NEWSLETTER
of the

AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC AFFILIATION -CANADIAN SCIENTIFIC & CHRISTIAN AFFILIATION

Volume 25 Number 4 August/ September 1983


HERRMANN-EUTICS

Over the past few months I have been corresponding with a number of you about establishing a group of Commissions which would focus the expertise of our members on particular areas of problem and possibility. Thus far we have proposed individual Commissions of about five to seven members to deal with Biomedical Ethics, Social Ethics, Scientific Excellence, Science Education, Industrial & Engineering Ethics, Arms Control, Overseas Development, and Environmental Issues. We would also like to establish Committees to deal with such organizational concerns as Membership, Long-Range Planning, Retirement, and Publications.

The work of each Commission is delineated as follows:

1. Organize a symposium for a regional meeting or for the Annual Meeting every other year.

2. Meet at least twice yearly (once at the Annual Meeting).

3. On an annual basis prepare from within the Commission (or with outside help) a paper on some critical issue for publication in the Journal or similar publication. Effort should be made also to publish the material in some form in a secular journal.

4. Respond to crucial articles in secular journals through letters to the editor and other means.

5. Prepare a yearly report for review at the Council's November- December meeting, and a brief oral report for presentation at the Annual Business Meeting.

6. Prepare advisory materials, perhaps in the form of a source book containing bibliographies of pertinent publications, a list of consultants and speakers, and other data likely to be useful to members and others needing the Commission's expertise.

7. Elect members on a rotational basis.

I hope you will want to participate. Please write to me at the ASA national office about your interests.
ASA MEMBER WINS BAEKELAND AWARD

Henry F. Schaefer Ill, professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, has been selected to receive the 1983 Leo Hendrick Baekeland Award, one of the most prestigious awards presented by the American Chemical Society. It is sponsored by Union Carbide Corporation and given biennially to commemorate the technical and industrial achievements of the inventor of Bakelite. This is a memorable year in the history of the award, being the 75th anniversary of the discovery of the phenolic plastic by Baekeland.

"Fritz" Schaefer will receive the award at a dinner during the ACS national meeting in Washington, D.C., and will also be honored at a special dinner and symposium on October 24 in New Jersey. The award is administered by the North Jersey Section of ACS. It consists of a gold medal and an honorarium of $1,000. It is given to a chemist under 40 (Baekeland was a young man when he made his discovery) in recognition of chemical accomplishment characterized by "initiative, creativeness, leadership, and perseverance."

Schaefer is known "for the development of computational quantum chemistry into a reliable quantitative field of chemistry and for prolific exemplary calculations of broad chemical interest." His theoretical work has caused a number of distinguished experimentalists to reverse their conclusions. His controversial predictions concerning the structure and singlet-triplet separation of methylene, the quadrupole moment of ozone, and the activation energy for D + HF exchange have all been verified by subsequent experimentation. His identification of the spectrum of triplet acetylene, Nature 278, 507 ( 1979), is an example of how the work of his group has guided experimentalists into fruitful new directions.

Fritz received his Ph.D. in chemical physics from Stanford in 1969 and has been on the faculty of U.C. Berkeley ever since, becoming a full professor in 1978. In 1979-80 he served as director of the Institute for Theoretical Chemistry at the U. of Texas, but all that oil money couldn't lure him away from Berkeley. He has been both an Alfred P. Sloane Fellow and a Guggenheim Fellow, and has been a visiting fellow or distinguished lecturer at such places as the Australian National University, the University of Paris, the National University of Mexico. In 1982 he was Lester P. Kuhn Memorial Lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University.

The list of the 19 previous Baekeland Award winners reads like a Who's Who of American chemistry. It's good to have an ASA member added to that list. It's also good to know that Fritz is a faithful Christian witness at Cal, hosting a regular group of chemistry graduate students who bring their lunches to his office to talk about faith in Jesus Christ. (Congratulations, Fritz. Praise the Lord, as some folks say-even in Berkeley.-Ed.)

SERVING THE GOD OF PEACE

"May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for the doing of his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever" (Hebrews 13: 20-21).

With those words World Vision president Ted W. Engstrom greeted the 1,400 registrants at the Pasadena conference on "The Church and Peacemaking in the Nuclear Age," 25-28 May 1983. The American Scientific Affiliation was there as one of 26 Affiliate organizations that joined 18 Sponsoring organizations to support the conference. ASA shared a booth with two other Affiliates but had plenty of space to display our literature and make ourselves more widely known in the evangelical community.

About 40 visitors to our booth gave us their names and addresses (or those of others) as prospective members, and many others picked up brochures, copies of our Newsletter, and some other freebies. We sold enough copies of JASA to pay the postage on two boxes of the April 1983 issue of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Those copies went like hotcakes after the leader of a workshop on arms control recommended them. That issue contains an excellent supplement, "Common Sense and Nuclear Peace," by Jerrold R. Zacharias, Myles Gordon, and Saville R. Davis; Zacharias is an emeritus physics professor at MIT. (For a copy of that supplement or bulk orders, write Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 5801 South Kenwood, Chicago, IL 60637). Breeder Reactor Corporation sent us far more copies of Bill Pollard's pamphlet on Theology and Nuclear Energy than we could give away. (Everybody who comes to the 1983 ASA ANNUAL MEETING gets a free copy-or a dozen free copies if you can use'em.-Ed.)

ASA executive director Bob Herrmann and Newsletter editor Walt Hearn "hung out" at the booth to tell people about ASA and answer questions. Besides the ASA workshop leaders mentioned in the April/May issue, we spotted a number of ASAers (or they identified themselves to us), including Howard Claassen of Ashland, Oregon (program chair for the 1983 Annual Meeting); William R. Nesbitt of Fairfield, California, a physician and consultant in disaster medical planning; Dennis R. Smith, nuclear engineer from Sunol, California; and Bryan D. Webb, chemistry grad student at the U. of Arizona in Tucson. We didn't see James 0. Buswell of Wm. Carey International University, but Bob Herrmann stayed in Jim's Pasadena home during the conference.

People saw ASA's name in conference literature and in the one letter about the conference published in Christianity Today (20 May 1983). The Newsletter editor had responded to a CT news story that seemed to imply that little could come out of the conference because of the strong differences between pacifists and advocates of "peace through strength." We asked "What kind of strength?"

Those strong differences were certainly expressed, but in a context of efforts by both sides to maintain "the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." The troubling fact is that each side sees the program of the other as a threat to peace, yet both sides want to unite as Christians in seeking peace. to the Newsletter editor the public airing of that strong difference of opinion in a spirit of good will rather than conflict made the conference seem historic. (Some plenary sessions actually brought tears to our eyes, unless that was just the effect of L.A. smog.-Ed.)

WORKING FOR THE WEAPONS ESTABLISHMENT

We told someone on the board of the peacemaking conference that since ASA has been dealing with controversy for over 40 years, we were glad to be there when the rest of the evangelical community took a stab at it. Our presence in Pasadena probably made some of the scientists and engineers who work on nuclear weapons feel that somebody there at least understood them, whether or not we agreed with what they were doing. Half a dozen weapons people showed up at our workshop on that issue, plus several seminary students and three or four pastors. The students, who work with poor people in Watts and other economically depressed neighborhoods, wanted to raise the ethical issue of spending billions on more nuclear weapons when people's life-support systems are being cut. The pastors wanted to know what to say to the engineers in their congregations.

We tried to outline various positions a Christian could take about working on nuclear weapons, pointing out that each position leaves one with ethical problems in the world in which we live. People seem to listen to each other better when both sides see that both sides have problems. Of course listening doesn't resolve our differences, but it's where we have to start. Sometimes listening is a shock. We were in one workshop with a young Mennonite who could hardly believe he was hearing a scientist in the weapons testing program say, "I thank God that my boss in that program was a Christian." He told how his boss (who died of radiation from an accident at Los Alamos) had insisted on designing more safety into nuclear weapons-by several orders of magnitude-than the military wanted, because of his Christian convictions. To a Christian pacifist, the statement just didn't compute.

On the other hand, participation in the conference exposed that workshop leader to ideas and fellow Christians he might not have encountered otherwise. He told us he had agreed to come at Wally Johnson's urging, but reluctantly, because of the way he had been treated in the past by Christians when they found out he worked on nuclear weapons. He also said that all the weapons people he knew felt that our nuclear deterrent had been necessary to "buy time" in which to pursue peace. Something that he and the pacifist could agree on was that we have not used that time well-and that a nuclear war between the superpowers would have devastating consequences. How to pursue peace now is what participants did not agree on.

Some participants may have been disappointed because the conference "didn't settle anything" (read: "didn't come around to my position"), the way some ASA members (land ex-members') have felt about the American

who disagree meet to air those differences in a spirit of love for truth, and pray together in a spirit of love for each other, all in the name of Christ, we are on the right track and can trust God to guide us.

"There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.

SPEAKING OF CONTROVERSY.

Geologist Kenneth J. Van Dellen of Grosse Point Park, Michigan, was upset by what we said about peace in the April/May Newsletter, evidently expecting the Pasadena conference to be a one-sided affair advocating unilateral disarmament. After pointing out that for the ASA to get into politics would probably alienate a lot of members, Ken brought up another issue that also has political as well as ethical and technical aspects:

"But if ASA members want to get involved in saving some of humanity, I would suggest that they become more active in opposing the American Holocaust (abortion) which is going on right now in this country, at the rate of f1.5 million a year, about equal to  to the number of U.S. military personnel killed in all wars in American history, and is desensitizing us so that the medical profession, parents, and others are beginning to view infanticide, euthanasia, etc., as acceptable also. (Was it Stalin who said, 'One death is a tragedy, but a million deaths are a statistic'?) But I don't think I want ASA as an organization to get into politics in that regard, either, although I guess if you're going to promote conferences, I'd like to see some publicity for the National Right to Life Convention in Orlando, Florida, July 7-9."

Ken has evidently adopted three children, now teenagers, who if conceived in more recent years "would have stood a good chance of being killed and incinerated, put down a garbage disposal, or thrown out in a trash dumpster. Yet, ironically, those who promote the killing of these most defenseless of humans, usually come across as such ,nice' people, with a politically liberal solution to all of life's problems, including war.... The Right-to-Life Movement, on the other hand, believing that a pro-abortion stance should be a disqualifier for a politician, supports pro-life candidates of both major political parties, regardless of the candidates' positions on other issues, which ordinarily results in endorsement of political conservatives who would be anathema to those who seek peace through disarmament."

"In the ASA we have learned to love and maybe even respect others who are brothers and sisters in Christ, but may hold a differing view of such a controversial subject as evolution. I can also love and respect those who have different ideas about how to achieve peace, although they make me nervous, and the feeling is probably mutual. Those who favor abortion, euthanasia, infanticide, etc., I would have greater difficulty loving and respecting. But I hope that in the forum for exchanging ideas, which is the ASA, we can speak as I have without fear of being labeled as some kind of nut, or of having others think that we are labeling them in the same way."

The parallel Ken draws in his good letter is an apt one. The fact is that evangelical Christians generally agree that abortion is undesirable, just as we agree that peace is desirable; we also believe that God created the world and all that is in it. We do not agree on whether abortion should be made illegal, whether continuing the nuclear arms race is the way to peace, or whether the Arkansas "balanced treatment" act was a good way to glorify the Creator. We should not let the political ramifications of those issues keep us from discussing them. If we cannot come to agreement, at least we can learn not to impugn the motives of those who oppose our position. And we can try to clarify the questions and avoid pseudo-questions, without "getting into politics."

(Who was it who said that "There must be something wrong in having to vote on whether a fetus is a tumor or a citizen"?-Ed.)

Incidentally, we note that the current issue of the Christian Medical Society Journal (Summer 1983) has two articles on the responsibilities of Christian physicians with regard to nuclear war, and one trying to picture abortion from the point of view of the fetus.

WE'RE HUMAN, BUT ...

... I doubt that we're humanists, at least of the American Humanist Association variety. At any rate, we make mistakes. One we made while putting together the April/ May issue was not looking harder for coordinator Stanley L. Weinberg's Iowa address for our story on the Committees of Correspondence on Evolution (CCE's). Instead we said the CCE's could be reached by writing to the journal Creation /Evolution (CIE). We heard from several of you about that, saying that we should have warned readers that CIE has a totally secular viewpoint. The fact is that

The list of the 19 previous Baekeland Award winners reads like a Who's Who of American chemistry. It's good to have an ASA member added to that list. It's also good to know that Fritz is a faithful Christian witness at Cal, hosting a regular group of chemistry graduate students who bring their lunches to his office to talk about faith in Jesus Christ. (Congratulations, Fritz. Praise the Lord, as some folks say-even in Berkeley.-Ed.)

Although we think CIE is a little journal ASA/CSCA members should know about (and intend to do a story on it), we shouldn't have confused people by mentioning it in that story.

The correspondent most upset was Marvin L. Lubenow, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Fort Collins, Colorado. Marvin pointed out that CIE is edited by Frank Edwords, administrator of the American Humanist Association, who has debated Henry Morris and/or Duane Gish four times. Only one of the debates is available for study (San Diego, 1978), but it is enough, according to Marvin, to show "how anti-Christian and anti-Biblical Fred Edwords really is." Edwords was introduced at that debate as "the founder of the Philosophy Forum and (at that time) as the president of the San Diego Humanist Association."

Marvin's new book, From Fish to Gish, a study of the more than 150 debates that Henry Morris and Duane Gish have had over the past ten years, has just been published by Creation-Life Publishers (a branch of ICR, P.O. Box 15666, San Diego, CA 92115). The 304-pp paperback ($9.95) will be of interest to ASA members both because the debates are a "fascinating slice of history in the controversy" and because a number of ASA members appear in it. Separate chapters cover the Penn State debate with Roger Cuffey, the U. of Tennessee one with George Schweitzer, Fuller Seminary with Jerry Albert, and the Wheaton College panel with David Willis. Some of those may be former ASA members now-but the same could be said of Henry Morris and Duane Gish.

We're sure that Marvin is right about a lot of things, but isn't he wrong to think that mention of an organization or publication in the Newsletter implies "approval or endorsement"? He finds it ironic "that you would endorse and encourage the work and publications of a man who apparently has no scientific or academic credentials whatsoever. Further, if the views of 'scientific creationists' are politically and theologically motivated as the Journal A.S.A. so often states, are you going to suggest that the views set forth in the Committees of Correspondence and in the journal, Creation lEvolution (which are both the children of the American Humanist Association) are without bias, totally scientific, and without any philosophical axe to grind? I find that thought absurd."

Gosh, did we say that? Didn't we make it clear that the CCE's "are basically grassroots political organizations"? And that they're a backlash against efforts to legislate creationism into public schools?

Marvin sent us a copy of a story from the November issue of Science 82 about an anti-creationist communications network of which Frank Edwords is coordinator. That network is described as a small, informal group of scientists who exchange slides and research materials to help each other in debating creationists. Marvin thinks the network mentioned is the same thing as the Committees of Correspondence, but we think it's something completely different-though obviously with overlapping interests. (Remember how reporters always used to confuse the Institute for Creation Research and the Creation Research Society, because Morris and Gish were prominent in both?-Ed.)

BREAKTHROUGH ON ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE?

Newsletter readers have heard about Alzheimer's disease because one of our most faithful correspondents, Glenn Kirkland of Bethesda, Maryland, has kept us informed. Glenn's wife Grace suffers from the disease, as do about 15% of the U.S. population over the age of 65. Until recently this form of senile dementia was a complete mystery. Johns Hopkins, the university where Glenn works as a physicist, has had a medical group actively pursuing the cau" of Alzheimer's disease sod related disorders.

The March 11 issue of Science has a report from the Johns Hopkins group pinpointing at least the location of the tissue degeneration in the brains of Alzheimer patients. In "Alzheimer's Disease: A Disorder of Cortical Cholinergic Innervation," authors Joseph T. Coyle, Donald L. Price, and Mahlon R. DeLong show that degeneration takes place in acetylcholine-releasing neurons whose cell bodies lie in the basal forebrain and which "provide widespread innervation of the cerebral cortex and related structures, and appear to play an important role in cognitive functions, especially memory."

Although the cause of such selective degeneration is still unknown, identification of the specific transmitter-selective pathway affected in Alzheimer's disease (and evidently in some other forms of dementia) is a big step forward. It should make possible "the design of diagnostic studies, investigations of pathogenic mechanisms, and the development of therapeutic approaches to these debilitating neuropsychiatric disorders."

WANTED: A THERMODYNAM-ASSIST

Our apologies to John A. (Jack) McIntyre (Dept. of Physics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843) for letting his letter of last July get lost in the increasing entropic clutter on the editor's desk. Jack wrote that Jerry Albert's comments on the Second Law of Thermodynamics in the Jun/Jul 1982 Newsletter didn't seem to jibe with 1. Prigogine's statements in the Nov 1972 issue of Physics Today. Jack quoted Prigogine:

"The conclusion to be drawn from this analysis is that the apparent contradiction between biological order and the laws of physics-in particular the second law of thermodynamics-cannot be resolved as long as we try to understand living systems by the methods of the familiar equilibrium statistical mechanics and equally familiar thermodynamics."

Prigogine then proceeded to present his theory of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics which may eventually prove successful in explaining biological order (and for which he won the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1977). Jack commented that "over the past century, evolution has evidently been in conflict with the classical Second Law of Thermodynamics, and it does seem remarkable that such a flagrant disagreement with an accepted scientific law would have been tolerated for so long without apology."

Jack asked us if he had given a fair summary of the situation, saying he would like "the experts" to clarify this matter. Would anyone care to comment, or supply references? (By now, of course, Jerry and Iliya may have reversed their positions, or Jack may have figured the whole thing out.-Ed.)

AN AMATEUR NUTWORK?

A few years ago we received a QSL card from VE7ERQ in Rossland, British Columbia, who turned out to be Robert D. McAllister, a professional engineer and an astronomer. Although he is now totally blind, Bob remains remarkably active. He is a member of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. When he attended the RASC General Assembly in Victoria, B.C., in June 1981, he met five other astronomers who are radio amateurs.

Bob is sure that ASA and CSCA are full of "hams" (amateur radio nuts), so he wants to see if an ASA Radio Amateur Net can be set up for contacting one another on a regular schedule. For example, Bob checks in on the American Council of the Blind, the ACB Net, on a frequency of 14.305 MHz at 18:00 hours LIT daily.

We've heard a rumor that Irwin Moon, retired "Sermons from Science" lecturer, is a radio amateur. Anybody else? CQ, CO, CQ! Let's have "all hams" in our two Affiliations send Bob McAllister your name, address, and call letters, to see if he can establish an ASA/CSCA network. His address is P.O. Box 399, Rossland, B.C., Canada VOG 1YO. We'll publish the list, plus times and frequencies, in the Newsletter.

The last time Bob attended an ASA Annual Meeting was the one at Whitworth College in Spokane in 197 1. But Bob and his wife Jean are thinking of attending the 1983 ASA ANNUAL MEETING at GEORGE FOX COLLEGE in NEWBERG, OREGON, this AUGUST 5-7. We hope you are, too. (And bring your OW or OM.- -)

NEW SERIES: SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY

The secretary of the Templeton Foundation (see story on the Templeton Prize in the Apr/May 1983 Newsletter) calls our attention to an interesting series of books being published by Christian Journals Ltd. (2 Bristow Park Upper Malone Road, Belfast 9, Northern Ireland). The projected ten-volume series on "Science and Theology" is under the general editorship of professor Thomas F. Torrance of Edinburgh, the 1978 winner of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion.

The most recent title to appear, fifth in the series, is Our Nuclear Future? by Peter E. Hodgson of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, "perhaps the best qualified British scientist and Christian thinker to write on this subject." In 160 pages the author "sets forth in concise form the issues facing the world and especially the Christian today."

The four earlier volumes in the series are: Thomas F. Torrance, Christian Theology and Scientific Culture; Harold Nebelsick, Theology and Science in Mutual Modification; John Carnes, Axiomatics and Dogmatics; and lain Paul, Science, Theology, and Einstein. Price given for each book in the series is 99:50 cased. "Cased" translates into "hardback" or "cloth" in American usage, we gather, since the other books are listed by the publisher -as "paper" or "limp." The 9.5 British pounds sterling also has to be translated into dollars.

The books can be ordered from Book Distribution (NI) Ltd., Boucher Road, Belfast BT12 6HR, N. Ireland. No distributor for the U.S. is listed, but the Canadian distributor is Canterbury House, 760 Somerset St. W, Ottawa K 1 R 6P9,Canada.

LOUISIANA UPDATE

Acts & Facts, published monthly by the Institute for Creation Research (2100 Greenfield Dr., El Cajon, CA 9202 1; sent free on request), is a good place to keep up with the "creation-science" test case meandering through the judicial system in Louisiana. That-s partly because of the importance of the case to ICR and partly because ICR's former counsel, Wendell R. Bird, is actively assisting William J. Guste, Attorney General of Louisiana, on the case.

According to the April 1983 issue of Acts & Facts, the U.S. Court of App"s boosted recent-creationist hopes in the case on January 31 by granting a motion to "certify the Louisiana-law issue to the Louisiana Supreme Court for decision." That motion, filed by Bird as lead counsel of the Creation Science Legal Defense Fund, gives the Louisiana high court "a chance to reinterpret the Louisiana Constitution provision dealing with legislative power over education." The U.S. District Court had earlier found that provision to be violated by the Balanced Treatment Act.

If the Louisiana Supreme Court rules in favor of the CSLDF attorneys on the constitutional issue, the case goes back to the U.S. District Court for a full trial on the First Amendment issues. Then the CSLDF side will have its chance to argue that "creation-science" is science and not religion in disguise (as claimed by the American Civil Liberties Union and other litigants), and hence does not violate separation of church and state.

PEOPLE LOOKING FOR POSITIONS

William W. Cobern (11315 Vista de Bonita Cafiada, La Mesa, CA 92041; tel. 714-463-6333) seeks a university or college position in education or possibly an area-studies department (e.g., African or Third World) beginning October 1983. He has a B.A. in biology from U.C. San Diego and a Ph.D. from the U. of Colorado, where he majored in science education and minored in research methodologies. Since 1979 he has been a lecturer at the U. of Sokoto, Nigeria, from which he returns in September. He has been doing research in educational and scientific issues in developing countries, and is the author of "The Church, Education, and Development," JASA (Dec 1982).

Gregory Needham (Dept. of Chemistry, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755; tel. 603-646-2501) seeks a position in industrial research and development. He has a B.S. in chemistry and math from the U. of Oregon and-a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Washington State University, where he worked on the mechanism of solid state structural phase transitions in a crystalline model of a lipid bilayer. Currently he is doing postdoctoral research with W. H. Stockmeyer and C. L. Braun at Dartmouth on polymer chain dynamics and intramolecular fluorescence quenching. Greg was a teaching assistant at Washington State and spent one summer of grad student research at Argonne National Lab in Illinois and has half a dozen or more publications. As a high school student he was president of Baptist Youth of Oregon, in his undergraduate and graduate years he was active in IVCF, and now he is a member of Valley Bible Church, White River Junction, Vermont.

David H. Netzly (Botany Dept., Miami University, Oxford OH 45056; tel. 513-529-5321) seeks a faculty position in botany or plant biochemistry after August 1983, when he will have completed his Ph.D. at Miami. In addition to his work on the physiology and biochemistry of plant phenoiics there, Dave has completed research projects in West Germany, Iowa, and Mississippi during his doctoral studies. He has taught or assisted in courses in general botany, spring flora, natural history of plants, dendrology, plant ecology, poisonous & medicinal plants, and graduate level plant physiology.

POSITIONS LOOKING FOR PEOPLE

Judson Baptist College in Oregon was looking for a Ph.D. in education for September. Closing date for applications was June 30, but you might check anyway with: Dr. Paul A. Twelker, Chair of Teacher Education, Judson Baptist College, 400 East Scenic Dr., The Dalles, OR 97058. Tel. 503-298-4455-X256. (Received 30 May 1983.)

Bethel College in Minnesota has a one-year opening for a Ph.D. in biochemistry to teach a senior biochem course and help in general chemistry, for September 1. Contact: Dr. Dwight Jessup, Vice President and Dean, Bethel College, 3900 Bethel Dr., St. Paul, MN 55112. Tel. 612638-6370. (Received 30 May 1983.)

Post-Graduate Institute for Medicine in Colorado anticipates an opening for a program director in the period between September and December, 1983, to develop and produce audio-visual programs in the health care field. Applicants should have aptitude in administration, supervision, customer relations, writing, editing, and teaching. Doctorate in a health related field is highly desirable. Contact: William E. James, Ph.D., President, Post-Graduate Institute for Medicine, P.O. Box 158, Parker, CO 80134. Tel. 800-423-3576. (Received 1 June 1983.)

LOCAL SECTION ACTIVITIES

WASHINGTON-BALTIMORE

Three speakers were scheduled for the April 4 meeting at Davis Public Library in Bethesda, on the topic- "Using Microcomputers in Christian Ministries." One was Blaine Smith, author of Knowing God's Will (IVP) and director of Nehemiah Ministries, Inc., a resource ministry in Washington, D.C. Blaine has a bachelor's degree from Georgetown U., an M.Div. from Wesley Theological Seminary, and a D.Min. from Fuller. He has been both a director of the Sons of Thunder music ministry and a pastor in St. Louis.

The other two speakers were local section officers whose ASA activities we've reported on before. Edward P. Allen, section president, is a systems engineer with Sperry Corporation in Reston, Virginia. He designs and integrates minicomputer systems, with an emphasis on software. His B.S. is from Brown U. and his M.S. in systems engineering from the U. of Pennsylvania. For the past year Ed has led a 11 computer ministry" at the Christian Assembly of Vienna, Virginia. Before that he was a volunteer consultant when the Assembly made its purchase of a desktop microprocessor system to enhance the productivity of the church office. The Christian Assembly typically has a Sunday attendance of about 500 people.

Charles W. (Bill) Lucas, Jr., edits the local section Newsletter. He's a computer scientist with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, where he designs and implements microcomputer systems for Personnel, Finance, and Payroll systems and is responsible for general office automation systems and management information systems. Bill has a B.S. in physics from the College of William and Mary, an M.S. in solid state from the U. of Maryland, and a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from William and Mary. For the past two years he has been a leader in the computer ministry of the Capital area's largest local church, Riverdale Baptist, and the school associated with it. He helped install a fully integrated Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, General Ledger, Payroll, and Budgeting system. The system also permits computerizing of many different types of school records, maintenance of large mailing lists for various church ministries and newsletters, and word processing services for church activities.

(With all that high-powered technology behind it, it's no wonder that the Newsletter of that local section is so impressive. What we admire most about their newsletter, though, is its "servant spirit." For example, each issue carries some information about other organizations or publications of possible interest to ASA members. The March 1983 issue (Vol. 1, No. 4) called attention to Technology and Society, quarterly magazine of the newly formed IEEE Social Implications of Technology Society. Address: IEEE Member Services, IEEE Service Center, 445 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08854. Further, the Newsletter's "Calendar of Events" section, which reminds members of local ASA meetings, also regularly lists meetings of the Baltimore Creation Fellowship, usually at the Gospel Tabernacle of Baltimore, 8855 Belair Road, Baltimore, MID 21236. That's the spirit  Ed.)

PERSONALS

Gary Allen of the Christian Embassy rejoices over a modest but pleasant office God has provided just one block from the United Nations in New York, after two years of uncertainty over where the next meeting of a Bible study for diplomats would be held. This summer Gary and Elaine will also have two experienced Campus Crusade staff women working with them in their ministry to U.N. personnel. Early in May, Campus Crusade president Bill Bright was scheduled to speak to several gatherings organized by Gary.

Richard H. Bube of Stanford U. was "on the road" again in March, speaking a number of times and to various audiences on the occasion of the 75th Anniversary celebration of Olivet Nazarene College in Kankakee, Illinois. Dick and Betty's host at Olivet was William J. Woodruff, associate professor of biblical literature. Then the Bubes flew to Springfield, Missouri, where Dick was a Staley Distinguished Christian Scholar lecturer at Evangel College of the Assemblies of God. He gave six lectures in two days at Evangel, covering theological, philosophical, topical questions and weaving them together into the kind of synthesis readers of JASA have come to expect from its editor. What continues to impress the Bubes on such lecture trips is "the close community spirit of Christian men and women in science at a variety of different Christian colleges and universities from different traditions and doctrinal distinctives." Dick came back from this trip with a conviction of "the desirability of curriculum based efforts to stimulate integration of disciplines with Christian faith."

Marilyne (Backlund) Gustafson teaches in the graduate program in nursing at the U. of Minnesota in Minneapolis. She recently completed her Ph.D. at Walden University in Naples, Florida. Every winter Marilyne and her minister husband, Albin, have gone to Haiti as short-term missionary workers. Her dissertation was a study of "Haitian Village Women and Their Ability to Understand Health Education Pictures."

H. Harold Hartzler, retired physics professor living in Glendale, Arizona, was ASA's first executive secretary. He is definitely not retired from ASA activity. He's currently working on a history of our Affiliations and preparing a paper to give at the ASA ANNUAL MEETING OF GEORGE FOX COLLEGE in NEWBURG, OREGON, on AUGUST 5-7. You'd think Harold and Dorothy might have enough to do keeping track of their twelve grandchildren and one great grandchild, but when we last heard from Harold he was busy sending out 500 letters to prospective ASA members. A Mennonite who taught for many years at Goshen College in Indiana, Harold is one of those who was glad to see ASA participate in the Pasadena conference on The Church and Peacemaking in the Nuclear Age in May.

George J. Jennings resigned as professor of anthropology at Geneva College in 1982 to become executive secretary of the U.S. Board of Dkeetore of the Middle East Christian Outreach, an international, interdenominational, evangelical Christian missions organization. The organization's international headquarters is in Cyprus but George does his work from his hometown base in Le Mars, Iowa. He is continuing his research in psychological anthropology related to the missions enterprise in the Middle East and also among American Indians. His latest publication, a paperback book entitled A Mission Consultant Views Middle Eastern Culture and Personality (1983), is available postpaid in the U.S. for $9.95 from: Middle East Missions Research, East Ridge Terrace Apts., #5, 1072 7th Ave., S.E., Le Mars, IA 51031. George says he's always in quest of qualified people to serve in bona fide professional fields as "tentmakers" in various Middle Eastern countries.

Terrance Murphy, teaching chemistry this year at Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York, echoes George Jennings's theme (above). Terrance taught at the American Community School in Beirut, Lebanon, from 1973 to 1976. "God is working mightily these days in the Muslim world," Terrance says, adding that we should pray for more laborers to work there-and ask God if we should be among them. Terrance would be glad to correspond with any ASA/ CSCA members interested in "tentmaking" overseas (address: Chemistry Dept., Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY 14850). The Murphys are impressed with the Lord's sense of timing. Their second child was due on July 30 last year, just one day after Terrance was scheduled to defend his U. of Washington Ph.D. dissertation (on "Synthesis and Molecular Structures of Iron (111) Aroyl Hydrazones Containing Pyridoxal and Salicylaldehyde"). Then he had to drive across the country by the time classes started at Ithaca on August 31. It turned out that Erinn Elisabeth's delivery was delayed until August 12, which gave enough time to check out of grad school and even get some packing done. (Otherwise they might have named her Aroyl Hydrazone Murphy, which has a nice ring to it. -Ed.)

Jack Richardson of Acton, Massachusetts, and his wife were planning to spend some time this spring touring England with CSCA executive secretary Douglas Morrison and his wife, at the end of Doug's sabbatical in the U.S. of A. The Richardsons are members of Grace Chapel in Lexington, where ASA executive director Robert L. Herrmann "is at least a frequent visitor." Jack recently saw the film "Creation/ Evolution: Weighing the Evidence," which he thought might be useful as a conversation starter when addressing such issues before general audiences. Jack sent us a flyer saying that the 40-minute, 16-mm film shows "both sides of this controversial subject.... It shows how evolutionary thought has influenced scientific, social and political thought and gives evidence for creation." The film rents for $75 in the U.S., slightly more in Canada, from Quadrus Media Ministry, Inc., 610 East State St., Rockford, IL 61104. (NOTE: That film and the T.Q. Productions film, "The Timeless Issues of Life: Evolution or Creation" shown at the 1982 ASA Annual Meeting, are both reviewed by Kevin Wirth in the FallWinter issue of Origins Research. Wirth considers "Timeless Issues of Life" "one of the better treatments available on the subject, especially for public schools. He was disappointed by the Quadrus film Jack saw, saying that '.no weigh" does it weigh the evidence: "There isn't enough to tip the scale either way."-Ed.)

Robert VanderVennen of Toronto, who served as executive director of the Association for Advancement of Christian Scholarship from 1974 through 1982, is now director of educational services for AACS. Bob is taking an "extended sabbatical" by taking off one day per week and drawing only 80% of his salary. He hopes to use that time to continue his exploration of the relationship between science and faith. He is currently president of the Canadian Scientific and Christian Affiliation. Besides doing some writing of his own on his "day off," Bob does a lot of work on AACS publications, many of which come from Senior Members of AACS's Institute for Christian Studies.