Last month the U.S. observed the national holiday commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, and now Black History Month is upon us. What better time for Christians to contemplate King’s legacy and message, as well as the plight of the black person in this country? We therefore are pleased to feature La Shawn Barber’s informative and balanced cover article on King, his work, and his philosophy. Those of us who lived through the turbulent 1960s can recall that King was not always someone for whom white people would have expected to have a national holiday declared in his honor. Some suspected him of being a communist and even more viewed him as a lawbreaking troublemaker. In the South, even some of those who did not dislike him on racial grounds resented him for upsetting the status quo. One hundred years earlier, white Christians in the North had been at the forefront of the abolitionist movement that ended slavery, but in the 1950s and ’60s white Christians in the South often resisted desegregation and it was more often white secularists from the North, rather than white Christians, who marched with the blacks in their struggle to realize their civil rights. Though there were notable exceptions, on the whole it was not the church’s finest hour. The civil rights movement was identified at the time with the political Left. It was largely Democrats who participated, not Republicans. In today’s terms, it would be considered “politically correct.” Without the benefit of hindsight that we now have, it was easy for Christians to be suspicious of, and to stand aloof from, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement, and the clear majority did. Yet, despite the faults one might find with King’s theology, his personal life, and even his political philosophy, the cause that he was fighting for was manifestly just and the repressive sociopolitical forces he was fighting against were manifestly evil. What he and his movement accomplished greatly benefitted not only American blacks, but other racial minorities, and it helped heal a moral cancer in the country’s soul. By not taking a clear stand on this issue, the white church ceded the moral high ground to the secular Left, and it left a smirch on evangelical Christianity. Despite their taking principled and even courageous stands on many issues before and after the civil rights movement (e.g., abortion), evangelicals’ past failure to offer a prophetic voice against civil rights abuses has continued to be a stumbling block in the way of many people considering the claims of Christ. I know this firsthand because I have tried to share Christ with many such people, and it was an obstacle that I myself had to overcome in order to accept Christ. What lessons can we draw today from this piece of not-too-distant history? One obvious lesson would be: just because the political Right is championing an issue doesn’t guarantee that it is morally right, and just because the political Left is championing an issue doesn’t ensure that it is morally wrong. Our God is transcendent, and it only makes sense that truth is transcendent and cannot be perfectly captured or embodied by any one political party or movement. Although the political Right is more closely associated with traditional values and therefore biblical influences on such issues as sexual morality, the sanctity of life, and the family, the political Left also exhibits direct or indirect biblical influences in its emphasis on social justice issues. Clearly, it seems, a majority of evangelicals identify themselves as Republicans, but there are also many evangelicals who are registered Democrats or Independents. Conversely, while secular humanists seem to have a clear preference for the Democratic Party, the Republican Party and the political Right in general have their own share of irreligious people, not to mention hypocritical professors of religion. In the name of increasing political clout, moral and immoral people on both the Right and the Left have often formed unholy alliances, and righteous causes have been compromised as a result. Conscientious Christians should therefore not enter the ballot box and mindlessly put a check next to every candidate and ballot issue they’ve heard advocated on Fox News, or even those tacitly endorsed in a handout received at church the previous Sunday. We should ask ourselves: are there any issues facing Christians today that future generations might look back on as we now look back at the civil rights issues of the 1950s and ’60s? Are we ceding any moral high ground to the secular Left? How should Christians view torture as an interrogation technique? The Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Wars of choice? It is not my purpose here to advocate for one side of these or other debates, but rather for critical thinking and deep biblical reflection. One of the purposes of the JOURNAL is to promote such critical thinking, and so we have published, and will publish again, debates, Viewpoint opinion pieces, and probing feature articles that will assist you in thinking through contemporary issues. As we consider the lessons evangelicals can learn from the civil rights movement, the need to think critically and biblically and not merely follow the right-leaning pack is surely one of them.

—Elliot Miller

I caught your attention with my title, but the point of this editorial is not that we should always say no to Facebook and other social media. If that were my point, then I would be a hypocrite. I’ve had a Facebook account since January 2008 and, while I’m not a daily user of Facebook, there are spurts where I make heavy use of it.

For example, last night I used Facebook to make contact with someone whom I haven’t heard from in thirty-five years! This morning I also used Facebook to send condolences to second cousins of mine whose father died yesterday. I also scanned my Facebook “news feed” this morning to find out what is going on with my “friends” and what current events they think are worthy of discussion. Additionally, I hope to find the time soon to upload pictures from CRI’s Caribbean cruise for my Facebook friends to enjoy. Facebook has all these uses and more, including ministry and evangelistic ones, as Douglas Groothuis notes in this issue’s article, “Understanding Social Media” (p. 18).

The point of this editorial is rather that we should learn when to say no to Facebook and other social media. On an Internet page devoted to Facebook addiction, the following desperate posts attest to the deteriorating affects Facebook overuse can have on study and work habits (not to mention writing and spelling ability!):¹

Oh my goodness, i hope this works, i am seriosuly addicted, facebook is all i do these days. Sleep, eat and Facebook, which is terrible because i have so many exams that i need to be concentrating on.

I REALLY wannaa quit facebook, buti just can’t. I used to be a straight A student but now all i doo iss comee back from school, check facebook, sign on msn, sleep, then facebook again then dinner then bed time! Plus ivee got my IG exams this year and i think im failing. PLZ HELP MEE!

Im crazy addicted to facebook. it’s interfering with my job….i check it 6 times an hour i would say, and i think about checking it when i am in places where i cannot check it, and it feels so good to check it when I haven’t for a couple of hours….i check it first thing when i wake up….and i just realized how rediculous this is…i mean i really want to stop it. I don’t want to delete my account as i would lose touch with people, but i wish i could use it in a way that isn’t so obsessive. I have actually mentally stated that i will not check my facebook, and then without even realizing it….im typing facebook.com into my browser, and going DOH!!!!! It’s such a nasty little habit/addiction. If anyone has gone through this and is now got it under control email me please.

I’ve heard less extreme confessions of Facebook addiction from people I personally know. While I have not experienced a compulsion to log onto Facebook frequently, I do understand its allurement. Like the rest of the World Wide Web, Facebook is open-ended. There is no limit to information you can read, pictures you can view, fan pages you can visit, and so forth. Additionally, on Facebook you can be the star, adding as much information and uploading as many photos and videos about yourself as you please. It all may be trivial, but that can be part of its appeal, offering an escape from the drudgery and difficulties that may otherwise fill your day.

Now, I believe in the therapeutic value of occasional diversions-a time in the day or week where we can feel free to unwind and recharge with something fun or entertaining, such as fiction, music, or some outdoor activity. If someone uses Facebook or other social media wholesomely for that purpose, I see no problem with it. But when Facebook use starts spilling into time that should be reserved for more important ends, then there is a problem, and the first step to correcting a problem is recognizing it.

Scripture exhorts us to make the most of our time, “because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:16). It also admonishes us, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men” (Col. 3:23). If we habitually say yes to Facebook or other trivial Internet pursuits at times when we should be tending to such responsibilities as work, study, devotions, church, ministry, quality time with family, and household maintenance, then we will eventually have to give account to God for our poor stewardship of the time and resources He has given us (2 Cor. 5:10). If we are prone to addictive or obsessive-compulsive behavior, we could find ourselves in a vicious circle of seeking relief through Facebook from an increasingly depressing situation created by overuse of Facebook, perhaps crying out to strangers on the Internet, “PLZ help me!”

Self-control is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). It does not consist in isolating ourselves from all influences of the world, as the desert monks of the ancient church did, but rather in learning on a moment-by-moment basis when to say no to those influences. As the apostle Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians, God has given us the things of this world to use and enjoy, but at the same time He has given us to Christ (3:22-23), and so we are not our own (6:19). Therefore, the glory of God must be the key criteria for all our behavior (6:20; 10:31).

It’s a question of service: does our use of Facebook serve our best interests and those of the Kingdom and glory of God, or does it bring our minds and time under servitude to Facebook itself, at the expense of those higher interests? If you find the latter becoming the case, then I suggest going on a “Facebook fast” for as long as it takes to break its power over you. Only resume use for as long as you are able to retain your self-control. This is a guiding principle I have found effective in keeping my liberty to use the things of this world from deteriorating into a slavery to those things that compromises my true liberty in Christ. In this way we can stand in the good company of Paul, who declared: “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything” (1 Cor. 6:12).

-Elliot Miller

NOTES

1. See “How to Stop That Facebook Addiction,” All Facebook: The Unofficial Facebook Resource, http://www.allfacebook.com/2007/10/how-to-stop-thatfacebook-addiction/.

While some would debate the validity of one or more of these concerns, no one with a grip on reality would argue that there are no valid environmental concerns at all. How then did we get to this place, and how do we change course to a more sustainable future? This magazine is not the place to tackle such complex questions, except as they bear on Christian apologetics-which they do, for it has long been fashion able to blame Christianity at least partly for the planet’s environmental woes.

The reasoning often follows this line: these crises were brought on by rapid and often unchecked industrialization and urbanization in the Western world and now are being multiplied by rapid and often unchecked industrialization and urbanization in the developing world. The original Industrial Revolution (beginning in eighteenth-century England) was often justified by appeal to the Dominion Mandate in Genesis 1:28, in which God commanded humanity to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (NASB; emphases added). Although other influences have since contributed to massive consumption of the earth’s resources for short-term benefit without proper regard for long-term consequences, critics allege that the Judeo-Christian creation story continues to play a key role in providing theological justification for environmental exploitation and abuse.

Many advocates of this view further argue that what we need now is a new creation myth that teaches an ethic of ecological balance and of reverence for the Earth. Such a New Age myth would use pantheism to infuse nature with a divine essence, put other forms of life on an equal footing with humanity, and portray all life on Earth not only as interconnected and interdependent, but also as evolving into a single planetary being and consciousness. Whether such people invoke the Gaia hypothesis (see Godawa’s article), the nature worship of neopagans, or the static (and therefore nonindustrial) cultures of animistic societies, they maintain that it’s time for Westerners to trade in their violent and polarizing sky god (i.e., Yahweh) for an embracing and holistic Earth goddess.

The attempt to promote a cultural conversion to such a new myth has been a serious enterprise for decades. I wrote about it at length in this magazine in the 1980s¹ and in my 1989 Baker book, A Crash Course on the New Age Movement. New myth advocates utilize both academic and popular media in works of both nonfiction and fiction. None have been more spectacular, with greater potential to effect such a conversion, however, than the unparalleled blockbuster movie, Avatar. Brian Godawa provides an incisive critique of the film while Dan Story adds helpful perspective on the related question of animism.

Due to space limitations, I can only briefly contribute to this discussion. First, the search for an eco-friendly religion begs the question of whether a religion is objectively true. Religion deals with ultimate questions such as the meaning of life, the basis and nature of morality, and the way to achieve both temporal and eternal salvation. One’s religion should be selected on the basis of its coherence with reality, not on its seeming pragmatic value in one or more areas of life.

Furthermore, if a religion does correspond with reality, then how could it be truly inferior to a false religion in any area of life? It must, in the final analysis, be superior. Therefore, if people have used true religion to justify environmental abuse, it must be that they have abused the religion as well as the environment by taking the religion’s teachings out of context.

But, the new myth advocate counters, didn’t God tell man to rule over the earth? Yes, but as I wrote twenty-four years ago, the scriptural model of rulership never allows the ruler to exploit and abuse his subjects: “On the contrary, it calls for care, protection, and wise, just administration (e.g., Ps. 72; 82; Jer. 22:1-5; Ezek. 34:1-22).”² Surely God entrusted the Earth to man as a stewardship, since He Himself never ceased to own it (Ps. 24:1; 50:12). Furthermore, “since God established an order in His creation, and gave us the capacity to understand it, then to the best of our ability, we are responsible to maintain it.”³ If God went to the extent of bringing every species to Noah for preservation on the Ark, then it follows that we are responsible likewise to preserve God’s amazing creations. If He saw fit to create a protective ozone layer in the atmosphere, then we would be fools not to redirect any human activity that is depleting it.⁴ The same reasoning applies to rainforest destruction, pollution, and any other byproduct of human activity that is diminishing or threatening God’s creation.

Certainly, a culture that follows the Dominion Mandate will be dynamic and not static, harnessing human ingenuity and natural resources to realize humanity’s God-given potential. But this is compatible with what reasonable environmentalists advocate, since they are not calling us to abandon civilization but rather to limit urban sprawl to a more appropriate scale, develop cleaner technology, protect unique ecosystems, and so forth.

Pantheism may seem to elevate nature by infusing it with a divine quality, but historically pantheism has rather produced indifference to nature by teaching it is a meaningless illusion to be overcome in order to achieve enlightenment. Pantheistic systems can only glamorize nature by inconsistently incorporating biblical notions of creation’s inherent goodness into their worldview.

The Bible provides the most solid ground possible (the very word of Almighty God) for both the inherent value of all creation (Gen. 1:31) and for the superior value of humanity that we humans instinctively sense to be true-for humans alone were created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26). The Bible therefore does not support some of the demands of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and other extreme environmental positions. If they or one of their loved ones were diagnosed with colon cancer, for example, how many PETA members would reject a successful immunization therapy if they found out it was developed by injecting colon cancer cells into rats?⁵ It seems in most cases an epiphany would occur and the superior value of a human being to a rat would at last be recognized.

Let the PETA members work for more humane methods of experimenting with animals without opposing all such experimentation, lest a greater evil than abuse of animals be committed. Without the dual poles of creation’s inherent value and humanity’s superior value providing the necessary tension in environmental ethics, what may appear to be humane treatment of animals at first light can prove to be inhumane treatment of our own kind under the full light of day. We see then that the Bible, coherent as always with reality, supports a doctrine of creation care, but it does so with a sense of proportion, rejecting any misguided doctrine of egalitarianism among all God’s creatures.

-Elliot Miller

NOTES

1 See Elliot Miller, “The ‘New Myth’: An Outline of New Age Ideology,” Forward 8, 4 (1986), http://journal.equip.org/articles/new-age-series-part-3-the-new-myth-; and Elliot Miller, “The ‘New Myth’: A Critique of New Age Ideology,” Forward 9, 1 (1986), http://journal.equip.org/articles/new-age-series-part-4-the-new-myth.

2 Miller, “The ‘New Myth’: A Critique.”

3 Ibid.

4 Efforts along these lines do seem to have turned the ozone depletion trend around. See “Ozone Layer Depletion Leveling Off, Satellite Data Show,” Science Daily, September 22, 2009, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090921134831.htm.

5 Such successful experiments have indeed been conducted. See Yongchun Cui, et al., “Unraveling the Mystery of γδ T Cell Recognizing Lipid A,” Cellular and Molecular Immunology 2, 5 (2005): 362 (http://www.cmi.ustc.edu.cn/2/5/359.pdf).

As President of the Christian Research Institute (CRI), I inherited a wealth of information on cults, the occult, and aberrant Christian theologies. My assumption was that as an organization committed to first-rate primary research the information in our files was substantially correct. Over the past twenty plus years this assumption has been validated time and time again. But not always. In the mid ’70s the Christian Research Institute in collaboration with researchers Bob and Gretchen Passantino initiated an evaluation of the local churches that would become a fountainhead of misinformation.

This reality began to surface in 2003 when I asked Gretchen Passantino and Elliot Miller, editor-in-chief of the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL, to join me for a meeting with representatives of Living Stream Ministry. During the meeting I heard stirring affirmations of the very doctrines the local churches allegedly denied. One by one, and in their own words, representatives of the local churches testified to their belief in one God, revealed in three persons who are eternally distinct; to the reality that human beings can never ontologically attain Godhood; and to the fact that they were “only the church” as opposed to being “the only church.”

As a result, I initiated a research project culminating in The expanded cover story of this Special Edition of the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL Primary research was conducted not only in the U.S. but in such faraway places as China, Taiwan, South Korea, and England. It involved careful evaluation of literally hundreds of books, papers, church documents, and audio and video recordings. Even court documents.² The result of our primary research is encapsulated in the following three word;: “We were wrong!”

Gretchen Passantino uttered the words, ” I was wrong,” to a believer in Shanghai who had been in prison from the time his daughter was born to the time she turned seventeen. Elliot Miller said, ” I was wrong,’” to a man in Fuqing who had suffered imprisonment for a total of twenty-four years. Their words were not merely uttered in the moment of emotion. No! They were uttered after years of painstaking primary research.

While we have significant doctrinal differences with the local churches on nonessentials such as aspects of eschatology (my book, The Apocalypse Code, testifies to that reality), when it comes to essential Christian doctrine-the very doctrines for which the martyrs spilled their blood-we stand shoulder-to-shoulder.

The Christian Research Institute is no stranger to controversy. Y2K is a classic case in point. The cover story of a 1999 edition of the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL was titled “The Millennium Bug Debugged.” As a result, we were characterized as “blind to truth” or “downright uninformed,’” like an ostrich with our head in the sand. When I suggested on the Bible Answer Mall broadcast that Y2K would not even be a top-ten news Story in the year 2000, I was accused of causing complacency in the body of Christ. One broadcaster went so far as to say that I would have the blood of millions of Christians on my hands because I was causing complacency in the body of Christ. I experienced the wrath of Christian gate-keepers, who were selling freeze-dried food and survival kits, and of people in the pews, who were absolutely certain that their leaders—particularly those politically connected—could not possibly be wrong on such a crucial matter.

Another significant controversy involved Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God. I still vividly recall the controversy that erupted in the ’90s when I began meeting with church leaders. Yet, in 1994 the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL and the Bible Answer Man broadcast were privileged to be first to announce publicly that the Worldwide Church of God had embarked upon a course virtually uncharted in church history-a course that took them from the kingdom of the cults to the kingdom of Christ. Moreover, I was blessed to be able to write the foreword to a book by Joseph Tkach, President of the Worldwide Church of God, titled Transformed by Truth . Today he is not only my dear friend, but my brother in Christ-one who has made the pilgrimage from cultism to Christ.

In those days our ministry was deeply grateful for the friendship and support extended to “The Church Reborn” by cult expert Dr. Ruth Tucker, Christianity Today’s David Neff, Azusa Pacific University, Fuller Seminary, and Regent College. Together we believed that if God could redirect entire movements by changing the hearts of leaders, there was no telling what He might yet do through our continued faithfulness.

Joseph Tkach, by God’s grace was able to utter the words, “We were wrong.” We now express those same words regarding our stance on Watchman Nee, Witness Lee, and the local churches.

The cost has been significant. Integrity has been questioned, motives challenged, and slander has ensued. As a result, support has been compromised. If I heard it once I heard it a thousand times. How can seventy Christian leaders who signed an open letter (see the cover Story ) calling the local churches to confess their false doctrines and practices be wrong? Surely, the integrity of CRI has been compromised.

In the midst of the turmoil I have reminded staff that ministry is no place for a popularity contest. That it is not about the size of the platform. Or about political correctness. At the end of the day, we do what we do, because Truth matters!

Whatever the cost it pales by comparison to that borne by the persecuted church in China and around the world. That reality was memorialized in a moment forever emblazoned upon my mind. A Chinese woman with brilliant smile had just finished communicating the experience of incarceration due to reading unauthorized material in an unauthorized meeting. Not a hint of self-pity. Only the radiance of a follower of Christ who had experienced the reality of authentic New Testament Christianity. When she finished, she thanked me for standing for truth no matter the cost. Never have I felt more unworthy. Whatever I face pales by comparison to what she and multitudes like her have suffered.

Perhaps no three words are more likely to stick in our throats than the words, ” I was wrong.” Yet for a ministry committed to the maxim, “because Truth matters,” the willingness to utter these words is not an option, it’s an essential.

—Hank Hanegraaff

notes

1 Because Nee had no intention of starting a new church movement or denomination, and because he considered himself ” just a brother” and nor a pastor or leader, there was no formal transfer of “authority” from Nee to anyone else. Therefore, there have always been some who have denied legitimacy to Lee’s leadership and who have, in fact, disagreed strongly with Lee’s understanding of Nee’s teachings. We have examined these alternative interpretations and developments of Nee’s teachings and do not believe that there is significant difference between Nee and Lee, nor any compelling evidence that Nee and Lee represent different teachings or different expressions of the church.

2 Elliot Miller and Gretchen Passantino, who had participated in the original research in the 1970s, were in a unique position to evaluate deficiencies. Bob Passantino died in November 2003 and was therefore not able to contribute to the recent research. Before his death, however, he agreed with his wife and ministry partner, Gretchen, that a reevaluation was necessary and was likely to determine that the original research was at best incomplete and at worst grossly inaccurate.

3 Joseph Tkach, Transformed by Truth (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Books, 1997),54.

Throughout our mortal lifetimes the existence of evil will present a challenge to belief in God, but it is not an insurmountable challenge. As a magazine devoted to Christian apologetics, we have demonstrated this to be the case many times,¹ and we expect to do so many times more.

What people who stumble over the problem of evil on their way to faith in God often fail to notice, however, is that the existence not only of evil but also of good logically poses a far more serious obstacle to reaching the opposite conclusion of disbelief. In other words, the fact that morality is an inescapable dimension of the human experience (even when people choose to do evil) does not seem to square with a randomly evolving godless universe, but it fits perfectly within a purposeful universe created by a moral God.

In this issue of the JOURNAL two feature articles depict the struggle of the nonbeliever to find a basis for the universal sense of morality in something other than God, and other articles touch on the same topic. In each case the solutions proposed are similar, and this similarity was not highlighted in the articles by design. We assigned one of our feature articles to deal with the philosophy of utilitarianism and another to address the evolutionary ethics of Richard Dawkins. The remaining articles were to cover unrelated topics of apologetic concern. It was only in editing the articles that I noticed the pattern.

Utilitarianism is a modern form of an ancient approach to ethics called hedonism. In both systems good is defined as pleasure or happiness and evil is defined as pain. Whereas hedonism maintains that the greatest good occurs when the individual achieves pleasure, utilitarianism holds that the greatest good occurs when the greatest number of people achieves happiness.

It turns out that Richard Dawkins’s evolutionary ethic, in its most noble formulation (at times it is quite ignoble), is essentially utilitarian. Furthermore, popular motivational speaker Anthony Robbins, who is neither a philosopher nor a professing atheist, nonetheless grounds his message of personal power in a hedonistic ethic of pleasure as good and pain as evil. Finally, our review of the book Naturalism parallels these feature articles in its discussion of problems that occur when atheists attempt to ground morality in nature or evolution.

From different places in the magazine, therefore, distinct criticisms are voiced that complement each other. Together they resoundingly refute hedonism, utilitarianism, and evolutionary ethics. Atheists for whom truth matters should be troubled by the inability of these prominent representations of their worldview to do justice to one of the most fundamental and important attributes of human nature.

However, the problem of good and evil is a good problem for those atheists who have followed their belief system to its logical conclusion of nihilistic despair and are seriously ready to consider evidence for the existence of God. I should know. Decades ago, at the beginning of my spiritual journey, I was one of them.

—Elliot Miller

notes

1 See, e.g., Lee Strobel’s “Why Does God Allow Suffering?” published in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in vol. 24, no. 1, http://www.equip.org/ articles/why-does-god-allow-suffering-Elliot Miller