RELIGION / JOHN DART : Author-Educator Proselytizes a Kinder, Gentler Evangelism

When angry Christians shout “Murderers!” at abortion-rights advocates or taunt gays and lesbians by chanting, “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” the president of the Fuller Theological Seminary winces.

Too often, “our fundamental posture is chip-on-our-shoulder, ‘We’re right and everybody else is wrong,’ triumphalist and arrogant,” said Richard J. Mouw, president of the nation’s largest nondenominational seminary in Pasadena.

Though Mouw tends to take conservative views on abortion and homosexuality, he is seeking to persuade fellow believers to show a lot more “Christian civility” in addressing moral issues.

Mouw said legislation signed into federal law Thursday that bars abortion-clinic blockades and harassment was not necessarily a bad thing for the antiabortion movement.

“It is obvious that the more violent and coercive protests at clinics have done nothing to change the climate of opinion on abortion,” he said Friday. “What we need is a dialogue in which we listen to one another and find other ways to state our convictions.”

Mouw first outlined his call for Christian civility in “Uncommon Decency,” published by InterVarsity Press in 1992. Last fall it found an interested reader at the White House.

When President Clinton invited a dozen evangelical leaders, including Mouw, to a White House breakfast in November, the President asked for a copy of the book. Clinton wrote a note to Mouw shortly thereafter, saying he found his ideas helpful.

Clinton has expressed frustration over a barrage of attacks on himself and his Administration in recent months. In a speech last week at UCLA, for example, he bemoaned “the destructive tone of public discourse in America today.”

The President’s troubles notwithstanding, many commentators have decried the heated tone of public debate today.

Some of the sharpest words have emanated from Christian conservatives, prompting alarmed responses from Mouw and other influential evangelicals.

Pastor Jack Hayford of Van Nuys’ Church on the Way, one of those invited to the November briefing at the White House, “delivered an eloquent ‘apology’ for the un-Christlike way in which many Christians had treated the President,” according to another participant, Philip Yancey, an editor at Christianity Today magazine.

Hayford has also lamented what he calls “friendly fire,” casualties inflicted by churches on fellow Christians. In his church newsletter last month, Hayford cited “carping criticism, the self-righteous salvos, and the tireless nit-picking” that arise over differences in doctrine and styles of ministry.

Charles Colson, an influential evangelical writer and commentator, recently asked, “How can Christians encourage fellow citizens to respect authority if we ourselves do not show the utmost civility?”

Colson pointed to Mother Teresa’s remarks against abortion early this year at the National Prayer Breakfast with Clinton present. “Mother Teresa was invariably polite and respectful,” Colson wrote. “Yet she did not flinch in speaking the truth.”

Likewise, Mouw said that evangelicals should at times take uncompromising stands and issue stern calls for morality, but Christians should display a politeness and consideration of others. “When George Bush spoke of ‘a kinder and gentler’ nation a few years back, I said, ‘Amen.’ ”

Mouw taught philosophy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., before joining the Fuller faculty in 1985. He succeeded David Hubbard as president in November.

Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mouw was among younger evangelicals calling for their churches to become more socially active. His first book was titled “Political Evangelism.” Evangelicals became more visible on national issues in the late 1970s and the Christian right gained prominence in the early 1980s.

“In the 1990s, when I looked back on it,” Mouw said in an interview, “I thought maybe it was time to call the whole thing off. Those pleas for evangelicals to get involved have been too successful.

“Evangelicals have entered into the public arena with the same kind of oversimplification, the same cliches and sloganeering kind of mentality that had characterized our dealing with other kinds of issues,” he said.

“Incivility is by no means the exclusive property of the (religious) right,” he added. “Liberation theologians on the left speak in very uncivil terms.”

Mouw urges a new period of “Christian gentleness” in keeping with biblical advice--not as political strategy.

“Now, it may also be that evangelical Christians who have often totally alienated people with whom they have disagreed on homosexuality and abortion while defending family issues, it may very well be that people will hear us better if we speak out of our own pilgrimage with a kind and self-critical spirit,” he said.

“But ultimately we do it because that’s the kind of people God wants us to be,” Mouw said. In his book and in seminars he led on the topic at the Evangelical Press Assn. convention this month in Costa Mesa, Mouw uses Scripture to back up his claim.

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The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews (12:14) urges Christians to “pursue peace with everyone.” In the 12th chapter of Romans, the Apostle Paul advises love, patience and humility in relations with others. Titus (3:2) urges Christians “to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle and to show every courtesy to everyone.”

In 1 Peter, Mouw said, one sees what civility is about for the committed Christian. “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.” (1 Peter 3:15-16)

Mouw said that sometimes Christian activists and preachers employ a crusading spirit in which anything goes.

“We don’t get anywhere by misrepresenting another person’s position,” said Mouw. Labeling abortion-rights advocates “murderers” is misrepresentation because “they are not really excited about murdering babies,” Mouw said. “There are other (motivations) there.”

Although the biblical commandment not to kill is invoked, Mouw said, “one of the other Ten Commandments is ‘Thou shall not bear false witness.’ ”