NEWSLETTER
of the

AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC AFFILIATION - CANADIAN SCIENTIFIC & CHRISTIAN AFFILIATION

Volume 26 Number 3                                                                                 June / July 1984

LOOKING GOOD

We hope you like our new banner, more readable type, and this paper that's slick enough for half-tone photographs. If so, say "cheese" in the direction of Rowley Printing of Rowley, Massachusetts-only a hip, switch, and jump from the ASA office. The most important difference doesn't even show. Changing to a local company should get the Newsletter printed in two weeks instead of the two months it took before.

We're also smiling at Joan Lipsey and managing editor Ruth Herr, for seeing the first issues through the process with minimum foul-ups. To say thank you the editor sent I em some nice Berkeley weather-and promised to get the next copy in on time.

"The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be." So begins Carl Sagan's epic television series of the same name-a magnificent presentation of what we have discovered about our awesome universe and our own tiny blue-white spaceship Earth, "lost in a cosmic ocean vast beyond our most courageous imaginings."

Courageous it may be to face a vast universe alone, but is it reasonable? What do we know, what did our scientific forebears believe, and what is the real outlook of the cosmologists of our day? The answer comes back with growing conviction-we are not alone. The Biblical view of creation by an infinite, purposeful God who is there comes remarkably close to the picture our science presents. And to tell that story, Owen Gingerich, Harvard astronomer and historian of science and astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Observatory, will be lecturing at USC on "Scientific Cosmogony and Biblical Creation".

Fred Hickernell, USC mathematician is joining with me in hosting a dinner to precede the lecture, at 6:30 PM on Thursday, May 31. We plan to introduce our beginning plan for a 6-part TV series to present "the other side" of the story, with a video tape of part of Owen's program in the NOVA series, an outline of the proposed TV programs, and an estimate of costs. We hope many in the LA area will attend. -Bob Herrmann

"1984: THE RESPONSIBILITY OF SCIENCE"

That's the theme set for the 39th ANNUAL MEETING Of the American Scientific Affiliation. The meeting will be held AUGUST 3-6 at MIAMI UNIVERSITY in OXFORD. OHIO. Keynote speaker will be Dr. Herbert Schlossberg, author of Idols for Destruction: Christian Faith and Its Confrontation with American Society (Thomas Nelson, 1983).

We can expect some provocative insights on the way things are and how they got that way. Trained in history (B.A., Bethel College; M.A., Missouri; Ph.D. Minnesota), our keynoter also has a Master of Public Administration from The American University in Washington, D.C. Idols, which took him five years to write, takes a multidisciplinary approach that draws together economic, sociological, historical, philosophical, and theological dimensions of the American experience.

Herbert Schlossberg's reviews and articles have appeared in such publications as American Historical Review, Canadian Journal of History, and Fides et Historia. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1965 he taught at the U. of Waterloo in Ontario and worked for the U.S. Government until 1973, when he became dean of Shepherd College in West Virginia. In 1977 he left his academic post to move his family back to Minneapolis, returning to a small but close Christian fellowship they had been part of in Herb's undergraduate years and during his doctoral studies. A business he began with an economist and another friend to provide financial advice and estate planning has supported his family (wife and three children) while he was writing Idols for Destruction. Our 1984 keynoter, an avid reader of JASA, is clearly a Christian scholar who ranges far beyond narrow academic boundaries.

The rest of the program will also do some ranging. Winston, the protagonist in George Orwell's novel 1984, was so under control of "Big Brother" that he could no longer distinguish what was real from what he feared or imagined. With or without a tyrannical leader, people in 1984 and beyond face the problem, "What is real?" As scientists and Christians, we have responsibility to help people sort things out to get a firmer grasp on reality.

Various kinds of control (psychological, biological, technological, social) are exercised to "manipulate reality." Program chair Russell Heddendorf is setting up the program to probe into them, and to explore the ethics of freedom and control.

Besides invited papers, there will be contributed papers on many subjects relating science and faith, some excellent films Russ has selected, free-for-all discussion groups, and that remarkable fellowship characteristic of ASA Annual Meetings. (We were about to say "the usual fellowship." Then we recalled how unusual is it to experience such a synthesis of high-quality intellectual and spiritual fellowship. -Ed.) There's nothing quite like going at a topic from all angles, then praying just as intensely about it with the same people. A lot of that goes on at our Annual Meetings.

You have plenty of time to read 1984 beforehand if you want to participate in the discussion group on that book. But topics as diverse as creation/evolution, psychological determinism, and industrial ethics will be taken up by other groups if you've had enough of Orwell's vision. You might even read Idols for Destruction - to sample Schlossberg's vision.

Use a fairly large piggy bank. because the 15-day "History of Science Tour" immediately following the conference will be the chance of a lifetime. Cities on the itinerary include Gent, Amsterdam, Berlin. Munich. Strassbourg, Paris, and London, with other stops along the way. The experienced tour guide planning this trip (Delvin Covey of the renowned Gordon College summer European travel program) knows all the museums and science-history sites, plus how to see them on a faculty (or student) budget. He's estimating that the whole thing, including the roundtrip airfare from New York (or Ipswich), can be done for under $1,600 per person. Del also knows how to find cheapo group airfares.

That's buses, hotels with breakfast (two to a room, with private bath), some regular meals plus some picnic lunches en route, luggage handling, tips, entrance fees at prescribed museums-the whole bit. And what great traveling companions!

(In our house we're filling two piggy banks. At first Ginny said she'd stay in England for those two weeks. But when she saw the fantastic list of museums, she said, "That tour is too good to miss. Maybe we can go early to spend some time in Britain before the conference." Maybe we need three piggy banks. -Ed.)

To get the best rates, our tour arrangers need to shop early. So by September 1984 they'll be asking for a commitment and deposit from each person planning to take the tour. Be ready when opportunity knocks, or rings.

Highlights of the conference are two addresses on Appalachia; addresses on the black experience by a Jamaican black and an American black; and panels on humanism, racism, and doing research for the church or community. For more information on ACTS contact program chair Lowell Noble, Spring Arbor College, Spring Arbor, MI 49283; tel. (517) 750-1200.

Hosting the June meeting at Covenant will be sociologist Russell Heddendorf, member of the ASA Executive Council and program chair of the 1984 ASA ANNUAL MEETING at MIAMI UNIVERSITY in OXFORD, OHIO, AUGUST 3-6.

Some 1,549 top young scientists were nominated by their department heads, from whom only 200 were selected to receive the PYI awards. The awards "embody the nation's determination to assure the vitality of American research universities and to strengthen our ability to train the next generation of technical leaders."

The PYI awards are administered by the National Science Foundation more flexibly than regular NSF research grants, which are under continual scientific review. Duane has to submit only the budget pages from the standard NSF application and an outline of the work he plans to do. The base amount is $25,000 per year for up to five years, with additional money up to $37,500 a year to match any funds obtained from industry-which could mean a total of $100,000 per year in research support.

Duane will use his award money to continue studying the atmosphere as a geophysical fluid system, with special attention to "blocking phenomena." That's what happens when a ridge of high pressure hovers for weeks, say, sending moist air up into Canada and causing droughts in eastern Colorado and the midwestern states.

Duane received a B.S. in physics from Wheaton College (1972) and a Ph.D. in applied physics from Harvard (1977). He spent a year at the U. of Washington before joining the CSU faculty in 1978. In the summer of his sophomore year he worked at Ames Laboratory at Iowa State in the research group of John Stanford, a Christian physicist who was beginning to do atmospheric research and eventually wrote a book on tornadoes. Duane would like to use some of his Presidential Award for collaborative work with Stanford.

Duane joined ASA as an undergraduate at Wheaton. He says he appreciates the openness ASA has maintained about science/faith issues. Seeing the abundant evidence for ice ages and other climatic changes over long spans of time, for example, Duane wonders how such evidence could ever be fit into a young-earth interpretation of creation. The Stevenses are active members of Faith Evangelical Free Church in Fort Collins. This year Duane was elected to chair the congregation.

REAPING THE WHIRLWIND

There's never room enough to cover all the action in the creation controversy, let alone the steadily building reaction. The scientific community hasn't been sitting around waiting for a Louisiana judge to rebuff "creation science." Here are some recent examples of the backlash:

More than 40.000 copies of a special publication. Science and Creationism: A View trom the National Academy of Sciences, are being mailed to school district superintendents and secondary school science department heads, to organizations such as the National Science Teachers Association, and to some members of the U.S. Congress. A cover letter from NAS president Frank Press says the booklet distinguishes between creationism and the scientific study of evolution because teaching both of them "as equally sound and valid alternative scientific theories is both misleading and inaccurate."

Science and Creationism makes that case firmly but dispassionately in its 28 pages. Single copies are $4 each; 2-9 copies, $3 each; 10 or more, $1.75 each. All orders prepaid with delivery to a single address; special prices on large orders; from National Academy Press, 2101 Constitution Ave., N.W., Washington, DC 20418.

Also, that June 1982 symposium at U.C. Santa Barbara (Feb/Mar 1983 ASA Newsletter) is now in print, with papers by Duane Gish and Robert Gentry plus seven papers responding to creationist arguments. Evolutionists Confront Creationism is a 200-page softcover book available at $9.75 per copy plus $1.50 postage per order, prepaid orders only; checks payable to California Academy of Sciences (CA residents add sales tax). Order from AAAS Pacific Division, c/o California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, CA 94118.

Still another symposium, "The Creationist Attack on Science," from the April 1982 meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, has appeared in Federation Proceedings 42 (13) 3022-42 (Oct 1983). In addition to scientific arguments, that symposium includes lawyer Jack D. Novik's report on the strategy of his ACLU team in litigating the Arkansas creationism case. Novik says that "attempting to prove in a courtroom what science is must be somethin(

g akin to exploring in a laboratory what religion is. By and large, the facility is simply not well constituted for the task."

(We think that's why most ASA/CSCA members dread these court battles, which may alter the politics but otherwise continue to confuse science/faith issues. A lot of scientists have been uncomfortable with the way science was defined in Judge Overton's opinion in the Arkansas case, for example Richard Arndt of Cal State University Fresno sent us a strong critique by Larry Laudan, professor of history and philosophy of science at the U. of Pittsburgh. Entitled "Science at the Bar: Causes for Concern," it appears as an appendix in a book by Jeffrie G. Murphy, Evolution, Morality, and the Meaning of Life (Rowman Press, 1982). Overton used bad judgment in asserting that creationism is "untestable, dogmatic (and thus non-tentative) and unfalsifiable," Laudan says, because creationist claims that the earth is of recent origin "are testable, they have been tested, and they failed these tests." -Ed.)

U.C. Berkeley professor Thomas H. Jukes, who organized that Federation symposium, speaks out strongly again in the 29 March issue of Nature 308, 398-400 (1984). Jukes was irked by an earlier "Commentary" by Calvin College historian George Marsden in Nature 305, 571-4 (1983). Marsden (who irked a lot of creationists by testifying on the evolution side in Arkansas) had tried to explain that creationist attacks on evolution, however misguided, are really aimed at an "anti-supernaturalistic mythology." Jukes responds that Marsden overlooked "the real nature of the creationist attack on science." Jukes then quotes the writings of creationists associated with the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) and Creation Science Research Center (CSRC) to show the religious nature of "scientific creationism." He lectures Marsden, saying that the controversy is no "polite discussion of differences in philosophy." Jukes cites CSRC's "harassment of the incumbents of the educational system," including the monitoring of California classrooms by the "Creation Creed Committee" founded in 1981. According to Jukes, censorship of school science textbooks has been "successfully practiced by creationists for more than 50 years." Finally, he chides University of Texas scientists for letting such censorship be practiced openly in their state, which purchases the second largest volume of textbooks in the nation.

This spring, however, the political winds have blown the other way in the Lone Star State. Several groups have been lobbying intensely, led by People for the American Way, formed in 1980 by television producer Norman Lear and others to protect First Amendment rights. Basically they adopted the same tactics long used by Mr. and Mrs. Mel Gabler of Longview, Texas, on the other side of the fence.

Over ten years ago the Gablers began doing detailed analyses of textbooks up for adoption and made insistent demands on the State Board of Education. The board adopted rules mandating circumscribed presentation of evolution. Gerald Skoog of Texas Tech University has tracked the resulting decline in coverage of evolution in school texts, in Science Education 63, 621-40 (Oct 1979) and more recently in "Equal Time for Creationism? No," Texas Tech. J. Education 10 (2) 87-99 (Spring 1983). Publishers admit that the Texas rules influenced what they produced for the whole country, because of the tenth of the market represented by Texas.

Well, on 12 March 1984, Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox rendered the opinion that "The rules of the State Board of Education, concerning the subject of evolution, fail to demonstrate a secular purpose and are therefore in contravention of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution." On 13 April the board voted to repeal the rules, which have been in effect since 1973. Another change is that this July, when the state textbook committee begins its hearings, scientists and educators will be able to make positive comments about desirable books; in the past only protests could be made -and the Gablers offered plenty of them. These developments were reported in two news articles by Roger Lewin in Science 223, 1373-4 (30 March 1984) and 224, 370 (27 April 1984).

Probably the best place to keep up with such political goings-on (assuming you already read ICR's Acts & Facts) is the bimonthly Creation/Evolution Newsletter, formerly the Memorandum to Committees of Correspondence. At the end of 1983. Stanley Weinberg of Iowa passed the editorship of the Memorandum on to Karl Fezer of Concord College in West Virginia. The name and objectives were changed and it became an official publication of the National Center for Science Education, Inc. It will still disseminate news among the 52 Committees of Correspondence, and will also take over the news component of Creation/Evolution. That quarterly will be entirely devoted to in-depth analysis of scientific arguments invoked by "scientific creationists." CIE Newsletter will broaden its coverage to serve as a forum on preserving the integrity of science education. Both CIE journal and CIE Newsletter take the position that "scientific creationism" is a blatant distortion of science education.

Just as we have praised Origins Research for stating its position but opening its pages to other views, we like what the new editor of CIE Newsletter has to say in his first issue. Some distortions of science and science education, Fezer admits, "may even emanate from recognized members of the scientific community. Indeed, the definition of science continues to be the subject of vigorous discussion among scientists and philosophers of science, and the diverse views have diverse consequences for science education." He goes on to say that the public and even some science teachers may be vulnerable to the claims of "scientific creationism" because science education has failed to give them an adequate understanding of science.

That issue (Vol. 4, No. 1, Jan/Feb 1984) has five pages of information on the Texas textbook rules; a copy of the Balanced Treatment Act introduced in the Arizona legislature on 31 January 1984; CSRC staff member Robert Kofahl's "Proposal to Eliminate the Deleterious Effects of Religious Beliefs upon Science and Education" (from Origins Research) and Fezer's critique of it; and lots of other news and comment. One year of CIE Newsletter is $5; one year of CreationlEvolution (the quarterly journal), $9; combined subscription to both, $12 (or $10 for Committee of Correspondence members). Checks payable to: National Center for Science Education, Box 32, Concord College, Athens, WV 24712.

Here's one balmy thought in all this turbulence: with Creation/Evolution Newsletter on the scene to more or less balance Origins Research, Origins, Acts & Facts, Bible-Science Newsletter, and so on, maybe we can move on to cover some other news for a change.

Many of you must wonder whatever happened to that interesting material you sent the editor weeks or months ago. Thanks for your patience. We hope to clear out some of our backlog in the next issue. Meanwhile, here are some follow-ups on stories from earlier issues.

1. Dinosaur extinction (Dec 81/Jan 82). The story on what happened to the dinosaurs (and a lot of God's other creatures) has continued to build. We've often heard the "inside story" before it hit the press, because grad student Kirk Bertsche is in a regular U.C. Berkeley seminar with the group headed by physicist Luis W. Alvarez. Challenges to their massive meteorite theory led its proponents (including UCB geologist Walter Alvarez) to take a more detailed look at the fossil record at the Cretacious-Tertiary boundary. (See W. Alvarez, et al., "Impact Theory of Mass Extinctions and the Invertebrate Fossil Record," Science, 16 March 1984.) Meanwhile other paleontologists saw evidence of other extinctions, at what looked like 26-million-year intervals.

Then geologists took another look at the ages of major impact craters on the earth's surface. Sure enough, seven of the largest ones fit the pattern of extinctions. That brought astronomers into the act, so now there is a serious proposal that our sun may have a companion star orbiting around it, giving rise to storms of comets every 26 or 28 million years when it is closest to earth. (See Richard A. Kerr's news story, "Periodic Impacts and Extinctions Reported," Science, 23 March 1984.)

Whatever the final outcome, it's exciting to watch different branches of science come together so beautifully. And who could have imagined that the "catastrophism" so important to creationists would ever mesh so neatly with the "uniformitarian" outlook of evolutionists?

2. U.S. Center for World Mission (Oct/Nov 1983). Did Ralph Winter find enough "Founders" with one-time gifts of $15.95 to meet the $6 million balloon payment on the

Pasadena campus due 1 Sept 1983? No, but they did reach some 12,000 new people through that big push. Now quarterly mortgage payments of $300,000 are keeping the Center in place until late 1985, when another huge balloon payment comes due. They're determined to keep trying for 1.2 million Founders, not just to secure that valuable property but to enlist that many Christians in the task of evangelizing the "unreached peoples" of the world. It's a great investment at only $15.95 a share. (Address USCWM, 1605 E. Elizabeth St., Pasadena, CA 91104.)

3. Commission on Creation (Feb/Mar 1984). Dan Wonderly received a number of positive responses to his plea for ASA to "help the many evangelical Christians who are actually inquiring and open to hear about the evidence and about alternative positions on creation." He also got word from ASA executive director Bob Herrmann that such a commission is being formed, with Calvin College geologist Dave Young as chair.

4. Jerry Bergman lawsuit (Feb/Mar 1984). Still in process, we gather. But Dave Moberg finally received a reply from the Ohio ACLU. Their legal director said ACLU would participate only "if the trial court were to set forth a record of the case substantiating the religious bias but ruling contrary to principles of nondiscrimination on that basis." Because it "turns on subjective intent," religious bias is evidently hard to prove in a court of law.

5. San Francisco '83 (Feb/Mar 1984). Our booth at IVCF's urban conference in December attracted quite a few students, partly because the alphabetical order put "ASA" on an aisle with a lot of foot traffic ("World Vision" and "Youth for Christ" were off in the boonies). About 200 of our brochures were picked up and over 30 people signed up to receive membership information. We counted about a dozen ASA members at the conference. In workshops on the physical sciences led by George Blount and Loren Wilkinson and on the biological sciences by Chi-Hang Lee and Walt Hearn, students were concerned not only about ethical issues in those professions but also about "how to get there." If Inter-Varsity holds another urban conference with a vocational emphasis (probably "Chicago '86"), we ought to be there. Our presence is good for ASA and good for science/ engineering majors considering God's calling. 6. ASA Amateur radio net (Apr/May 1984). Bob McAllister has since received a QSL card from astronaut Owen Garriott, who picked up Bob's VE7ERQ signal, but Bob figures he must have picked the wrong time or the wrong frequency to hear from ASA/CSCA hams. Better ideas? Contact McAllister on the air or at Box 399, Rossland, B.C. Canada VOG 1YO. (There's the problem, Bob. They're trying to raise your Canadian ZIP code instead of your call letters. -Ed.)

Goshen College in Indiana needs someone in computer science with at least an M.S. or extensive experience in computer hardware. Position could lead to tenure, even to department chair, helping to shape a new curriculum for computer science majors. Two DEC VAX-11/20 and a number of microcomputers. Contact: Dr. Arthur Smucker, Director of Computer Services, Goshen College, Goshen, IN 46526. Tel. (219) 533-3161-X550 (Received 6 April.)

Pepperdine University in California needs someone in economics to teach undergraduate courses in intermediate macroeconomics, money & banking, econometrics, math for economists, principles, and/or international trade and finance. Small liberal arts college related to Churches of Christ wants an assistant or associate professor with a vital Christian faith to contribute to spiritual as well as intellectual growth of students. Three courses per trimester with option to teach two courses in the third trimester; research may be supported through reassigned time. Contact: Dr. Nancy Magnusson-Fagan, Interim Chair, Social Science/Teacher Education, Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA 90265. Tel. (213) 456-4361. (Received 7 April.)

Barrington College in Rhode Island seeks an assistant or associate professor of chemistry to teach general, organic, bio, and analytical in a two-year sequence. Ph.D. and evidence of successful teaching required, plus enthusiasm for goals of an evangelical Christian liberal arts college. Send resume to: Dr. Kenneth W. Shipps, Dean of Faculty, Barrington College, Barrington, RI 02806. Tel. (401) 246-1200. (Received 9 April.)

Houghton College in New York has a tenure-track position open in biology for a Ph.D. with training in both immunology and microbiology. Experience with transmission electron microscopy would be helpful. Five faculty members, over 100 majors. Would consider a oneyear fill-in. Contact Dr. Donald W. Munro, Head, Dept. of Biology, Houghton College, Houghton, NY 14744. Tel. (716) 567-2211-X299. (Received 18 April.)

About 90 people attended the April 14 forum on "Biotechnology and the Human Condition" at Boston's Park Street Church, cosponsored by ASA and the Christian Medical Society. Biochemist Frank Young and geneticist Elving Anderson were among the speakers. Interaction on the technological application of modern biology, current medicine, and health-care delivery was "spirited" at many points during the day's discussions.

We failed to report a December meeting at which Charlie Hummel spoke to about 60 people on the Gordon College campus. IVCF's traveling faculty representative has been writing a book on what people should have learned from the Galileo controversy about relating science and faith. Charlie, who has bounced his ideas off a number of ASA sections, was on his home turf in New England. A meeting on current practices in psychology and psychiatry is being planned for next fall.

No report from the April 7 meeting on "Computers, People, and Christianity" at Nyack College, announced in the second issue of the MNY Section Newsletter. Speaker was Peter J. Cook, research staff member of IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. Cook received his Ph.D. in E.E. at Carnegie-Mellon University in 1971, but ten years before that he was developing instrumentation for the National Heart Institute and since 1965 has been with IBM. He has worked on LSI/VLSI design, including MOSFET circuit design and CAD too] development, but he is interested in all aspects of computers and in particular "artificial intelligence." His afternoon talk dealt with computer mechanisms and information processing, his evening talk with the implications of artificial intelligence in a Christian context.

Executive council officers for 1984 are Richard Harrison, president; Jack Haynes, vice-president; Wayne Ault, secretary; and Rudy Baum, treasurer. Wayne and Rudy have just begun their two-year terms on the council along with Elio Cuccaro and John Zacharias. Gary Allen and Gil Prance are the other members of the council. Bob Voss is executive secretary and editor of the section's fine Newsletter.

With the announcement of the March 29 meeting in conjunction with the Wheaton College Science Symposium on "The Age of the Earth." area coordinator Marlyne Sally Flora enclosed a questionnaire called a Speakers Bureau Fact Sheet. The newly revived section wants to compile a list of ASA speakers who can give talks on areas "where the Bible and science interrelate." The list will be sent to churches in the Chicago area with a cover letter describing ASA; interested churches can contact potential speakers directly. Marilyne sees this kind of educational ministry as "ASA's duty and privilege." It's something the Center for Scientific Creation is already doing in the Chicago area.

Our once most-active local section, in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, may also rise again. At least Bill Monsma of The Maclaurin Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies is giving "dem dry bones" one more shake. Contributions to the Institute (3945 14th Ave. So., Minneapolis, MN 55407) designated for ASA work will be matched by funds from the ASA national office (up to a certain limit). That will enable the toe-bone to poke around for the footbone, join up with the ankle-bone, and so on. (Hear that, Twin Cities? Last ASAer to get connected is a bonehead. -Ed.)

In February The Maclaurin Institute brought Calvin DeWitt of the Institute of Environmental Studies at the U. of Wisconsin to speak to various audiences at the U. of

Minnesota, Bethel College, the Association of Public Justice, and the ASA. DeWitt spoke of the need for an ethical policy to guide us in land use, relating that need to the biblical view of the land. He drew examples from ancient Mesopotamia, the tropical rain forests, and Iowa --where today two bushels of topsoil are lost for every bushel of corn grown.

A Saturday morning meeting, followed by lunch in the Student Union for those who want to continue the discussion. is a format the section tried some years ago. This time it drew about 30 people. perhaps a third of them Stanford students. but not many ASA regulars.

Ralph Blair edits Record, quarterly newsletter of Evangelicals Concerned, Inc. (30 E. 60th St., New York, NY 10022). He represented Evangelicals Concerned at the major Luther Jubilee celebration in Washington, D.C., in Nov. 1983, which was sponsored by The Lutheran Council in the USA, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the U. of Maryland. "Luther had come a long way from St. Mary's in Wittenberg," Ralph noted, since the event was held in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the largest Roman Catholic church building in America. In the summer of 1984 Ralph will go to Zurich for a celebration of the quintcentenary of the birth of Swiss Reformer Huldrych Zwingli. According to Ralph, Zwingli tried to be a reconciler among the Reformers and often preached against hypocrisy, but had to endure much cruel criticism "for his 'irregular' sex life." Ralph founded Evangelicals Concerned in 1976 as "a national task force of evangelicals concerned about the lack of preparation for dealing realistically with homosexuality in the evangelical community and about the implications of the gospel in the lives of gay men and women." As a psychotherapist directing New York's Homosexual Community Counseling Center, Ralph has helped many homosexuals overcome sexual promiscuity. (Recent issues of both The Other Side and IVCF's His magazine have dealt with responsible sexual ethics for homosexual Christians. -Ed.)

Edward R. Dayton is vice-president for mission and evangelism of World Vision International. Ed's book, Tools for Time Management, was recently revised and is available from Zondervan. In it he says to avoid using the phrase "as soon as possible" because its better "to set a time and be wrong, and thus learn, than to set no time at all." We picked up that hint about Newsletter deadlines, along with a lot of other good stuff, from Christian Leadership Letter, sent monthly to over 53,000 people by World Vision (919 W. Huntington Dr., Monrovia, CA 91016). It's free for the asking, but they'd appreciate a donation of $10 to help them be good stewards of World Vision resources. (Richt Ed. We'll get our check --~,me mail ASAP. -Ed.)

Alonzo Fairbanks works with international students at the U. of Minnesota for Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. Having served for many years on the science faculty of the American University of Beirut, Al has been saddened by the continued situation in Lebanon. Recently he gave a public lecture on the Lebanese situation on the St. Paul campus, and repeated it on the Minneapolis campus. The lectures were sponsored by the Maclaurin Institute's "World in Crisis" series. According to Institute director Bill Monsma, Al's historical overview and his concern that the Lebanese people work out their own internal problems brought positive responses from Lebanese students in the audience, both Christian and Muslim. Because Al's local IVCF committee has lost several members lately, he needs to recruit a new committee chair as well as new supporters for his work with internationals.

James C. Hefley and wife Marti together presented the Staley Foundation Distinguished Christian Scholar Lectures on "Christian Communications" in April at Bryan College in Tennessee. Jim and Marti, who together are authors or co-authors of over 50 books and hundreds of magazine articles, live and write in Signal Mountain, Tennessee. Their book sales are approaching the two million mark. (Wow, "two megabooks" -Ed.). Jim may adapt one of the talks, on "How the mass media influence our lives and what we can do about it", for the ASA ANNUAL MEETING in OXFORD, OHIO, AUGUST 3-6.

Richard A. Hendry is a chemistry professor at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, where a six megabuck addition to the science building is underway (along with some faculty belt-tightening). Dick says that Westminster, Grove City, and Geneva College science faculties serve as a sort of unofficial "North of Pittsburgh" ASA local section. Something may get started there someday; about 30 people attended a February lecture on "Integrity in Science" given at Westminster by ASA executive director Bob Herrmann.

Stanley R. Hillis is a retired radiologist who contributes four hours of his time, four days a week, to a Christian "soup kitchen" feeding hungry people in Austin, Texas. The founder and director of Angels House ministry, where Stan works, is a former Anglican monk, journalist, and college teacher named Tony Hearn-who turned out to be a long-lost cousin of ASA Newsletter editor Wait Hearn. When Stan was a medical student at Baylor. Walt was a biochemistry professor there. but they had already met in WWII when both were stationed on the same Marine Corps base. (Hillis may even encounter a Hearn or two "when the roll is called up yonder" -especially if the roll is alphabetical. -Ed.)

John R. Howitt is a retired psychiatrist living in Toronto. He "never misses" an ASA Annual Meeting, so he was certainly missed last year when illness kept him from the George Fox College meeting. This year we called him on his 92nd birthday to wish him well. Well, it was actually only his 22nd birthday. since John was born on Feb. 29, 1892. He should have had 23 birthdays by now, but he lost one in 1900 (leap years are cancelled in years ending in "00"). John said he's feeling well, though a bit unsteady on his feet. Is he planning to attend the 1984 ASA ANNUAL MEETING at MIAMI UNIVERSITY in OHIO, AUGUST 3-6? "Oh, absolutely!"

Robert Y. Hsu and Robert T. Voss, both professional engineers and both active in the Metropolitan New York ASA local section, have formed a corporation called Atlantic Consultants. Their firm provides consulting engineering and surveying services for everything from software development to structural design. One of their first projects was preliminary design of a proposed warehouse facility in Fairfield, New Jersey. Atlantic Consultants is one engineering firm that tries to be sensitive to environmental concerns, according to Bob Voss.

Paul Leiffer, associate professor of engineering at LeTourneau College in Longview, Texas, reports that LeTourneau has a new cross-cultural minor. The program is intended to prepare business and engineering/technology graduates to live and work overseas. Last summer Paul and the professor in charge of cross-cultural studies spent four weeks in mainland China with 9 LeTourneau students. They stayed at an engineering school (Jiao Tong University in Shanghai), studied the Chinese language, visited local industries, and interacted with Chinese students. The "China Project" was such a positive experience that another group of students hopes to go this summer.

D. Wayne Linn, biology professor at Southern Oregon State College, seems to be teaching at the University in Swaziland this year. A few years back Wayne did fisheries work in Malawi as a Peace Corps volunteer, but in his current letter from Swaziland we picked up phrases like "on campus," "examinations," and "Student Christian Movement" (which Wayne addressed on Jan. 8). Most of his letter described a trip the family made to Durban, Natal, in the Republic of South Africa to install son Doug in a boarding school: many hassles getting visas to enter RSA but beautiful country ("just like California") and friendly people (just like Oregonians? -Ed.).

Scott Moor is the chemical engineer who served as our Newsletter reporter for the 1983 Annual Meeting. He has kept us informed on the progress of Emmaus Community in Pacifica, a suburb south of San Francisco. Approval to begin occupying the residence was granted in mid-November. By January ten people were living in the community; by March there were 17 out of a total capacity of about 23. Besides helping communards settle in and getting organized, Scott has presented many of the weekly seminars through which Emmaus presents "basic Christianity" to the public.

NEWSLETTER Material to:

Dr. Walter Hearn, Editor, Newsletter 762 Arlington Avenue Berkeley, CA 94707

Dr. Robert L. Herrmann, Exec. Director, ASA
P.O. Box J
Ipswich, MA 01938
Phone (617) 356-5656

CANADIAN MATTERS TO: Dr. W.D. Morrison, CSCA, Box 386, Fergus, Ont N1M 3E1