“The year 1972 promises to be memorable for evangelical Christianity,” said CT editors in January. “Many signs suggest we are on the verge of a major spiritual awakening that will benefit not churches alone but the whole of civilized culture.”
That editorial quickly moved to one college student’s statement:
I have always been, or tried to be, a vocal crusader against injustice. But when I became a Christian, I saw the realm of social change in a different light. It was always easy for me to lash out against intangible evils like “the establishment” or the “fascist, racist nation.” But through Christ I’ve come to see that the problem is personal. The “establishment” is my next-door neighbor, my teachers, my employer.
I’ve come to see that the most effective and lasting change comes through relating to people, changing the portion of the world that I, as a seventeen-year-old Christian, come in contact with. When seen in this light, America with its many ills is no longer some faceless opponent; it looks like the man next door. Changing him is changing America.
The editors concluded,
For many years, churches have been jostled about by the controversy over social gospel versus personal piety. This dispute has produced in many minds a distinction between personal and social ethics that is unreal. The two areas are merely selective emphases, distinguished for purposes of discussion. One cannot exist without the other.
Richard Nixon went to China in 1972. It was one of the Cold War’s most dramatic diplomatic gambits, shifting global calculations and widening the Russian-Chinese rift. CT called it “a pivotal event of history,” but editors wanted greater emphasis on religious liberty.
No issue is more basic than religious liberty. Of all the subjects to be discussed, none could be regarded as more profitable. Religious liberty is foundational to all human rights; yet there is ample evidence that in our supposedly enlightened times the number of people in the world who enjoy any substantial measure of it is declining!
A discussion of political perspectives or even the physical needs of people is pointless unless the prior claim of religious freedom is acknowledged. If a man cannot live for what he regards as most crucial, then what is the point of living at all? Suppression of religious freedom is the supreme injustice.
CT, reporting on how Christians were faring in another Communist dictatorship, published the observations of two Reformation scholars who visited East Germany.
Everywhere we turned we experienced the monotonous sloganeering and propaganda of a totalitarian state, and we saw no indication that the rigorous police controls over inhabitants and visitors alike had been relaxed. … One frequently senses he is being watched, and nearly everybody speaks in low tones when in public places. …
The East German regime is fundamentally inimical to Christianity. Although it apparently does not wish an open confrontation with the church, it tries to undermine the influence of religion in the country. …
Pastor Wilhelm Eisner ministers to a medium-sized congregation in East Berlin. … According to him, church attendance is lower than it used to be, and because of the youth dedication the number of confirmands has dropped off. Nevertheless, the depth of faith of those who remain is greater than before. In his ministry Pastor Eisner has been emphasizing the lordship of Christ and the necessity for the full commitment of one’s life and goods to him. Official pressures have not emptied his church, but the built-in disabilities for believers have made life more difficult for Pastor Eisner’s flock, and for his family as well. His spirit and courage in standing for the integrity of the Gospel in the face of hostility from the regime were most impressive.
The emergence of a new folk hero caused evangelicals concern in 1972. The mysterious “Dan Cooper” (or D. B. Cooper) hijacked an airplane, demanded $200,000, escaped without the money, and was widely celebrated.
Instead of regarding “Dan Cooper” as an outlaw who had endangered the lives of scores of people in an effort to enrich himself, many people seemed to look at him as a kind of national hero—a modern version of Robin Hood who robbed the rich and kept it all for himself. According to an Associated Press dispatch on November 29, 1971, “most of those responding to questions hoped the daring hijacker would escape.”
A sociology professor at the University of Washington commented that the hijacker won public admiration because he pulled off “an awesome feat in the battle of man against the machine—one individual overcoming, for the time being anyway, technology, the corporation, the establishment, the system” …
All of this is indicative of a strange new mentality that is emerging in our nation. We are living in an age of permissiveness gone to seed—an age when Bonnie and Clyde, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, are idolized rather than condemned, an age when every man supposedly has a right to do his own thing, lawful or not.
Another sign of shifting morality in America was the decline of prayers before public meals.
Protestants in growing numbers are abandoning this form of public worship. Studies have shown … the early 60s saw a resurgence in giving thanks at home but a definite decline in doing so in public. Often children seem willing to pray in a restaurant but the parents are ill at ease. …
Saying grace can … serve as a witness to the unconverted. This willingness to be different may signify dedication, and in all probability the observing non-believer will feel respect rather than scorn. Paul Little in How to Give Away Your Faith suggests that Christians tactfully explain to an unsaved meal companion what they are doing, being careful not to sound superior or self-righteous.
CT also reported concerns about the disappearance of the Protestant work ethic. Carl F. H. Henry said that critics misunderstood the Christian view.
The Bible work ethic is now increasingly indicted on the cheap supposition that the divine assignment to man of dominion over the earth legitimizes depletion of natural resources, pollution of the earth, and the depersonalization of life and culture by empirical scientism. Nothing could be further from the truth. In its radical rejection of Christianity and Reformation theology the mounting post-Christian ethic is motivated more by spiritual rebellion than by ethical earnestness. But Christians must grapple with the work principles the Bible actually gives us, and must square their outlook and behavior with these claims.
CT encouraged evangelicals’ growing concern for the environment and “the emerging food ethic” in 1972.
Devout Christian believers are realizing that they must look out for the “whole man,” and be good stewards of their own bodies. … People are flocking to health-food stores and are trying to forsake processed foods. “Organically grown” foods, those cultivated without the use of pesticides or what are regarded as chemical, artificial fertilizers, are in great demand. Some foods are being touted as especially healthful, among them wheat germ, soybeans, honey, and sesame seeds.
A great new sensitivity has been developing among consumers toward additives used for coloring, flavoring, preserving, and otherwise conditioning food; some are known to be harmful to human health, and others are suspect.
Several new names appeared in CT in 1972—writers who would become important to American evangelicalism in the future. Theology student Wayne Grudem wrote “Letter to a Prospective Seminarian.” Pastor Eugene Peterson wrote about the resurrection:
There was one resurrection; there are four narratives of it. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John tell the story, each in his own way. Each narrative is distinct and has its own character. When the four accounts are absorbed into the imagination, they develop rich melodies, harmonies, counterpoint. The four voices become a resurrection quartet.
Yet many people never hear the music. The reason, I think, is that the apologetic style for years has been to “harmonize” the four resurrection stories. But it never turns out to be harmonization. Instead of listening to their distinctive bass, tenor, alto, and soprano voices, we have tried to make the evangelists sing the same tune. Differences and variations in the resurrection narratives are denied, affirmed, doubted, and “interpreted.”
There is a better way. Since we have the four accounts that supplement one another, we can be encouraged to celebrate each one as it is, and to magnify the features that make it distinct from the others. …
1972 was an election year, and CT looked at the evangelical credentials of the far-right candidate running for president. When segregationist George Wallace was asked if he had been born again, “his answer was anything but vague.”
Wallace testifies that at the age of thirteen he was born again during a little Methodist church revival. In the December issue of the John Birch Society’s American Opinion Wallace was quoted: “I have accepted Christ as my personal Savior. …”
The Wallace campaign has had an evangelistic atmosphere. One observer reported that Wallace rallies combine “old-time rural evangelism, slick country-music salesmanship, and tried-and-true evangelical oratory.” Baptist preacher George Mangum of Selma, Alabama, travels with the campaigns, opening each rally with a “spiritual conversation with our God about some of the political problems in our country.” And, as in a rural revival, ushers pass buckets through the crowd while Mangum appeals for money.
Many Wallace supporters consider him “a good Christian man.”
Democrat George McGovern had some evangelical support as well.
One group of evangelicals—aiming to demolish the “conservative-theology-equals-conservative-politics” stereotype—formed an Evangelicals for McGovern (EFM) committee dedicated to raising funds and pushing their candidate as the one who most closely adheres to biblical principles of social justice. The pitch was made to 8,000 evangelical leaders in a letter from EFM chairman Walden Howard, editor of Faith at Work. …
“Evangelicals should be concerned about social justice from a biblical perspective,” [Howard] said in an interview. “I just don’t believe social justice is a high priority with Nixon. But it’s the heart of McGovern’s motivation.” Howard claimed the McGovern platform “moves at many crucial points in the direction indicated by biblical principles.”
Most evangelicals—and most Americans—voted to re-elect Richard Nixon: His landslide victory, with majorities in 49 states, was “no particular surprise,” according to CT, but editors also called for a full investigation of campaign staff who broke into Democratic Party headquarters and attempted to plant listening devices in the telephones.
There seems little doubt that, whether Nixon knew it or not, a number of his key supporters engaged in a brazen program of political espionage and in unfair attempts to interfere with the nominating and election processes. …
The failure of the White House to counter the charges in any substantial way serves to underscore the impression that much was amiss. We feel that the American people in general do not condone such goings-on and that their return of Nixon to office for a second term should not be so interpreted.
It is now the President’s obligation to pursue with vigor and candor a full investigation of the alleged misdeeds.
Nixon did not heed such calls.
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