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The great 17th century poet John Donne described the intersection of time and timelessness as two lovers coming together, not unlike the points of a compass. One point of the compass turns, but never moves. The other point draws a circle. The “still turning point,” as T.S. Eliot later explained Donne’s metaphor, defines the center of time, in the midst of eternity.
Was 2007 a turning point in our history? Part of the paradox of this expression is that one rarely knows if a year, or an event, or a moment, is a turning point until much later. But as we look back on 2007 we see some reason to believe it could be. From the war in Iraq to the war against abortion, 2007 may indeed be remembered by history as the year the tide turned.
The year begins
When 2007 began, we were a nation in public mourning. The last president to be born before the beginning of World War I, Gerald Ford, died on Dec. 26, but six days of religious services, mourning and celebration culminated on Jan. 2 with a service at Washington’s National Cathedral. Ford’s life brought forgiveness and healing to a troubled time in American history. His death at age 93 brought remembrances of a different time in American politics.
But he also came from a different era, one in which politics was not as rancorous, at least publicly. In fact, it may be a sign of how much things have changed to remember that in 1976, Ford became the first sitting U.S. president to speak to the Southern Baptist Convention. Carter, his opponent in that year’s campaign, was a Southern Baptist at the time. It was a sign that religion was increasingly becoming a political issue.
Signs of these times
The Virginia Tech shootings. If 2007 is remembered as a turning point—one way or the other—in American history, then the events of April 16 in Blacksburg, Va., will likely be cited as a pivot point.
On that day, a troubled 23-year-old Virginia Tech student opened fire on the bucolic campus, leaving 33 dead before turning the gun on himself in what we now know as the worst mass shooting in American history.
“I’m at a loss for words to explain or understand the carnage that has visited our campus today,” said Charles Steger, president of Virginia Tech, at a press conference just hours after the first reports started pouring out of the campus. He and other officials faced criticism because of a two-hour delay between the first reports of shootings and their ultimate decision to lock down the campus.
In Washington, the House and Senate observed moments of silence for the victims and President Bush said the nation was “shocked and saddened” by news of the tragedy. “Today, our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones,” he said. “We hold the victims in our hearts, we lift them up in our prayers and we ask a loving God to comfort those who are suffering today.”
The tragedy also became an opportunity for Christian groups and nearby churches, which immediately came to the aid of the victims’ families and the survivors.
Alec Hill, president of InterVarsity, said, “Events such as today’s tragic shooting bring students to an abrupt confrontation with their own mortality. InterVarsity staff is trained to help students face life’s issues and find their hope in the promises of Jesus Christ.”
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) deployed its Rapid Response Team of chaplains trained in crisis counseling to Blacksburg.
Some said that such incidents reflected a deterioration of the spiritual infrastructure of the nation. An incident in August caused concern nationwide because of what it said about the nation’s physical infrastructure—and how spiritual strength can help people to cope with tragedy.
I-35W Bridge collapse. When the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed on Aug. 1, the nation was riveted by the story. The story was at once local and universal, compelling on many levels.
Some asked, “Could this happen in my town, to me and my family?” Others said the crumbling infrastructure was a symbol of the spiritual decay of the country, of an inability to delay gratification in search of speed and convenience. The fact that many Christian ministries are headquartered in Minneapolis caused evangelicals to pay particular attention to this news, made more poignant when the body of former missionary Peter Hausmann was retrieved from the Mississippi River just after noon on Aug. 9.
Hausmann was a senior consultant for a small computer company. A native of South Dakota, he met his wife, Helen, while he was working in a mission school in Kenya. The couple has four children, two in high school and two in elementary school. Hausmann was a confirmation teacher in his church and was also active in community and school affairs.
More than 1,400 people packed a memorial service for Hausmann and 12 other victims of the tragedy.
The war in Iraq. Opponents of the war in Iraq complain that we’ve now spent more time liberating this small country of 25 million people than we did to liberate all of Europe and the Far East during World War II. But there can be no doubt that this year saw a change in prospects there. Violence is down. Economic activity is up. Iraq is even running ads on the television stations in nearby countries, encouraging people to “come home.”
But unease continues. Despite the success of the troop “surge” in Iraq, Ron Paul’s presidential campaign has gotten traction by maintaining that Americans have “no business” there. Though Gary Bauer and other evangelical leaders have said Paul is “a good man with whom I agree on many issues, but he badly underestimates the threat of Islamofascism. If we don’t fight Islamic terrorists in the streets of Iraq, we’ll fight them in the streets of America, no matter how high we build the border fences.”
A survey that got a lot of attention in 2007 indicates there may be some truth to Bauer’s dire assessment. Conducted by the Pew Research Center, the survey took a comprehensive look at Muslims in America. The study found that only 26 percent of U.S. Muslims believe the war on terror is a sincere effort to reduce terrorism. Just 12 percent support the decision to invade Iraq, and only 35 percent believe we made the right decision in using military force in Afghanistan.
Only 40 percent of U.S. Muslims believe that Arab men carried out the Sept. 11 attacks. For many conservatives, the most troubling part of the survey was the finding that 1 percent of Muslim Americans say suicide bombings against civilian targets are “often” justified to defend Islam.
Two deadly shooting sprees stun Christians in Colorado. Five people were left dead at New Life church and the Youth with a Mission Training Center (YWAM). Five others were wounded.
Al Meredith, pastor of Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, where a gunman walked into the church and killed seven people eight years ago, told Baptist Press his first thought upon hearing the news in Colorado was, "Here we go again."
"It just seems as though violence has become pandemic in our society. Last week it was a shopping mall in Omaha," Meredith said. "This week it's two churches in Colorado. Last spring it was an academic hall at Virginia Tech. Our society is becoming more and more dangerous for people in places that we used to think were relatively safe, and of course they're not."
Bush’s brain. One of the top political stories of the year may end up being the departure on Aug. 31 of Karl Rove from the Bush White House. Rove has been with Bush since the early days in Texas. Even in those early days, Rove had in mind creating a permanent Republican majority.
In fact, some say his time in politics is not over, and that he is leaving President Bush only because he can’t run for anything else.
Christ and Culture
This year may end up being a turning point in the world of religion, too. From financial scandals, to an enlargement of the evangelical social agenda to include the environment and care for the poor, 2007 may be remembered as the beginning of a new age for evangelicalism, the age not of proclaiming the Gospel, but of living the Gospel in ways that are credible to unbelievers.
The Grassley investigation. Early in the year, on Mar. 23, Ministrywatch.com founder Rusty Leonard was featured on a “20/20” segment, raising new questions about an old problem for evangelicals—televangelists.
The “20/20” segment highlighted the Trinity Broadcasting Network and many of the televangelists on the network, including Joyce Meyer and Benny Hinn.
In November, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, asked six media ministries for information about their financial operations. In a statement released by Grassley, he said he wanted to know more about the ministries’ “expenses, executive compensation and amenities given to their executives.”
Grassley is the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, and he cited the “20/20” broadcast as one of the catalysts for his request. He also said the request has “nothing to do with church doctrine. This has everything to do with the tax exemption of an organization. Is that tax exemption being used according to law, and is the money that’s donated under the tax exemption being used for legitimate, non-profit purposes?”
Rusty Leonard, founder of MinistryWatch.com, said the Grassley announcement was “a great day for donors.” Leonard said he hoped this move by Grassley would be a “shot across the bow” of Christian ministries who do not fully disclose their financial statements.
“I’m a small-government kind of guy,” Leonard said. “So in one sense I’m not excited about the government telling Christian ministries what to do. But in the cases here, the abuses are so egregious, that this call by Sen. Grassley is necessary. It’s my hope that other ministries get the message so that more government action is not necessary.”
Oral Roberts scandal. At least two of those under investigation by Sen. Grassley—Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland—are on the board of another troubled institution. Oral Roberts University president Richard Roberts first took a leave of absence, and then resigned as president of the institution amid accusations of lavish spending at donors’ expense and illegal involvement in a political campaign.
An Oct. 2 lawsuit filed by three former ORU professors says they were wrongfully dismissed and alleges the spending at donors’ expense, including numerous home remodels and a senior trip to the Bahamas for one daughter on the ministry’s dime.
It also accuses Roberts of illegal involvement in a local political campaign, which would violate the university’s nonprofit status. At year-end, the suit was still pending.
Matters of life and death
The question of life continues to be the defining issue of our age. Thirty-four years after the 1973 Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision, pro-life advocates marched in cities all across America in late January 2007.
An estimated 200,000 assembled in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 22 to hear speakers including President Bush. Smaller events were held in cities across the country. On Sat., Jan. 20, more than 25,000 people joined in the annual Walk for Life West Coast in San Francisco, believed to be the largest such event outside of Washington.
And if 2007 was a turning point in the war in Iraq, it might also be remembered as a turning point in the war against abortion. For the first time in the Roe era, the United States Supreme Court upheld a ban on a specific abortion procedure. And on June 20, President Bush for a second time vetoed a bill that would have funded embryonic stem cell research. At the same time, he signed an executive order urging scientists toward what he called “ethically responsible” research in the field.
Bush’s principled stand has been unpopular in the scientific community—at least until late November, when it was announced that scientists in Japan and in the United States have discovered how to make adult stem cells behave in ways similar to embryonic stem cells. The breakthrough has been described by both sides as a defining moment in the ethical debate over embryonic stem cell research.
But the pro-life movement still has many battles ahead. Hundreds of life advocates peacefully protested and prayed for two weeks outside an Aurora, Ill., Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, which was allowed to open after a 14-day delay. The protest gained national attention because the $7.5-million facility, the largest in the state, looked for a time as if it might be stopped by legal and administrative battles. If successful, it might have opened a new front in the war. But the delaying tactics ended up doing just that: delaying, not preventing, the opening of the facility.
And even though attitudes seem to be shifting in the pro-life direction, the ideological battle lines in the abortion debate seem to be hardening. Human rights organization Amnesty International (AI), for example, has shifted from a neutral stance on abortion to a positive one, now classifying it as a “human right.” The move seems to be a reaction to many of its liberal financial supporters. Officially, AI states that it wants women “to be free of fear, threat and coercion as they manage all consequences of rape and other grave human rights violations.” But Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life, have suggested that the move is a way to raise money from pro-aborts.
But perhaps the best news of the year for pro-lifers came from surveys indicating that young people may be more pro-life than their parents.
“The tide is turning,” said Troy Newman of Operation Rescue. “Young people know they’ve been sold a bill of goods, and it’s had the effect of radicalizing some of them in favor of the pro-life position.”
In other pro-life news: Abortions in Alabama have been cut nearly in half over the past two decades, public health records show. The enforcement of incremental pro-life laws—like parental consent, 24-hour reflection period, and mandated ultrasound before an abortion is performed—has contributed to Alabama’s drop in abortions.
Planned Parenthood of West Michigan and Northern Michigan is facing a combined 40 percent cut in state and federal funding this year, prompting the closure of five clinics.
Planned Parenthood pocketed $305 million of taxpayers’ money in its last fiscal year, but did not refer a single girl to adoption services. In fact, “adoption” didn’t even appear in the abortion giant’s annual report. In the 2004 fiscal year, Planned Parenthood reported that it referred nearly 1,500 clients to adoption agencies. But in its latest annual report, covering fiscal year 2005-2006, Planned Parenthood reported nearly 300,000 abortions, yet no adoption referrals.
U.S. District Judge David Coar ruled May 8 that laws against extortion and racketeering cannot be used to keep abortion protestors from standing outside clinics—a ruling that puts to rest a legal battle spanning 21 years. Joe Scheidler, head of the Pro-Life Action League in Chicago, became the center of a class action suit filed by the National Organization for Women (NOW). NOW used the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act to charge Scheidler with criminal activity for picketing abortion clinics. The case hinged on the argument that activists caused clinics to lose money, therefore they were acting as extortionists, he said.
The evangelical agenda expands
For years, the political agenda of the “religious right” focused on the “big three”: abortion, homosexuality, and pornography. And, in some states, gambling came in a distant fourth.
But in recent years, the evangelical political agenda has expanded. AIDS, the environment, care for the poor, and disaster relief have become increasingly important to evangelicals. Some observers, such as Rod Dreher, author of “Crunchy Cons,” say this broadening is a good thing. Others, including the traditional leaders of the so-called “pro-family” movement, say it dilutes the movement’s effectiveness.
Either way, the changes became a real part of the dialogue in 2007.
Environmental engagement. Richard Cizik is the vice president for governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals. He has also become perhaps the most outspoken evangelical voice in the battle over global warming.
Cizik says that global warming is real, is caused by humans, and should be dealt with immediately. The only problem is that his employer, representing more than 30-million evangelicals, issued a statement last year that says almost the opposite.
Some evangelical leaders were calling for Cizik to either be quiet or resign from the NAE. Joel Belz, founder of the evangelical newsweekly WORLD magazine, says that Cizik’s private activism is confusing many who believe he is speaking for the NAE and for all evangelicals, when he is not. More than two dozen evangelical leaders have signed a letter asking the NAE to force Richard Cizik either to promote the stand of the NAE on global warming, or to resign his position.
The letter’s signers, who included American Family Association Chairman Don Wildmon and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, charged that Cizik has a “preoccupation” with climate concerns.
Part of the reason for the “family feud” over the environment is what many believe to be a lack of scientific consensus on the issue. Less than half of the recent papers in a major scientific journal agree even “implicitly” with the notion that humans are causing climate change. Researchers examined published studies between 2004 and 2007 and found that only 38 percent of scientists accepted claims about global warming without question. Forty-eight percent were neutral.
But the main reason long-time evangelical leaders are apprehensive of environmental activism is a fear of their underlying ideological agenda. For example, Britain’s Optimum Population Trust (OPT) released a paper in 2007 saying that in order to stop global warming, people should recycle and drive smaller cars. But the real cause of global warming, according to OPT, is children.
“The most effective personal climate-change strategy is limiting the number of children one has,” the report states. “The most effective national and global climate-change strategy is limiting the size of the population.”
John Guillebaud, co-chairman of OPT, claimed if a couple has two children instead of three, it cuts the family’s carbon dioxide output by the equivalent of 620 return flights from London to New York each year. Dan Gainor, director of the Business & Media Institute and Boon Pickens Free Market Fellow, said it’s ridiculous that an organization touting itself as an environmental group is against one of the planet’s species. “Human beings are the greatest resource we have on the planet,” Gainor said.
Disaster relief. Best-selling author Ken Blanchard (“The One-Minute Manager”) has become an evangelical Christian, and he’s traveling the nation saying that evangelicalism needs to move from an era of “proclamation evangelism” to “demonstration evangelism.”
One way evangelicals have demonstrated their faith has been to be among the first to respond to disasters. The Indonesian tsunami, which hit on the day after Christmas in 2004, resulted in a great outpouring of support from evangelical organizations such as World Vision, Compassion International, Gospel For Asia, and Samaritan’s Purse. Then Katrina hit the Gulf Coast of the United States. Once again, evangelical groups were among the first on the scene, and today, a mission trip to the Gulf Coast has become a defining experience for many American evangelicals.
Habitat for Humanity passed its 1,000 house goal for the Gulf Coast this year. It now has its sights set on 2,000 houses before declaring its Katrina relief efforts complete. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Southern Baptist Men and the Southern Baptist Convention, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Samaritan’s Purse, and scores of local and national evangelical bodies have made disaster relief a core part of their mission. In 2007 these groups not only continued their response to Katrina victims, but were also present at the scene of wildfires in California.
AIDS Relief. On May 30, the man many consider to be the “evangelical-in-chief,” George W. Bush, announced that he wanted to double a previously made $15 billion commitment to fight AIDS in Africa. The money would provide emergency treatment for 2.5 million people under the President’s Emergency Program For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
Pastor and AIDS activist Rick Warren was among the first to praise the president’s decision.
“We applaud President Bush’s call for the immediate doubling of America’s PEPFAR commitment,” Warren said in a prepared statement, released with his wife Kay. “The President’s determination to help those suffering from HIV/AIDS is a compassionate, bold, and forward-thinking act of leadership that will save millions of lives. As the largest commitment of any nation in history to fight a single disease, this challenge represents the compassion and unselfishness of America at its best. The President reminded us in his announcement that to whom much is given, much is required. We have been blessed to be a blessing.”
Recent studies suggest that by the year 2020 more than 100 million people will have contracted AIDS. Forty million will be orphaned due to AIDS.
During a White House ceremony, Bush also announced that his wife Laura will visit Zambia, Mali, Mozambique and Senegal. These countries have benefited from the U.S. program. The trip took place June 25-29.
The trip was a defining moment for evangelicals and AIDS involvement, an involvement that has included not only increased activism by Christian ministries, but a heightened awareness of the responsibilities and opportunities presented by the global AIDS crisis. Kay Warren, who is credited with getting her pastor husband Rick interested, told ABC News that if the Bible is true, and that “true religion” was looking after “widows and orphans,” then there was no truer exercise of biblical Christian faith than looking after AIDS victims.
Apparently, a growing number of evangelicals agree with her.
The bully pulpit
But they apparently can’t agree on a presidential candidate. And that’s causing some consternation among evangelical leaders, who define their power, status and ability to raise funds by their ability to get out the evangelical vote.
In election cycles past, 2007 would have been defined as an “off” year. But in the new world of perpetual spin, when candidates not just for president but for every level of elected office are always running, 2007 emerged as a pivotal year, and one in which religion is playing perhaps the greatest role ever.
When the year began, “America’s Mayor” Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, filed papers officially forming a presidential exploratory committee. The former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, kicked off his campaign with a formal announcement speech in mid February. The two Republicans initially lagged behind John McCain in the race for president, the first since the early 20th century in which neither the sitting president nor the vice-president are running.
But what a difference the year made. By year-end, Romney had moved up to front-runner status, and then back down to the middle of the pack—movement based largely on initial support from Mormon money, and subsequent concern about his Mormon faith. Giuliani’s support for abortion and homosexual rights has hampered his campaign. McCain’s political machine never really got traction. And by year-end, who was leading the polls in Iowa, the first primary state? A Southern Baptist preacher named Mike Huckabee.
All of these permutations caused consternation among the historical evangelical leaders—Dobson, Falwell, Bauer, Perkins and others. These leaders were holding their endorsements. Bauer said that he would “lose his leverage” if he endorsed early. That may be so, but they risk losing their relevance if they endorse late. If the followers have already chosen a candidate by the time the leaders choose, who is leading whom?
That said, at year-end, Bauer was clearly supporting Fred Thompson, though he had not formally endorsed him. Dobson appeared to be leaning toward Huckabee, though he too had not issued a formal endorsement. In fact, Dobson was forced to respond to news reports that claim he is planning to endorse Huckabee. An anonymous writer for The American Spectator published information on its blog saying Dobson planned to endorse Huckabee in the next few days in order to “reassert his power.” Though Dobson said he “personally knows and likes” Huckabee, he explained on the broadcast he has never made such a statement.
“I’m telling you, it’s not true and never has been,” he said. “I may eventually endorse somebody, but if I do, it won’t be done here on Focus on the Family. It will be done as a private individual and, more than likely, it will be later in the campaign when the situation has clarified itself.”
Some of Dobson’s critics—including Dan Gilgoff, who wrote a 2007 profile of Focus on the Family called “The Jesus Machine,” said that statement gives “leading from the rear” a whole new meaning.
A changing of the guard
There can be no doubt that there is a changing of the guard. The deaths of D. James Kennedy and Jerry Falwell highlighted this transition.
Falwell, 73, started three organizations that have had a huge impact on the Religious Right movement. He founded the Moral Majority in 1979, and its work was often credited with helping to elect Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980. His Liberty University has become one of the largest Christian colleges in the United States and his “Old Time Gospel Hour” radio and television program was a pioneer in Christian broadcasting, at one time airing on more than 800 radio stations.
But Falwell considered himself first and foremost a pastor. The church he founded, Thomas Road Baptist Church, was one of the first Protestant megachurches in the country, and just before his death moved into a new worship center that would seat more than 6,000 people in a single service.
According to Lamar and Theresa Keener, pubishers of the Christian Examiner, “Jerry Falwell's legacy will long outlast him, but many of us will miss him as the leader who motivated us to change the culture we live in with the love of Christ.”
Kennedy, 76, built many ministries around his 10,000-member Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, including Knox Theological Seminary, a K-12 school, television and radio programs, and the politically conservative Center for Reclaiming America for Christ. He is also the author of more than 50 books.
Indeed, we began this discussion with John Donne, so why not end it there, too. It was Donne, after all, who told us to ask not “for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.” The bell is indeed tolling on the old evangelical guard. The question is: who will the new guard be? Last year seems to be a turning point, but a turning toward what, or toward whom? At the end of the year, Dobson’s words—“when the situation has clarified itself”—may be the ones that live on, though in ways he might not have imagined.
So while it may be causing consternation to people such as Dobson that the “situation” has not “clarified itself,” it’s also very possible that we will look back on 2007 as the year that the American evangelical church learned how—or started to learn how—to be not just a political machine, or a social institution, but a church—a true community of believers.
Theologian Stanley Hauerwas said in an interview with EP News that the problem with the American evangelical church is that it is “too American and not enough church.”
The American evangelical church has been rightly criticized as being a “3,000 miles wide and an inch deep.” But if this growing concern for the poor, for widows and orphans, can be coupled with continued adherence to biblical theology, it’s possible that a new era of evangelicalism may ultimately trace its genesis to the Year of Our Lord 2007.
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