NEWSLETTER

of the

AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC AFFILIATION - CANADIAN SCIENTIFIC & CHRISTIAN AFFILIATION

Volume 24 Number 1                                                                                               February/March 1982

IMAGINE YOUR SURPRISE ...

... At receiving another issue of the Newsletter so soon, even before April Fool's Day. Your Weary Old Editor has taken some drastic action (WOE is me.-Ed.)

Our first step was to declare publicly that we're "on sabbatical." If we had said "retired," folks would see us as a poor old codger looking for something else to do. That's not the idea. Being on sabbatical means just the opposite: no more new commitments on our agenda until we take care of old business.

Next we studied the Newsletter schedule. Two of the six copy deadlines during the year have always come at bad times for the WOE. Whoa, indeed. No more playing catch-up. We're moving our deadlines ahead one month-as soon as we get caught up. For this issue we set January 15 instead of February 1 as our deadline. From now on we intend to finish the editing one full month before date of issue: i.e., March 1 for the Apr/May issue, May 1 for Jun/Jul, July 1 for Aug/Sep, etc. (Printing and mailing can still take up to two months after the copy leaves Berkeley-but we'll try to shorten that, too.)

And remember, what the philosophers used to say about streetcars also applies to Newsletter deadlines: If you miss one, there's another one just around the corner.

We want to serve ASA well. We hope to continue our visits to local sections, this month in the midwest and then along the east coast. In early January we attended part of the AAAS meetings in Washington, D.C. The all-day session on "Science and Belief" brought together scientists and theologians. Theologian Langdon Gilkey was one of those looking for middle ground on the basis that science and religion are two valid but complementary ways of knowing. Others were complaining that they had been tricked by politically wise "young earth" creationists. Our own Elving Anderson was there and made an important contribution to the discussion. He pointed out that not all creationists are of the "young earth" persuasion.

ASA received a wonderful Christmas present from member Kenneth Olsen of Lincoln, Massachusetts, and his company, Digital Equipment Corporation. Together they presented us with a new DECMATE word processor and minicomputer that will allow us significant savings in leasing costs. To its many uses we will add the processing of questionnaires which will be coming to you next month along with theAnnual Meeting announcement. If you have a similar corporate connection that might help us in someway, would you investigate and let me know? (See accompanying budget.)

I am preparing to participate in a Logos Bookstore managers' workshop in Chicago, January 29-30, giving a message on "God as Creator" and describing the ministry of ASA. I am reminded of the power intrinsic in a total creaturely dependence on the Living God. C. S. Lewis says it best for me. He has Uncle Screwtape warn the lesser demon Wormwood of "the incalculable" when a human comes to God in "real nakedness of soul." A strange new freedom is engendered by such unconditional trust.

With a new year before us, may God grant us the wisdom in the lecture hall, the laboratory, the examination room, the administrative office, and the committee room-to trust Him unconditionally.   -In Christ, Bob Herrmann

GOLIATH SLAIN BY LITTLE ROCK?  

We couldn't resist that headline, though our recent-creationist friends must have seen their courtroom opponents as the Philistine side. And they may scoff at our metaphor, doubting that the cause they've championed was dealt a mortal blow by Federal Judge William Overton's decision against them.

We haven't yet seen a recent-creationist analysis of the first court test of a "balanced treatment." We've heard that they may appeal in Arkansas, think they'll win in an upcoming Louisiana case, and expect to get similar laws passed in Mississippi and Georgia right away.

We've written to several evangelicals who testified at Little Rock (some of them ASA members), to get their personal impressions of the trial and of the way it has since been reported. Many ASA/CSCA members feel that the Judge's decision was valid, yet we suspect that some of our brothers and sisters in Christ have been deeply hurt by the outcome in Arkansas. Probably most Christians who hold a broader view of creation were determined to make the best of it, no matter how the trial came out.

What's "the best of it" now? For those who thought the Arkansas Balanced Treatment Act was a mistake, who consider the whole recent-creationist premise a mistake, this is no time to gloat or say "I told you so." This is a time to comfort the wounded and repair as much of the damage as we can. This is a time for ASA and CSCA not merely to affirm creation as a doctrine of our faith but to be creative in showing the world-and the church-that there is a middle ground where true science and true faith overlap.

As Bob Herrmann noted, Elving Anderson (keynote speaker for the 1982 ASA ANNUAL MEETING to be held at CALVIN COLLEGE in MICHIGAN, AUGUST 13-16) made a significant comment from the floor of the AAAS session on "Science and Belief." Word just in from Paul Arveson is that he and Bob Herrmann put together a press release aboutASA's position with the eye-catching headline, "Creationists Can Be Evolutionists!" Two hundred copies were snapped up by reporters and science writers. Paul was interviewed several times on the spot in the AAAS press room.

More news on what's being done to pick up the pieces, and what each of us can do, in theApr/May Newsletter. ("Coming soon"-Ed.)

Langdon Gilkey, Shailer Mathews Professor of Theology at the U. of Chicago Divinity School, was scheduled to give a series of lectures on "Christianity and the Meaning of History" on February 10-12 at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. This was the fourth such public lectureship on "Christianity and Learning" to be sponsored by the Institute.

According to the announcement, Professor Gilkey would focus on "the disintegration of a post-enlightenment culture whose trust was in science and technology, and the loss of faith in that culture." The lectures were concerned with "the proper biblical way of looking at that development." ICS staff member C. T. McIntyre called Gilkey "one of the most creative theologians working today." He wrote Naming the Whirl wind.- The Renewal of God-Language (Bobbs-Merrill, 1969) but is probably better known within ASA/CSCA for his Maker of Heaven and Earth (Doubleday, 1959). In December Gilkey testified for ACLU against the "balanced treatment" act in Little Rock and in January spoke at the Washington, D.C., AAAS meeting in the "Science and Belief" session.

The year 1982 is a significant one for ICS, by the way. The Institute's parent organization, the Association for the Advancement of Christian Scholarship, is celebrating its 25th Anniversary by trying to raise some $500,000 to pay off the mortgage on the building that houses ICS. They consider that better stewardship than refinancing at today's high interest rates. AACS executive director Bob Vander Vennen and ICS principal Bernie Zy1stra are both CSCA members. Contributions can be sent to AACS, 229 College St., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5T 1 R4, or to AACS Foundation, 3201 Burton St. S.E., Grand Rapids, MI 49506.

1982 BUDGET

                                    Total Income $94,000

THE "CREATIONIST" CONNECTION

Qu: Why are some people so worried about recent-creationism even if its evidence doesn't seem to "stand up in court"? Ans: Because they see it as an ominous political movement.

Mother Jones magazine (named for turn-of-the-century union organizer Mary Harris Jones) specializes in investigative reporting- mostly trying to "get the goods" on powerful people who misuse their power. The Sept/Oct 1981 issue contained a long, rather perceptive story entitled "The Crucifixion of Evolution: What Your Kids Will Be Unlearning This Fall." Author Frank Viviano had taken the trouble to visit ICR and CSCR to get his facts straight, even spelling Nell Segraves's name correctly.

The Mother Jones story was illustrated with a full-page medieval-style painting of a crucifixion-of a bewildered ape. The December issue printed an angry letter from author Viviano, registering his "acute dismay" at the illustration, which he said made a mockery of "a religious symbol that holds profound meaning for millions of people." He accused Mother Jones of violating his intention of taking "the Creationist movement" seriously, saying, "The rise of the Right is, among many other things, an indictment of the liberal establishment for its astonishing smugness and arrogance. Mother Jones would do well not to buttress such an indictment."

Note that Frank Viviano is a writer interested primarily in politics, not science or religion. He is the political editor of Pacific News Service. Whatever one thinks of his particular analysis of "the consolidation of power by middle-class WASP fundamentalists," it is clear that many intelligent people worry about political overtones of the alleged "creation-evolution controversy." "Creation ism," thought to be synonymous with "fundamentalism" (or even "evangelicalism"), has raised fears of political censorship, religious bigotry, and intolerance of all kinds.

One mailing from the American Civil Liberties Union bore the catchy slogan, "if the Moral Majority has its way, you'd better start praying." It warned about new groups that "mean to capture the power of government and use it to establish a nightmare of religious and political orthodoxy." That mailing didn't mention recent-creationism, but did say that "The new evangelicals are a radical anti-Bill-of-Rights movement." In another mailing about an "unprecedented threat to individual rights in America" posed by "the Extreme Right," ACLU listed some inroads already made: federal funding of abortions for Medicaid recipients has been virtually eliminated; efforts to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment have been successful in major states; prayer is back in public schools in some states; legislation to curb illegal practices by the CIA and FBI has "itself been curbed."

What else? "Already, public schools are being pressured by I evangelicals' to teach 'creationism' as well as evolution in science classes from Inclianato, Georgia. And now the Moral Majority and other evangelical groups have succeeded in electing officials favorable to their views."

A lot of other organizations besides ACLU, from the Southern Poverty Law Center's Klanwatch to the National Committee Against Repressive Legislation, are worried about "the radical Right" in one form or the other. Television producer Norman Lear's People for the American Way (PAW) opposes what it calls "the Religious New Right" which insists that "loyalty to the nation be on their terms or you are un-American." The movement is said by PAW to be "spearheaded by the fundamentalist superstars of evangelistic religious broadcasting." Rev. Jerry Falwell, TV evangelist and president of the Moral Majority, is quoted as saying, "You can't be a good Christian and a liberal at the same time."

As we understand it, Jerry Falwell keeps insisting that the Moral Majority is political, not religious, and that the million dollars a week brought in by his Old-Time Gospel Hour has nothing to do with supporting a political movement. Yet one can see why people link recent-creationism with right-wing political movements. One Old-Time Gospel Hour advertisement in Christianity Today (12 June 1981) was in the form of a ballot: Cast Your Vote for 0 CREATION or 0 EVOLUTION. "Where do you stand in this vital debate?" the ad asked. Readers were to vote YES or NO to three questions: "(1) Do you agree with the 'theories 'of evolution that DENY the Biblical account of creation? (2) Do you agree that public school teachers should be permitted to teach our children as fact that they descended from APES? (3) Do you agree with the evolutionists who are attempting to PREVENT the Biblical account of creation f rom also being taught in public schools?"

In return for sending in one's marked "ballot," Falwell offered a free copy of Henry Morris's The Remarkable Birth of Planet Earth, a 111 -page book "that gives overwhelming evidence in favor of creation."

Does the Moral Majority care about scientific questions? In the 19 October 1981 issue of Moral Majority Report, which goes to "nearly one million American homes," much space was given to stories about cleaning up TV, defeating the District of Columbia's liberalized sexual assault reform law, and PAW's "hidden agenda" (as a "stalking horse for Senator Edward M. Kennedy"). But there was also a major story on the Doolittle-Gish debate organized by Falwell at Liberty Baptist College, to be televised at a cost of $500,000. The headline: "Scientific Creation vs. Evolution is Not Religion vs. Science Debate."

In September 1981 the Association of American Publishers, together with the American Library Association and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, issued a report entitled "Limiting What Students Shall Read." It said that attacks on books, films, and other teaching materials have greatly increased in recent years as newly resurgent conservative groups try to cleanse the schools, and the children's minds, of words and ideas they find objectionable. Of course somebody has to decide what is educationally sound, and mistakes are often made. But in the process of trying to purge schools of what some groups call "secular humanist" books, groups influenced by "scientific creationism" are stirring up fears of censorship based on political ideology.

Many scientists remember "the Lysenko affair" from the late 1930s to the'60s, when pseudoscience hooked up with politics, a combination that philosopher of science Ernest Nagel called "disastrous for the development of genetics in the Soviet Union." Much more damage to science-and to society-was done by the pseudoanthropology of the Nazis in Germany. "Under the Nazis," wrote Martin Gardner, author of the classic work on pseucloscience, In the Name of Science (Putnam, 1952), "traditional anthropological texts were tossed out. Only Nazi-authorized texts that taught Aryan supremacy were allowed, and reputable anthropologists in Germany were almost totally silenced."

Kendrick Frazier edits The Skeptical Inquirer, a journal that critiques fringe science. In an article in SciQuest(Sept 1981), "Will the Real Science Please Stand Up?" Frazier observed that the political activities of "scientific creationists" make some scientists "feel a shadow of Lysenkoism," whether or not that feeling is justified.

Frazier touched on the real worry of many scientists when he discussed the influence of pseudoscience on public attitudes toward and public funding of "real" science. Hequoted Andrew Fraknoi, executive officer of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, who said that from pseudoscience people often pick up the idea that science is intolerant of new and imaginative ideas. Fraknoi wondered about the degree to which "sharp new cutbacks in federal funding in social science research and of education have roots in antiintellectual, antiscience movements related in part to pseudoscience."

Science writer Roger Lewin has been covering the activities of recent-creationists for Science magazine. In a detailed article in the 6 November 1981 issue of Science, "A Response to Creationism Evolves," Lewin reported two meetings organized to cope with the threat of "scientific creationism" to science in general. One was called by the National Academy of Sciences, the other by the National Association of Biology Teachers. Lewin observed "a crisis atmosphere" at the October meetings as scientists realized that moves are underway to divert NSF funds to support "creation science." Further, a bill was introduced into the House that same month to limit funding to the Smithsonian Institution if its museum of natural history continues to ignore alternatives to evolutionary theory.

HOW TO SERVE GOD OVERSEAS. No. 15

1. In July 1981 the Overseas Counseling Service became a separate entity functioning under the legal umbrella of the U.S. Center for World Mission in Pasadena, California. OCS founder Ruth Siemens resigned from Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship after 28 years of association because the OCS goal of deploying a larger force of "tentmaker" missionaries around the world was reaching well beyond students and the IVCF family. She continues as director of ministries for OCS, which has a small staff of researchers, counselors, and assistants. Administrative and financial responsibility is in the hands of Don Hamilton, a chemical engineer who with J. Christy Wilson, Ralph Winter, and others, set up the first technical college in Afghanistan in the mid-1950s.

"The amount of work to be done is overwhelming," says Ruth, who is trying to get other movements in the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students to set up similar services. In May 1981 she had about 800 applicants for 540 overseas job categories, and was seeing too many opportunities "go begging for lack of qualified people to fill them."

When we heard from Ruth in November 1981, OCS was expecting to receive its own computer, donated by the Trists, a couple who provided free computer services to OCS for several years, and by other individuals and churches. The computer will expand the number of job categories to 3000 and carry out job-matching automatically, freeing OCS personnel for supplementary counseling and other duties.

OCS has produced about 50 Factsheets on such topics as "University Teaching Overseas," "Retirement Abroad," and "Ways to Enter China." They are now publishing a monthly Job Bulletin with hundreds of current openings, from 225 countries. A trial three-month subscription is $10, or one year for $40. Address: Overseas Counseling Service, 1600 E. Elizabeth, Pasadena, CA 91104.

2. The board of the Jesus Hospital (also known as the Presbyterian Medical Center) in Chonju, South Korea, has decided to create a new medical school to serve North Cholla Province, an agricultural district located about 250 Km south of Seoul. David J. Seel, M.D., FACS, an ASA member, is director of the hospital. David needs some immediate help from Christians in the basic medical sciences even to launch the project, so he has asked a friend at the Webb-Waring Lung Institute in Denver to serve as a go-between.

Application for a permit for the new medical school has been made to the Dept. of Education in Seoul. According to the Minister of Education a major weakness is lack of evidence that qualified basic science faculty can be recruited. At this stage David is looking for people who could serve up to three years on the basic science faculty. Since no commitment can be made either way at this time, what is needed now is merely an expression of interest, hoping thereby to convince the Dept. of Education that a new Christian medical school can be staffed. The application is already under review, so time is somewhat urgent.

The goals of the new school will be whole-person medicine, educating Christian physicians for family medicine, integration of faith and medicine, and a medical missionary thrust into Asia. In a 48-page paper on the "Context, Philosophy, Goals, Curriculum, and Evaluation Plans for Christian Medical College, Chonju, Korea," David Seel has done a beautiful job of explaining the need for the new school and the way it will meet that need in its cultural context. Example: "Because of the extremely limited availability of cadavers due to cultural factors, demonstration dissection integrated into the organ-system approach would predominate."

The medical school will turn Korean high school graduates into physicians in six years (two years less than in America), so instruction must be given in math, science, and even the humanities in addition to the basic medical sciences such as anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, microbiology, pathology, etc.

If you are interested in this new challenge to serve God overseas with your training, or if you know of other possible candidates, please write to: David W. Talmage, M.D., Director, Webb-Waring Lung Institute, U. of Colorado Health Sciences Center, 4200 East Ninth Ave., Denver, CO 80262.

"Help! Christian School International needs textbooks. We ordered a math series last year and now find that this series has been axed (shredded!). We either have to give up and reinvest in a new series or search for old copies that American schools might be discarding. We need about 25-30 copies of these books by Klaas Kramer, et al.:

School Math 3 (Grade 111) School Math 4 (Grade IV) School Math 5 (Grade V) School Math 6 (Grade VI)

"The series was published by Lyons and Carnahan/Chicago, Educational Division of Meredith Corporation. It would be a great financial saving to the school if teachers in ASA or CSCA on the lookout for these books could find them and ship them to Mrs. Carolyn Early, Water Management, IRRI, Box 933, Manila, Republic of the Philippines. We would also welcome any other children's books. Bless you."

(We don't think it will hurt to let the cat out of the bag that How Green Is My Mountain (IVP, 1979) was written by Betty Mae under the pseudonym Ruth Klaasen. It tells the story of the Dycks' life in the Philippines, their coping with culture shock after growing up in the Canadian midwest, and their opportunities to witness as a family in another culture. Betty Mae used a pseudonym because the book is so personal and contains accounts of so many living persons. Her book would be valuable reading for any Christian hoping to serve God in a cross-cultural situation.-Ed.)

The letter was signed Charles G. Gebelein, professor, Dept. of Chemistry, Youngstown State University. (We quickly checked the membership list to see if he's an ASA member. Nope. But Mrs. Charles Gebelein of 265 Meadowbrook Ave, Youngstown, OH 44512, subscribes to JASA.-Ed.)

Evidently the AAAS session on "Terminal Cretaceous Extinction" drew a large crowd for a debate on the demise of dinosaurs (see "Lasting Impact" in the Dec/Jan Newsletter). The debate was lively enough to make the Berkeley newspaper, but then, U.C. Berkeley scientists were represented on both sides. Walter Alvarez, one of the originators of the asteroid collision theory, reported that the iridium anomaly in 65-million-year-old sedimentary rocks has now been found in 26 locations around theworld. But Berkeley paleontologist William A. Clemens was one of those who claimed that plant extinctions and dinosaur extinctions were separated by as much as 50,000 or 100,000 years. That makes it look as though "the Cretaceous went out with a whimper, not a bang."

A considerably more recent catastrophic event was the "Tunguska Meteor Fall of 1908," described in a paper of that title in the 2 October 1981 issue of Science. On 30 June 1908 an immense meteor exploded over central Siberia with the force of a ten-megaton detonation. "The scale of the meteor impact was unprecedented in recorded history. Two thousand square kilometers of ancient forest were blown flat, men 60 km from the fall site were thrown down and seared by the heat, the bolide was seen for hundreds of kilometers around, the explosion was heard for 1000 km, and the air wave disturbance circled the globe twice."

Although the nature of the meteor has been debated, "current ideas point to a small comet or cometary fragment." The authors of the paper, some of them physicists at the NASA Ames Research Center in California, were interested in effects of the possibly 30 million metric tons of nitric oxide on the ozone layer, as a test of current ozone depletion theories.

Other people seem to have other reasons for studying the Tunguska explosion. Sociologist Dave Moberg sent us a communication he received in October 1981 from an outfit called "Glory Cloud, Inc." (P.O. Box 15072, San Diego, CA 92115). 1 n it Glory Clouds president Kenneth W. Richardson refers to the "nuclear device" that served as a harmless warning to earthlings in 1908 and cites evidence that "theframers of this device delivered it in on target according to a plan." What kind of evidence? "it is exactly half as far from the explosion at Tunguska to the North Pole as it is from the North Pole to the birthplace of Jesus Christ. Is that some kind of clue?"

Beyond the "strange mathematical relationship to certain features of our land measurement devices," Richardson is impressed that "the device was also delivered apparently related to our measurement systems for time; namely, the prime meridian and also midnight." There follow seven pages of convoluted explanation of the significance of the occurrence at "precisely 7:12 8.049 seconds (GMT) in the morning." I n the middle the author admits that his argument "is so difficult. I hope you understand it. I wish that I did." But he concludes that "if this is what happened then it had to be controlled."

The Glory Clouds communication ends with encouragement "to deliver this understanding to remnants of the world's understanding community" because "there is a way to avoid world destruction." Readers can send contributions but "are not to claim responsibility nor shall you take the credit. This is my chore; I will tell you where I get it later on. The chore is charity, write it in your book."

(We immediately checked the membership list to see if Richardson or Glory Clouds secretary-treasurer Charles H. Hajduk are ASA members. Nope. They get all the credit. Ed.)

1974, Roy spent three years in the army as a biological sciences assistant raising mosquitoes in the Dept. of Tropical Medicine at Letterman Army Institute of Research in San Francisco. As a teaching assistant in the Dept. of Entomology & Economic Zoology at Rutgers University he has taught a variety of entomology courses. He has several publications on mosquitoes and mosquito repellants. Roy is on the Executive Council of the Metropolitan New York section of ASA and a member of Mt. Bethel Baptist Church in Warren, New Jersey. He and wife Linda have three children.

Calvin College in Michigan (where the 1982 ASA ANNUAL MEETING will be held, AUGUST 13-16) seeks candidates with a Ph.D. in computer science or mathematics for both temporary and regular positions, teaching and doing research from a Reformed, Christian perspective. Equal opportunity employer. Send rÈsumÈ by March 1 to: Dr. Carl J. Sinke, Chair, Mathematics Dept., Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI 49506. Tel. 616-949-4000 X352. (Received 14 Jan 1982.)

The section scheduled a meeting for January 4, first day of the AAAS meetings in Washington, D.C. The meeting was held at "Cornerstone" in College Park, Maryland, with ASA executive director Robert Herrmann discussing "Findings and Implications of Research on the Origin of Life." The notice sent to local section members also encouraged them to attend some of the AAAS sessions addressing issues pertinent to the interaction of science and faith. (Just before our copy deadline we learned from Paul Arveson that about 30 people attended the meeting, and that a lively discussion centered around the papers given at the "Science and Belief" session held that day at the AAAS.-Ed.)

A meeting at the same church on Monday evening, February 1, was planned around a discussion of Francis Schaeffer's 1966 lecture, "Naturalistic Science is Poor Science," and the William J. Kaufman 1981 SDSU lectures on "Relativity, Black Holes, and the Universe." Kaufman's discussion on progress being made toward a unified field theory and its potential effect on our ideas about the universe relates to the Schaeffer lecture and to the apostle Paul's discussion of "the form of the universe" in Romans 1. The discussion was led by James Merritt, a chemist with the City of San Diego who graduated from UCSD.

David E . Baker does development work on products related to energy conservation at the Energy Materials Research company of Berkeley, California. After a B.S. in chemistry from Indiana State at Terre Haute, David investigated photosynthesis as a source of hydrogen in Melvin Calvin's "roundhouse" research lab at U.C. Berkeley, where he earned an M.S. in physical chemistry.

Richard H. Bube, professor of materials science at Stanford U. in California, is beginning his fourteenth year as editor of the Journal of ASA. Dick and Betty's family Christmas letter reported that Dick's back attack in July 1981 was the most severe he's had in ten years, but the Lord has provided help through a physical therapist recommended by Dick's physician. Her therapy program seems to work, even though it contradicts everything Dick had been told forthe past twenty years. He continues an active program of photovoltaic research.

Donald G. Davis, Jr., associate professor in the U. of Texas Graduate School of Library and Information Science, is editor of the Journal of Library History, published by U.T. Press. Don has also edited a U.T. Press book entitled Libraries and Culture consisting of 31 papers given at a four-day Library History Seminar held in Austin in March 1980. The 1981 hardback (479 pp., $25) covers such topics as libraries and antiquity, philosophy of librarianship, establishment of unique collections, and public libraries and society.

F. Alton Everest, first president of ASA and founding editor of this newsletter, lives with wife Elva in Whittier, California. An audio engineer retired years ago from his work of producing films for Moody Institute of Science, Alton continues to write "how to" books in the audio field, often with the needs of Christian broadcasting studios in mind. His fifth book came off the press recently and now he's working on a ten-lesson audiovisual unit on "critical listening." (Not bad for somebody with a serious hearing problem that has developed over the years-Ed.)

H. Harold Hartzler, wintering in Glendale, Arizona, after several years of retirement from teaching physics and astronomy at Mankato State in Minnesota, has recovered remarkably well from his July 1981 heart attack. That illness kept him in a Mankato hospital for eighteen days and made him miss last year's ASA Annual Meeting-for the first time in 35 years. The Hartzler Christmas letter informed us that, Lord willing, Harold is definitely planning to attend the 1982 ASA ANNUAL MEETING at CALVIN COLLEGE in GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN, AUGUST 13-16. (Let's all be thereto welcome him back.-Ed.)

John Haverhals is an assistant professor of mathematics at Bradley U. in Peoria, Illinois. John has been elected the198182 chair of the Illinois section of the Mathematical Society of America.

Robert A. Herrmann (our "other" Bob Herrmann) is associate professor of mathematics at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. He is also founder of the Institute for Mathematical Philosophy, dedicated to construction of mathematical models for metaphysical systems. Bob sent us a clipping from the Birmingham News (30 Oct 1981), headlined "Navy Math Prof Says His Formulas Prove Christianity, Miracles . . ." The story begins, "Christianity is rational, and people who claim to have religious experiences are rational. Humanists who deny the existence of God and say religion is irrational are themselves being irrational." The story mentions the ASA and our 1981 Annual Meeting as an occasion on which Bob outlined his mathematical philosophy, which "came to him" as he was reading Russian mathematical works and C. S. Lewis's Miracles at the same time. Although the Newsletter editor was snowed by such things as "the Grundlegend structure," Bob says any mathematician could understand it. He's submitted a paper on "The Reasonableness of Metaphysical Evidence" to JASA; he's also written The G-Model (Applied to C. S. Lewis), available from I.M.P. Press, P.O. Box 3410, Annapolis, MD 21403.

Charles E. Hummel has a degree in engineering and almost 30 years of experience with Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, for which he now directs the Faculty Ministries. Charlie is also the author of Filled With the Spirit (IVP, 1981) in the IVP booklet series . In 32 small pages Charlie sorts out such biblical phrases as "filled with the Spirit," "full of the Holy Spirit," and "baptized in the Spirit"; and contrasts the "fruit of the Spirit" with "gifts of the Spirit." As Christians live under the Lordship of Christ, he says, "we can look for the Spirit's filling, anointing, empowering as the occasion requires and he determines." Allowing for differences about "which spiritual gifts to expect," the booklet urges "unity in essentials, diversity in nonessentials, but charity in all things."

Eric Miller has returned to Twentyonehundred Productions, the multimedia arm of IVCF in Madison, Wisconsin, after almost nine months in Asia. Eric consulted on audio-visual communication with mission agencies and groups associated with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, put on some Twentyonehundred shows as examples of what can be done, and collected new slide and tape resources for productions shown at IVCF's Urbana Missions Convention in December 1981. Eric visited over a dozen countries, helping students and missionaries develop projects to present a Christian message within their own cultural contexts.

David 0 . Moberg of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was surprised to learn of his alleged travels to Senegal and Mali in a story in the Oct/Nov 1981 Newsletter. It turns out that he actually did speak at the Washington-Baltimore ASA local section meeting in October, but all the other information applied to his colleague in the Dept. of Sociology & Anthropology at Marquette, Claude E. Stipe. Claude really did do research in West Africa last summer, Dave says. (Imagine our spelling "Tombouctou" correctly in that story-and then misspelling "Stipe" as "Moberg"-Ed.) Dave Moberg will be traveling to Des Moines, Iowa, for the Midwest Sociological Society meetings, April 7-9 (the week before Easter). He would welcome an opportunity to speak to an ASA, IVCF, or other group on that trip, especially if they could help subsidize his travel costs. (Address: Dept. of Sociology & Anthropology, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI 53233; Tel. 414-2246838.)

William B. Monsma has a Ph.D. in physics but currently spends his time in ministry to graduate students and faculty at the U. of Minnesota. Bill is the first "local specialist" in such a ministry on the IVCF staff. Financial support for his work is still incomplete but wife Mary Beth is employed at a Health Maintenance Organization in Minneapolis to take up the slack. In December Bill helped with the Urbana Missions Convention, in conjunction with Charlie Hummel, IVCF's national faculty specialist. Come to think of it, support for the national ministry is also a bit short. (Address: Faculty Ministries, IVCF, 233 Langdon St., Madison, WI 53791; designate separately the local MN work or the national work for contributions.)

Miriam Ross received her Ph.D. in anthropology from the U. of Washington in Seattle in December, with a dissertation on "Women and Wellness: Defining, Attaining, and Maintaining Health in Eastern Canada. In January 1982 she taught a course in "Culture, Health, and Healing" as part of the winter term at Regent College in Vancouver, B.C. She may stay in B.C. for awhile, working as a nurse while she looks for a teaching position that would combine at least some of her interests: anthropology, transcultural nursing, international development, women's health, wellness and health promotion, gerontology, care of the dying, and the church as a healing community. (Miriam's permanent mailing address is P.O. Box 1086, Springhill, Nova Scotia, Canada BOM 1XO, in case you hear of a position like that.)

L. Evans Roth is almost at the top of the academic ladder at the U. of Tennessee in Knoxville, presiding over all graduate studies and research there. A biologist himself, he has helped negotiate a 1.1 megabuck contract with a new biotechnology company for work on barley and wheat by members of U.T.'s botany department. Evans serves on the boards of several companies himself and of the Southeast Consortium for International Development. The Roths are excited about preparations for the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, where even the People's Republic of China will have an exhibit.

Claude E. Stipe, associate professor of anthropology at Marquette U. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, deserves to have his name spelled right this time (see Moberg squib above). Claude's article on "Anthropologists and Missionaries" in the April 1980 Current Anthropology (see Aug/Sep Newsletter, p. 6) is still making waves. (Clyde McCone of Cal State Long Beach used it as a starting point for a paper on "Cognitive Anthropology Applied to Christian Belief Conflicts" at the Society of Applied Anthropology in Edinburgh last spring.) In the June 1981 issue of Current Anthropology Claude had a good reply to a criticism of his paper from Harry Feldman of Papua New Guinea. Feldman wrote that fieldworkers, "as scientists and rationalists," find obnoxious the Christian doctrine that "at some point one must abandon reason and rely entirely upon faith." In reply Claude cited both the Summer Institute of Linguistics and the American Scientific Affiliation as organizations made up of scientists "who are theists and take their Christian beliefs seriously." He argued that "refusing to take anything on faith would be inimical to many scientific endeavors." (Stipe on, Right Ed.)

Press for fall 1982, provided a basis for her Finch Lectures at Fuller Seminary in California early in January. Mary's husband Ray has a post in the Religion & Theology Dept. of Calvin College, after a year of teaching Hebrew and exegesis at Calvin Seminary.

Ed Yarnauchi is vice-president of ASA and professor of near eastern studies in the History Dept. of Miami U. in Oxford, Ohio. The Yamauchi family Christmas letter always seems to illustrate for us how Christian faith and scholarly work can blend together. One of Ed's extracurricular projects mentioned this year is his editorship of the newsletter of the Oxford Bible Fellowship. That means keeping track of some 300 students now enrolled at Miami who participate in OBF and about 500 OBF alumni, many of whom now staff such campus ministries as Campus Crusade, IVCF, and Navigators. In December Ed addressed the annual luncheon of the Institute for Biblical Research, a group of evangelical scholars who hold their meeting during the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature meetings, held in San Francisco this year. That gave Ed a chance to confer with ASA president Chi-Hang Lee of Walnut Creek, California, just a hop, skip, bridge, and tunnel east of S.F.