Fort Worth Star-Telegram from Fort Worth, Texas • 70

7- 1 "a- WIMP-0 to- 7- gr -701- 7: "4: 2F FORT WORTH STAR TELEGRAM SATURDAY JULY 19 1980 Evangelist theology tackles riches BOULEVARD Assembly of God SAINT JOHNS EPISCOPAL CHLIROi 2801 Collage komatob ttailh Ike Om John 11 mighorb" 01 730 La Hely Commonice 110030 Aiming gm Senn" Gooch School Omens (Nay Cantinunium-41i Sunisf) (Mammy Pkookiele 9:45 am am 'Ay 01 Ostel Cased Iv Or We I PASTOR: TTED ALBRITTON 624-3441 Unitarian Universalist 1 7:00 pm Youth-- 5:30 pm 10:00 am 7:30 pm NW 1416 and Circle Park Blvd distinction involves setting aside or tithing a part of one's wealth in acknowledgement of God as its source Boone who has been "a millionaire at least on paper for 20 years now" wrote that "The more I give the more it comes pouring back then I step up my giving but so does God" Though no one says it nowadays the unhappy flipside implication of this theology is that financial instability and poverty are a direct result of personal sin This view was often espoused in the previous century by some Protestant social activists who were "liberal" in the classical sense of their faith in technological progress as a sign of general human advancement Today many theologians affirm the position of God's preference for the poor but warn against certaM theological excesses that have resulted from that argument In an essay contributed to The Faith That Does Justice the Rev Avery Dulles Si wrote: "No Christian can deny that Jesus may come to us in the poor and the oppressed but I confess that I feel a certain nervousness about the insistence of some liberation theologians that this is the way in which Christ is necessarily to be found in our society" The Jesuit theologian also questioned the liberation doctrine that "the Christian ought to take sides with the poor against the rich thus engaging to the full in the existing conflict among classes" Evangelicals he says "have allowed the values of our affluent materialistic society to shape our thinking and acting toward the poor" "It is much easier in evangelical circles today to insist on an orthodox Christology than on the biblical teaching that God is on the side of the poor" Despite a clear biblical imperative to identify with the poor Sider believes that today's American evangelical community "is largely on the side of the rich oppressors rather than that of the poor" Sider does not direct his accusations at any specific individuals or churches But his views would appear to challenge those of some prosperous television and movie star evangelicals who tell potential donors to their ministry that God can and will better the financial situation of any believer In his inspirational book Pray to Win: God Wants You to Succeed singer Pat Boone says: "Lots of people want more that's okay with God He'll help you get it in fact if you're willing to accept the responsibilities that come with riches and if you're willing to let him lead you in the acquiring of your wealth" A born-again Christian like Siker Boone calls the biblical book of Proverbs "a great 'how to' book on material prosperity" However he draws a sharp distinction between making a god of one's money and acknowledging God as lord of all wealth But the key to coming out on the biblical side of the Continued from Page IF again The statement closed with the warning mat -those who are persistently indifferent to the plight of the needy and so to Christ in them will be irretrievably lost" The convener of the meeting Ronald Sider a professor of theology at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Philadelphia has pounded away at this theme in several of his books and essays The failure of modern evangelical theology to account for God's concern for the poor he says is heretical Evangelicals typically have believed that liberal churches forsake the power of the Gospel when they ally themselves vith secular revolutionary and liber- ation movements' But writing recently in Christian Century Sider said that Christians "if they are really the people of God are also on the side of the poor and oppressed Those who neglect the needy are not really God's people at no matter how frequent their religious rituals or orthodox their creeds and confessions" on this score Sider laid to his evangelical colleagues the same heresy charge they have historically leveled against liberal Christians namely: "allowing our thinking and living to be shapped by the surrounding society's views and values rather than by biblical revelation" Jefferson 1959 Sandy Lan 451-1505 Rev Robert Hill 535-65(19 Services I 1:00 Visitors Weirton re to set and hear America's leading Christian authority on the family lentos Debzetty PhA in the challenging new IU2s PA EyfJORY VE121 allimilmilmoinumummemmit the "Joyful" Assembly of Sad of Lake Worth celebration of praise Sunday: Wednesday: 7:30 Dakota at Foster (l Mk of Jocksboto) Paul Van Winkle' Pastor Film-Christian Fathering 5:45 PM North Fort Worth Baptist Church 1519 Circle Park Boulevard footnotes No bragging is allowed Biography attempts to impartially show Mary Baker Eddy St Timothei Episcopal Church 4201 Mitchell Blvd 8:00 PAoss 9:30 High Moss Sermon and Church School Nursery at 930 Inquirers Class Continuously os "1111411:::: rnitq 11116 oa MOP -124e IN 4 illit SKR I' gr ANDREWS EPISCOPAL CHURCH lOth and Lamar (Downtown) Sunday Services: 8:00 am Holy Communion 10:00 arm Morning Prayer and church school (Holy Communion i it Sunday) Nursery 1000 am Radio Services WSAP (120) tot05 amt SAM ($70) I MOO tem Church of Fort Worth (Church of the "DAILY 901 Page Avenue 9234705 Floyd I Howard Minister Sunday Service 10:45 am 61111110n "Resist Not Thy Good" Youth Education 10:45 am Nursery Provided Metaphysical Book Store The Only Church in Fort Worth Affiliated With The Unity School of Christianity DIAL-A-PRAYER 923-2711 Pt NEW WORLD SINGERS Sunday-July 13 7:00 PM A spirit-filled group with singing and music to bless you IMmilmimmummiii "Churches of Christ Salute You" SUNDAY AM KxAs lk FAITH TEMPLE ill 2101 RIVERSIDE DR 838-8885 CHRISTIAN TEMPLE Loop 820 NE (across from LaCou into) Elbeii Wilkinson Posh By GASTON FOOTE In I Corinthians 138:4 Paul reminds us that genuine "love is not Phillips translates the phrase "love is not anxious to impress" Of course we shun the "conceited ass" who brags about himself as long as there is someone to listen We are more to subtle There are those who never enjoy the conversation unless they are the conversationalists "That reminds me of a sto- Le ry" he says and is off like a shot telling you a yarn that has been FOOTE around since Noah He is determined to impress you that he is a first class raconteur (French for bore) There is the intellectual highbrown who looks down his nose with a jaundiced eye at common folk like us The only books worth reading are the few he has read The only conclusions worth holding are those he holds The only friends worth having are those helms No he doesn't say he is smarter than other people He merely sneers at the opinions not expressed by his own divinely guided lips There is the fellow who is positively certain that money and brains go together like love and marriage He overlooks the fact he inherited a couple of million bucks from his ancestors and still has a few of them left He doesn't even say that he is brilliant He only reminds you that he converses with the President regularly does business on three continents and has a winter home in California and a summer hideaway in Maine His motto is "If you are not in Dunn and Bradstreeet you are not in" I hesitate to bring this up but 1 have known a few ministers who were poor imitations of shrinking violets While they have the floor they seem to be constantly asking the question "How am I doing?" The trouble with boastfulness is that it keeps one's self in the center of the picture Is it not true that unselfish love goes out the window the very moment the desire to impress others comes in? If you jump in the lake to save a drowning child you don't have to worry about making a beautiful swan dive If you render aid in a highway accident you don't have to apply for a Congressional Medal of Honor Don't bank on getting through St Peter's gates because you gave the Salvation Army a pair of old shoes that hurt your feet St Peter just might hand them back to you and make you wear them on hot pavement "Love is not boastful" It is never anxious to impress '7-1536 PO Box 369 Euless Tex 74l9 By LAURENCE MULLIN Religious News Service Books on Mary Baker Eddy the controversial founder of the Christian Science church generally fall into two categories: highly laudatory defensive tracts or sharply critical broadsides Writers either have glorified her as the messenger of a new divine revelation or relegated her to the outer darkness of charlatanism Little Brown and Co in Boston has published a new study of the woman who began preaching a version of spiritual healing in the mid-I9th century that purports to do neither of the usual classifications The book Mary Baker Eddy by Boston psychoanalyst Julius Silberger Jr MD is sub-titled An Interpretive Biography of the Founder of Christian Science Its purpose says the author is "to understand and to describe how it was that (Mrs Eddy's) ingenuity and strength her capacity for innovation and boldness her peculiarities the very weaknesses which others could so easily document were all intertwined interrelated parts of a whole woman of unusual endowment" Eschewing psychoanalytic cant Sitberger makes no psychiatric diagnoses of his study's subject Ile endeavors rather to plumb the psychological and social influences in the life of "a most remarkable talented and individualistic woman" who was "complex interesting and impressive in her own way" "Mary Baker Eddy" he writes "was improbably one of the most influential women of her age She was born into unpromising circumstances She never mastered the limited education that was available to her She lacked literary talent and any real vocation for family life "She struggled against a social order and a century that permitted women only the narrowest range of life choices" Plagued with chronic illnesses for the first half of her life Mrs Eddy experienced a dramatic turnabout at the age of 45 suddenly focusing newfound energies on the development of Christian S'ciencedoctrineand the establishment of the Christian Science church The last half of her life also INA characterized by relentless attacks on Christian Science from Protestant clergy and the medical profession and by mutinies within the church itself Silberger deals with all these developments exploring the inner conflicts of Mrs Eddy herself her efforts to cope with recurrent bouts of physical suffering her insistence on the pervasive nature of "Malicious Animal Magnetism" or the evil effect of one mind on another even at a distance Mrs Eddy was able to use her own inner struggles "to discover a solution that would offer hope for the amelioration of the everyday problemsthat burdened so many of her contemporaries" Silberger writes "God is Good she said and evil and illness are illusions gendered by the false beliefs of those not in harmony with the forces of God's healing "Her own pains now became explained in one of two ways: Either her students and disciples were yearning for her to heal them which would cause her to feel their pains or her enemies were wishing illness upon her by thinking evil thoughts and feeling evil feelings Malicious Animal Magnetisn which served to explain failures in Christian Science healing as well "Either way pain did not come from what was inside of her which was in tune with Spirit but from the material thoughts of others who turned away from belief in Principle (God) and who thus introduced the illusion of evil in a world in which it had no real existence" Silberger's interpretation of Mrs Eddy's life may be challenged by Christian Science church authorities but the psychiatrist himself has insisted he had no intention to "belittle or disparage" the founder of Christian Science on the contrary Silberger writes it is his conviction that Mrs Eddy "by her strength determination and ingenuity by her example and by the way she seized and molded the circumstances of her era made for herself a place in American history beyond the sectarian interests of Christian Science" Currently a psychoanalyst in private practice Silberger earned his AB degree from Harvard in 1951 and his MD degree from the University of Chicago in 1957 He teaches clinical psychiatry and psychoanalysis at Harvard Medical School and the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute The biography of Mrs Eddy is Silberger's first published book REV GERALD DAVIS AN ANNOINTED MINISTER OF THE WORD WILL BE MINISTERING BOTH SERVICES SUNDAY JULY 20 AT 11:00 AM AND 6:30 PM EPISCOPAL CHURCHES Sunday Services ALL SAINTS (AA Hid) 5001 Crdsdne Rd Elachondt 715 1100 AM and SW PM Nursery odd 98 9:15 end 11 AXL 7321424 you ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO WORSHIP MTH US TRUTH GUIDELINES Sunday Service 1020 am "PRODUCTIVE ANXIETY" Nursery arid Youth Education Tuesday Class 11 am Helen Nairn Teacher Office and Book Room Open 10-3 Mon-Fri 926-6011 4401 Trail Lake Or (Orchestra Hall) 292-1971 PASTORS THOMPSON JAMES THOMPSON TRINITY CHURCH acu) ay Si al Staaam Dave MC 700 AM 930 1115 and COO PM 926-4631 CHRIST THE KING 114091911 3290 Lack land Mood HC I-930- 11 15 $8 9'30-732-3121 thristian tenter Formerly Revival Temple presents FIRST PRESBYrERIAN CHURCH 1000 Penn Street FIRST PRESBYrERIAN CHURCH 1000 Penn Street 1 School 103 945 AM Morning Worshrp 1140 A-M "How Strong is Your Faith" Dr Robert Rohl I YOUTH ALIVE 1980 JULY 20-24 ST ANNE'S 6055 Azle Avenue (naar Sow Club Road) Exhume and 1000 AM Nursery and SS 1000 km ST CHRISTOPHER'S PliliaWedgeood) 3550 South Weal Loop $20 830 AM Holy Eucharist MOO Choral Eucharist Nursery provided tor pre-echool children ST LLIKE'SIN-THEMEADOW 4301 Meadoebrook Or 730 AM end 5 PAS 11C 9:30 AM MC end Sermon Nursery ST SIMON'S (Rose 8111 Peril) Comer Ramey Vfld Sta icup Rd HC 130 AM end 10 AIL CS 1000 ST STEPHENS 2711N Hurst-view Hurst 211-2679 Euchanst 1030 Nursery low HOLY APOSTLES ovisti olo 9100 Chepin Rd (Neer Loop 120 and Hey 10) 8 end 10 ASA Nursery 1030 AM Platform has fundamental base Special Speakers Include Rev Gar Ion Pemberton Rev David Schoch Rev Larry Lea NOTICE: Larry Lid will be speaking Tues and Wed Mornings Only SPECIAL MUSIC BY LAMAR AND TERESA BOSCHMAN h'ONDAY NIGHT Youth Alive of Christian Life Center presents the tritten mond former Gov James Edwards of South Carolina and State Sen Beverly Lake GOP candidate for governor whose candidacy has the endorsement of conservative Protestant political groups College Ave Baptist church 1400 College Ave 75th Anniversary and Home Coming July 20 1980 Catered Lunch Ail Form Wernbrss elcorre Farrell Hamilton Pastor ST MICHAEL'S (Richland lie) 2800 Poppiewea Son am 11E 10 Alt HE end cs 5 pm HE Continued from Page IF form committee was born-again Baptist Guy Farley of Virginia who mounted a petition drive boosting the vice presidential hopes of Rep Jack Kemp R-NY Another was the Bible-thumping senator from North Carolina Jesse Helms who wanted the platform to denounce the "giveaway" of the Panama Canal Overall according to a CBS News survey of delegates slightly more than one delegate in four answered "yes" to the question "Was there ever a specific time in your adult life when you made a personal commitment to Christ that changed your life?" Indeed a number of delegates are as is Reagan himself twice born-again both newly converted Christians and ex-Democrats Among them are Helms Sen Strom Thur ST MARTIN'S-IN-THEFIELDS Pearson 19911 1709 Koller ICC 1030 Nursery and OS 1015 Office 431-2396 Vicar 732- 3090 These Christian conservatives are not holding dawn revival services As Lake stated it: "They are gathered under the banner of Gov Reagan" THURSDAY EVENING 730 PM PUBLIC INVITIO NURSERY PROVIDED cithristian lifetenter 2951 SOUTH FREEWAY FORT WORTH TEX 76104 Flowers Pastor 0 James Jamie Neale Youth Pastors ST ELISABETH'S l8910 Black Oak lans-Alvar Oaks) 738 0804 9285852 Sun Maas 800 MA and 1030 AM Benediclion 3rd Sunday COO PM Wad Mass 7:30 PIA Bible is losing its sexism 4 FULL GOSPE BUSINESS MEN'S FELLOWSHIP INTERNATIONAL Hallmark '''74104 Baptist Church lb AL raLystraL JCIN 11-111 1C3 113 I ratsva 7300 Freeway (145 W) (1 mile South of Loop 820) 01 five women had some hotly contested sessions during the almost two years of preparation of their report Dr Krister Stendahl New Testament professor at Harvard Divinity School acknowledged the "ambiguity" in the report "That's the actual situation in the committee" he added "We're a kind of middle group between two extremes" Stendahl said he was among those favoring extensive changes but warned: "The reality of the language of the biblical tradition should not be pushed under the rug Or it will come back to haunt us But there is a problem here We know that" The report says the Revised Standard Version "of all translations must not lend aid and comfort to sexist attitudes and interpretations It should not disenfranchise half of humanity by being addressed to 'the brethren' alone "We know that the present RSV is liable to such interpretations conscious or unconscious Lectures by grammarians about the inclusiveness and generic sense of the English word 'man-men' miss the point" Metzger a Princeton University scholar who is also chairman of a committee preparing a revision of the RSV said his group is eliminating use of male pronouns in English where they do not exist in the original Greek tii'Otioritg) 84::: Religious News Service NEW YORK National Council of Churches is taking a lead in eliminating sexism in the Bible when referring to human beings but feminists' pleas that God be depicted as female have failed to gain acceptance "Personally I'm unwilling to monkey around with God language" declared Dr Bruce Metzger member of the NCC task force that prepared a report on sexism in the scripture "I'm not prepared to cut myself off from the continual Judaeo-Christian tradition and cease calling God father" The report commissioned by the NCC's Div ision of Education and Ministry has been accepted by the division's unit committee The committee will vote on implementation in November after churches belong ing to the national council study the report The task force suggests as an immediate step to prepare a new lectionary containing the Bible passages usually read at Sunday worship services on a three-year cycle in many Christian churches Also proposed is action to change the language about persons in the Revised Standard Version the most popular modern Bible in American English Comments by Metzger and other task force members present indicated that the body of eight men and SUNDAY SERVICES SUNDAY SCHOOL 9:45 AM MORNING WORSHIP 10:45 AM Mt-SERVICES 5:15 PM EVENING SERVICES 6:00 PM WED PRAYER SERVICE NURSERY PROVIDED 9 Oubbnant Speakors The Bat hi Gospel link Tuft WC Dads Sark Chldron's Program ages 542 Free 161rsoy agss 0-4 Register Wit My 23 200 pin Further kto (214) 2332310 or 3506493 Itov Raymond Dunn Pastor Visitors Welcome It "The Friendliest Soul Winning Church in the Metroo lex" -J Ir.