own it, and experiencing a bit of their joy in the prospect of having a nice place to live gave me a very different perspective on my contribution. It made my mind more generous, more willing to give, and more cheerful in the giving.

If we are deeply stingy, we’ll resist the imagining and experiencing that makes us perceive others as our neighbors. We won’t want to open ourselves emotionally to their needs and pleasures, lest the appeal to our minds costs us time and goods! So it may take some courage to undertake this second discipline.

The third and last discipline is to think about yourself. Who are you? What is your mind like? Does your life consist too much in the abundance of your possessions? What kind of life do you want? What kind of person do you wish to be? We need to get very clear about how empty a life is if it consists in the abundance of our possessions—and then measure our actual abundance against this standard.

To see the beauty of generosity and the ugliness of greed, it helps to have models like Jean Vanier, Mother Teresa, or some saint in your congregation, people who find joy, fulfillment, and selfhood in God through giving themselves to others. Meditating on these persons as models for life helps us to see what a real, substantial, abundant self is like, and to yearn for that kind of personality.

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Robert C. Roberts is professor of philosophy and psychological studies at Wheaton College. This article is adapted and excerpted from “The Sin of Greed and the Spirit of Generosity,” published in pamphlet form by the Center for Applied Christian Ethics, Wheaton College. Roberts is author of “Taking the Word to Heart: Self and Other in an Age of Therapies” (Eerdmans, 1993).

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