hedrick@cs.rutgers.edu (05/27/91)
A couple of weeks ago, Louie Crew made comments about IVCF and Campus Crusade. He accused them of being narrowly focused on personal salvation, and pushing people into activities like Bible quizes. I understand the concern, and in at least some cases it seems to be justified. Christian congregations must maintain a balance of ministry to those in need, activities intended to help personal spiritual growth, Biblical (and other Christian) education, and evangelism. I do not expect all groups to strike the same balance, and in fact I think the Church is enriched by differences in differences in emphasis. But I would be suspicious of groups that neglect any of these things. I do not buy the argument that because campus groups are only para-church organizations, they don't need to engage in ministries to those in need -- unless there is an explicit policy of making sure that their members are involved in such activites through their churches. Groups such CC and IVCF are often dealing with new Christians, or people whose situation in college is sufficiently different from home that they might as well be new Christians. It's important to help them form the right concept of what it means to follow Christ, and I agree with Louie that this does not mean only personal salvation. On the other hand, I am concerned that "liberal" church circles may tend to go the other way, and emphasize social action and "fellowship", but be less enthusiastic abut activities intended to train Christians in the Bible. As long as Christianity is based on the revelations of God encountered through Scripture, it is important for all Christians to have a good grasp of the content of the Bible and an ability to draw reasonable conclusions from a passage. If we lose the ability to make our own judgements based on Scripture, then we are likely to fall prey to what some have called the "politically correct", i.e. what happens to be popular in the church this year. At the moment, it may be "liberal" causes, but what happens when people get tired of that and there's a conservative backlash? The original impetus for "social action" came from people immersed in Jesus' message and the prophets. I think it's important for people to connect continuing justice activites with God's call for justice to roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream, and for them to appreciate the tension between the prophetic perspective and the authority of governments. There are various ways to build basic Biblical competence, but for college students that plan to be active in my church (Presbyterian Church (USA)) I believe it is almost mandatory to take introductory courses in both OT and NT. Most of our churches do not have strong enough youth or adult Christian education programs to substitute for this (and it's probably not realistic to expect that they could). In order to participate meaningfully in discussions of issues such as sexual policy that are happening in our church, you really need to understand modern critical approaches to the Bible, even if you don't accept them. Some "conservatives" suspect that there is less concern about the Bible in churches such as mine. I don't think that's the case. Our basic policy decisions are all made based on leaders' views of what the Bible says, we have Bible studies in our churches on a regular basis, etc. Where I think we may have problems is that the way in which the BIble is being used by our leaders is rather different from the way our typical members read it. I'm not sure our average members are in a position to participate in discussions of the Bible based on critical methodologies. (Indeed I'm not sure that even clegy are always keeping up their competence. When my uncle was a District Superintendent in the United Methodist Church, he made a practice of giving Christmas gifts to all of the clergy in his district consisting of some book dealing with current theological issues. He had a suspicion that otherwise many of them did not read anything. I haven't seen indications of this kind of problem with the Presbyterian clergy I know, but I would only tend to know relatively scholarly ones.)