THE BROCKHOEFT REPORT --- Feedback Box:

Vol I, No. VIII April 1994 All Rights Reserved

NOTICE TO NEW READERS: these are chapters of a book being published, a chapter at a time, as John Brockhoeft writes them. You are starting in the middle. John wants you to have the first chapters so you can understand where he is coming from. If you subscribe specifically to our /C/ "Pro Life Controversies" issue, your subscription will already be counted from December 1993 to December 1994, and you will be sent the back issues from Brockhoeft's beginning. But if you have subscribed to the weekly P&A, and would be interested in the back issues, just write or call, and we will send them -- free. (P&A, 137 E. Leach, Dsm IA 50315; 515/256-0637)

TBR BOOK REVIEW

Third Time Around -- A History of the Pro-Life Movement from the First Century to the Present by George Grant. Wolgemuth and Hyatt, Publishers, Inc. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 110, Brentwood TN 37027. 224 pages.

The third issue of TBR noted that the slaughter of innocent children (whether preborn or new-born) is nothing new. It has gone on, here and there, for thousands of years. Likewise, the pro-life movement is nothing new. It is thousands of years old, as old as Christianity itself. Also noted in that issue was that, when earlier generation of Christians saw this horror, this evil, and saw the magnitude of the injustice, they were thoroughly outraged and took an active and uncompromising stand in proportion to their degree of outrage. (Please notice that the root word of "outrage" is "rage"). We also asserted that such responsiveness on the part of earlier generations of Christians had to do with why the Lord our God has not yet poured His cup of wrath out on the world, in general, and America in particular.

All the above points are documented in George Grant's fine book, as we will show.

Abortion did not first become an issue in the U.S. in 1973 with the Roe v. Wade fiat. Nor did it first become an issue here in 1967 when the very first state (California) loosened its restrictions on this evil. Abortion was committed in this country at least as early as the mid-1800's. When Christian Americans were aroused they put a stop to it. Half a century later the forces of darkness, evil, and death reared their ugly heads and, once again, children began to be sacrificed. During both these earlier death movements in the U.S., the government acknowledged that abortion was illegal. The laws on the books prohibited the crime. Abortion was not being committed under government sponsorship. It happened simply because government "looked the other way".

When the news media shed light on the evil and brought it to the public's attention, our (fairly recent) ancestors' wrath was so severe that the government was compelled to enforce the existing laws prohibiting abortion. It must be remembered that this was a great, Christian nation in those days. It must be understood that this was before the left-wingers won the cultural revolution and had come to dominate the media. Today not one major, daily newspaper is on our side. Yet, in those days every news medium, every editor, sided with life and justice. Not one supported the baby-killers (gasp! Oh, my

1 Brockhoeft, shouldn't you tone down the shrillness of your rhetoric a little? After all, if you will be a little more polite you might reach more people!)

No, I should not mellow out, because, in the first place, how many times do I have to tell you that it is ineffective and wrong to oppose abortion politely? And secondly, I'm not necessarily interested in reaching the greatest possible number of people. If necessary, I'd much rather reach a smaller number of the right kind of people -- men who are still capable of passion in their opposition to this satanic abomination. And thirdly, can I, as a Christian, let secular journalists from our nation's past outdo me in my rhetorical language today?

What kind of rhetoric did the mainstream American media (even the N.Y.T.!) use against abortionists in those days? George Grant has documented it for us in Third Time Around. They called abortionists "demon doctors", "human fiends", "professional murderers", "child-destroyers", and "monsters of iniquity". Secular journalists called abortion "the crime against nature", "the evil of the age", "a damnable deed", "the curse of American society", "a long record of infamy", "child-murder in Massachusetts", and "the terrible sins...". The bold rhetoric used by non-religious journalists earlier in this century makes today's Christian, pro-life writers look like a bunch of ambiguous sissies.

We owe George Grant a debt of gratitude. He has given us a very good book. With a few minor corrections it could be a great book. Third Time Around is highly recommended by TBR. You must read it. Nevertheless, we all make mistakes; and our brother George is no exception. As the sub-title implies, this work is a history book chronicling nearly 2,000 years of Christian, pro-life activism. George wisely wants to familiarize us with our history so that we will be able to apply yesterday's lessons today. Unfortunately, George has not perfectly learned these lessons yet, himself.

Please heed this warning: as I point out the mistakes in Third Time Around I might sound very severe with George. Please don't take it that way. It is not my intention to ridicule George to death. I do not think George is either cowardly or insincere, unlike my assessment of some other pro-life leaders. I like George. I'm not just saying that to be solicitous, either. You know me better than that by now. Somewhere in the book of Proverbs it says:

That's it right there. I mean only to smite George as a friend, to help him. There are some false leaders whom I would be willing to "destroy" (not kill, of course) by humiliating them with my pen. George doesn't deserve that. He's okay. No, I'm talking about the kind of false friends who apply such blatant inconsistencies against the babies, such obvious discrimination, that they must have known, beforehand, they were making mistakes in their manifestly insincere political posturings. No, I'm talking only about those who try to hid their cowardice behind a veil of false virtue and who are so defiant in their error (not their stand) that they will not likely ever be able to admit they were wrong. So there may be nothing we can do to help them. These people carry self-inflicted wounds so grievous that they may now never be able to fully recover and be effective.

So let me tell you something. I would not feel bad at all if, thorough terrible ridicule flowing from my pen, I "destroyed" these false friends, these faint-hearted men. Because if these "leaders" are going to insist on promoting lukewarmness and inappropriate pacifism among their followers, then I'd feel like I'd done a good thing if I could make them go home and stay there. Preborn babies then might actually be less endangered. In support of that, look up Deuteronomy 20:8. These faint-hearted men, by expressing willingness, even eagerness, to compromise with the enemies of our country have, in effect, become our enemies.

Does that last statement sound too severe? Please read on. Do you want to know a couple of stout-hearted, Christian men who agree with me? Theodore Roosevelt and George Grant. It's right there in George's Third Time Around, on page 116! George offers a 1917 quote from Teddy Roosevelt, who was speaking of such a time as we now face:

Well? How about it? I feel certain that I'm not using Roosevelt's quote out of his intended context. Hopefully, brother George won't feel I'm misapplying his intended use of the quote. However, if he feels I have done him an injustice in my citation of his use of President Roosevelt's quote, I'd be very curious to know exactly how he was meaning to use it.

Two interesting points in Teddy Roosevelt's statement are his references to Laodicea and "moral weaklings". Laodicea, you may recall, is the Biblical symbol of lukewarmness which was, therefore, on the verge of being rejected by the Lord Jesus (see Rev. 3:14-19). Concerning the reference to moral weaklings, some of TBR's younger readers may misunderstand Roosevelt's meaning. In his day the word moral had a second meaning in addition to the way we normally use it today. By "moral" he was not referring to principles of right and wrong. The other (older) definition he was using is "courageous" or "spirited". The word is seldom used that way today, but some good dictionaries still carry this other definition. Yet, for a clearer idea, look up "demoralize". So Teddy Roosevelt was not talking about immoral men, but demoralized men, irresolute men, men unwilling to confront injustice and oppression aggressively; in a word: cowards.

Before we start picking on brother George, let's look at some quotes from Third Time Around which show that earlier generations of American Christians held to a belief which TBR has asserted all along: that unless the Church repents and stops abortionists from killing babies, our nation is doomed by God.

From an 1869 general assembly of Presbyterian churches:

From an 1868 Conference of Congregationalist Churches:

From evangelist John Todd in 1867:

I'm sorry to have to be the one to take George apart, but now it's time to point out his few (though substantial) errors.

The book presents the history of pro-life activism in sections (by era) in chronological order from front to back. So the earliest accounts (pre-medieval) are in the first chapters. Each section names, and describes the actions of, prominent pro-lifers of that era, presumably to inspire us today. George seems to admire all of these historical figures. At least he certainly doesn't condemn any of them.

Yet, all down through the ages he offers examples of prolifers who resorted to the use of destructive force to defend innocent life. The earliest such example (from the fourth century) is Basil of Caesarea who, as George says, "decimated" the death facilities and (on page 29):

(J.B. note: they didn't have gas or explosives in those days.)

Then on page 42 we see John of Amathus, born toward the end of the sixth century, who tore down the death facilities outside the city "with his own hands."

Then, during the Renaissance, we see Francis de Girolamo. On page 63:

Although there is no clear evidence he exerted force, Thomas Villanueva (1500's) is also noteworthy, because, as we see on page 60:

(J.B.: doesn't that mean he was angry?)

Then, on page 133, George even holds up our hero Dietrich Bonhoeffer as an example!

Ah, but then we come to page 146. Bear in mind that, since George is our brother-in-Christ, surely he will readily agree that whatever is morally right is always morally right-- yesterday, today, and in all ages. Notwithstanding, somewhere between pages 133 and 146, George slipped up and lost his sense of continuity. He has brought us up to 1984. Yet, before we point out this little inconsistency, let us take note of another thing.

There is tremendous power in words. Words make people think. So it's very important to use the right words. Our opponents understand this very well. That's why they never talk about preborn babies. No, they are always "products of conception" or "fetal tissue". That's why our enemies never talk about baby-killing. No, it's always "termination of pregnancy" or "reproductive choice". And that's why they never call their satanic altars what they really are. No, they're always...what?!...clinics! They call them abortion clinics! Since, as we all know, a clinic is a medical facility where life and health are administered to people, and never a place set aside specifically to kill people, therefore, there is no such thing as an abortion clinic.

Or, if there were such a thing as an abortion clinic, it could only mean a place where you take wounded babies, for medical treatment, who have survived unsuccessful abortion attempts!

The very phrase "abortion clinic" is dishonest, pro-abortion rhetoric. The borts have to use euphemisms like this, though, to make their abomination sound more acceptable. Yet, we should never use their terms to compliment their haunted houses.

So, having noticed the propaganda value for the other side in their choice of words, we always try to counteract this ploy by calling their facilities abortuaries or abortion chambers. Which is only being honest, because that's what they really are. They aren't any kind of clinic.

Now, to be fair, we have to give credit to George for carefully avoiding the "C" word. He nearly always calls them either abortion chambers or abortuaries (both terms appear in Third Time Around). While reading the book whenever I saw these terms, I had to smile and nod my approval at George's writing. In fact, he calls the death camps "clinics" only once in the whole book. It goes like this (page 146):

Whoopsie-daisy! Throughout the rest of the book, these places where babies are mutilated and tortured to death are abortuaries or abortion chambers. But the minute some freedom-fighter bombs one, all of a sudden...it's a clinic! George probably didn't mean it that way, though. It was probably just a slip of the typewriter, as it were.

At the end of each section (dealing with the various eras) George draws conclusions. Then he has a series of topic discussions, presumably to show us lessons we should glean from our forebears. The topic headings appear in bold print and always in the same order: Orthodoxy -- The Church -- Servanthood -- Urgency -- Patience. (huh?)

That's right! The lists include both urgency and patience, and the two appear one right after the other!

Now, how do you figure that? How could anyone, even a Christian, be both urgent and patient at the same time? Especially with such a matter as child-slaughter? Urgency and patience are opposites of one another, mutually exclusive! You can only be in one of those states at a time! Especially when it comes to killing babies! I take my hat off to George for wanting to instill in the church a sense of urgency. But, even if patience was, indeed, a virtue at such a time as this, a time of war, what makes George think there is a need to exhort pro-lifers to patience?

Today's pro-lifers are the most patient people the world has ever known! I mean, as a whole of course. Oh, sure, there are a few pro-lifers like, for example, Shelley Shannon, Margie Reed, Curt Beseda, and Don Anderson who are impatient, but they are exceedingly, exceedingly rare. Perhaps one in a radius of five hundred miles. Perhaps one out of every 20,000,000 pro-lifers.

99.999% of prolifers are very patient. 99.99% are very, very patient. And 99.9% of pro-lifers are absolutely (ahem) "PERFECTED" in "patience!" Yes, 99.9% of pro-lifers have "achieved" a state of such "perfect" "patience" that they have waited over twenty-one years to pick up their very first picket sign or to make their very first appearance on the sidewalk in front of an abortuary. To this very day they have never lifted a finger to help an imperiled baby. How much more "patient" do we want these people to be?

All this massive, widespread "patience", this wonderful "patience" -- that -- that is what has led to 30,000,000 dead babies' bodies being strewn over a landscape of more than two decades! There is no need to increase, or to maintain, the level of "patience" among pro-lifers. But if they ever start getting "impatient", please don't tell them. Please!

Now, let me explain something here. I have to be very careful here with this patience matter. I study the Bible, and I'm sure most of my readers do, too. The Bible says a lot about patience, and brother George quotes it. He rightly points out that true patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22). I believe the Bible like nothing else. I revere the Bible like nothing else. I hold it up as the final authority on all matters. I'm a fundamentalist.

This is important. What is patience? And what is impatience? While observing a man's conduct, by what criteria can we judge him, and be fair about it, and decide whether he is being patient or impatient? If we see a man responding severely to any given set of circumstances, is it fair to assess his level of patience only by the severity of his response? Aren't we also obligated to examine the severity of the thing he was responding to?

TBR acknowledges that genuine patience is good. It is a Godly virtue, a fruit of the Holy Spirit. What does that mean? And what does it not mean? For every good thing that God has, Satan has a counterfeit that bears a striking resemblance. What kind of patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit? What does the devil's counterfeit "patience" look like? Before we answer those questions, let me point out a disturbing thing George wrote about patience. On page 172:

Now, for one thing, that verse doesn't say anything about rest, although the Bible elsewhere does talk about resting in the Lord. But this spiritual rest is no exhortation for the Army of God to physically recline and restrain themselves in a combat zone while innocent civilians (e.g., the babies) are being killed all around. Please bear in mind George's mention of God's promises as we look a little further. On page 173 George quotes Psalms 37:7, but not in a context proper for the situation at hand:

George, George, you've twisted things completely around 180E You've taken God's promises, and God's commandments, and waiting patiently for Him, and turned these things around backwards! The Lord our God has the right to demand that we wait patiently for Him to fulfill His promises. But we don't have any right to demand that He wait patiently for us to obey His commandments! That's where you've got it turned around, George! He commands us to do justice and rescue the babies! What did He say in Proverbs 24:12? Did He promise anything, saying: "I, the Lord your God, will rescue those being led away to death and will hold back those staggering toward slaughter"? No, no! That's not what it says! If that was the case we'd have an excuse for laying around, and resting, and waiting for Him to fulfill His promise! But no, it was not a promise for us; it is an imperative, a commandment to us!

But wait a minute!! WARNING!! WARNING!! There are other times when the Lord our God does promise to do justice and to deliver widows, the afflicted, and fatherless children out of the hand of the oppressor! WARNING! WARNING!! THE LAST THING IN THIS WORLD A NATION'S PEOPLE SHOULD WANT TO HEAR IS WORDS FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD, PROMISING TO DEFEND THEIR FATHERLESS CHILDREN!!! For the moment a people hear that kind of promise from above, their nation is one step away from irremedial destruction! In that hour they must repent with all their hearts and reject all false "patience" with the open, public slaughter of the innocent! Because in that day the Lord Almighty has begun not only to hold that nation's rulers accountable for the slaughter, but the general public as well!

Yes, the Lord our God is a good God, a long-suffering (patient) God. But the virtue of patience is only virtuous for so long in the face of child-slaughter, and that is not very long. If the Lord promises a nation's people to rescue their preborn children from open, public slaughter, it can be taken as a signal that He is sick and tired of waiting patiently for those people to obey His commandments, and He is sick and tired of those people "waiting patiently" for Him to do what they are supposed to do. LOOK OUT!!

In luke 18:8, Jesus asked:

If the Second Advent of Christ the King happened today, oh, He would find lots and lots of faith! Yet, He would find scarcely any faithfulness! He will require both! To verify for yourself that He will also require faithfulness, you need only flip back a few pages in your Bible to Luke 12:42-46.

Here we return to our book review. George Grant has three children. I love George, and I love his children. I wouldn't mind dying for them. Now, although George's own children are special to him, I can't fault him for feeling that way; because I feel the same toward my own children. We're all like that. It's only natural. Yet, though we feel that way toward our own children, we have to admit that, objectively, other folks' children are equally worthy of equal protection.

If George suddenly discovers his children in the clutches of a murderer, and it will require a last-minute, last-ditch effort to save his children's lives, we will not be able to counsel George to be patient with that murderer. If George isn't around at the time, and I make the discovery, I will not be patient with that murderer who is about to kill George's children. Yet, no matter how severely and impetuously I deal with the killer, George will not count it as impatience. That's just it. No matter how special the warmth we feel toward our own children, we must objectively notice that these other children are worthy of equal protection. We must resist every inclination to think inconsistently concerning preborn babies, because that is why they die.

In order to maintain a proper consistency, we must acknowledge this: that any degree of "patience" which would have been inappropriate in our dealing with Nazi Germany fifty years ago, is also therefore inappropriate in our defense of innocent babies today. The only thing it would have required for Adolph Hitler to irreversibly wipe out whole races would have been..."patience" on our part!

During World War II my dad flew around in a B-17 dropping bombs on Nazis. He did not bomb them politely. He did not bomb them in "a spirit of meekness and gentleness." He did not bomb them patiently. Millions upon millions of American men, both Catholic and Protestant, fought injustice during WWII. When was the last time you heard any historian characterize these men's conduct as impatient? Under those circumstances, what did patience and/or impatience have to do with anything?

Perhaps the only thing George would need, to toughen his attitude toward post-Roe abortions, is to understand that these crimes are acts of genuine warfare. Perhaps he still thinks of "war on the unborn" as a metaphor, and not the real thing. Perhaps he has not yet been able to take the circumstances of Bonhoeffer's day, and superimpose them onto today's circumstances, and see they are identical. The crime is identical, and the victims are, identically, as human. The illegitimacy of those in power is identical. Perhaps he has already come to this understanding. The book was written over three years ago. A man adds to his understanding over such a period.

How victory will come

In concluding this book review let us point out one last dispute.

By now TBR's a little ashamed of seeming to have dealt so severely with our friend; and now, with this final point we seem to be contradicting him at every turn. Such is not the case.

Our dispute has to do with a passage already visited -- the one on page 172 saying: "Victory will not be won in a day, however fervently we act."

For one thing, victory will never be won until we start thinking fervently. But our main dispute with the statement is: TBR asserts that--THE VICTORY OVER ABORTION WILL BE WON IN ONE DAY! If mainstream Christians continue in their steadfast refusal to fight this battle, the Lord our God will fight it singlehandedly and attain victory in one day. Yet, on the other hand, even if the war is won by human, Christian exertion (blessed and ordained by the Lord, of course) we will still achieve victory in one day. It will not come about by a long, sustained campaign. It will not be won by any long, drawn-out strategy. It will be sudden.

There is no solution to abortion which is entirely political in nature. No one has yet begun to implement the only strategy which has any hope of succeeding. Victory will not come until, and unless, there is an explosion of zeal within this dead "church". This can still happen, believe it or not. But be assured that, one way or another, we will see victory will within our lifetime, within a few years. Be assured, you will see it occur suddenly. We have not yet begun to fight. It will be won in a day, or, if not in an actual twenty-four hour day, certainly in a very, very short period.

Actually, it seems that George, himself, should have understood this. A very curious thing about Third Time Around is that, while George makes repeated calls for patience, and claims that victory "will take time, perhaps generations", yet, on page 157, he offers a quote from Hilaire Belloc which contradicts George's prediction and fully supports TBR's assertion that victory will come utterly and suddenly. Belloc said:

Forget about the power of the Feds. Just look at abortion, itself. Just look at abortionists. Because of the enormity and magnitude of abortion, and because of the terrible, great zeal required of an abortionist to be able to tear a child's limbs off -- all this, coupled with the cooperation and protection of Washington, D.C. -- because of all these things, this war cannot be won incrementally, in stages. It's all or nothing. To the extent any strategy depends on victory being incremental, it will be a waste of time. (Not that it is a waste of time to save those few babies whom we can save right now.) Just as the child's life, so is the war, itself. It's all or nothing. A child has been appointed to die tomorrow morning. Either you will save that child's life completely and abruptly, or not at all. You cannot save his or her life little by little. The overall war is the same way. You will only see abortion, as a matter of public policy, stopped completely and abruptly. The abomination will be uprooted all at once by a furious God or a furious Church. There is no other way. Until you hold steadfastly to this vision, you will find little encouragement in how you are able to interpret unfolding events, and your efforts may not be focused where they will be most effective.

If abortion is stopped only by the Lord's Hand, it will be accompanied by a devastating, punishing cataclysm (perhaps the Great Tribulation). But if we stop it (in blessed submission to the Lord), it will not be some major turn of events which serves as an impetus to bring the whole, rotting institution of abortion crashing down. It will be some small thing that causes a sudden uproar in Christendom, thus bringing about an upheaval, an avalanche, as it were.

As wild as this may sound, an example of some such small thing becoming like a snowball rolling down hill is:

One simple tactic that could end abortion

...what if a few, brave Christians in some state legislature sponsored a bill forbidding any federally funded abortuary from slaughtering children in the process of satanic ritual, on the basis that separation of church and state prohibits tax support of Satan worship?

What would happen? How would preborn children's enemies (our nation's domestic enemies) react to this confrontation? What kind of public statements would issue from "Planned Parenthood", N.O.W., etc.? These hell-and-death-mongers adamantly refuse any compromise with their "power" (as opposed to right) to kill babies. That's just it -- in this scenario they could infuriate the public, especially Christians, however they respond.

How would the federal court system handle it [if it even got that far (after all the uproar)]? See what I mean? However they ruled, it might strengthen our position tremendously. If they sided with us, it would help; and if they came out against us, it would help even more! Because if they upheld the legislation, forbidding child-slaughter in the course of Satan-worship, the move could so keenly focus the church's attention on the spiritually wicked dimension of abortion that she might then be aroused to take an active, militant stand against this crime being committed under any circumstances. Whereas, if the courts struck down the law and officially endorsed child-sacrifice in the course of Satan-worship, we could hope that however many real men were left in Christianity would mobilize. If no such mobilization took place we would know with certainty that the (ha ha) "church" had become irredeemably superficial, hollow, and dead. Then we would know we had lost the war irretrievably and that there was no longer the slightest hope of saving our nation from Divine wrath.

Although at first we offered this idea only as a hypothetical example of how abortion will be stopped by some small thing -- a straw that breaks the camel's back -- the more we think about it, the more TBR wants to set if forth as a serious proposal. If it sounds silly and/or futile, just compare it to other "antiabortion" legislation which has, in fact, been enacted in recent years. It could not be more bizarre than a parental notification law, could it? Try it. If it doesn't work, babies will be killed. But if you don't even try it, what will happen? Babies will be killed. So what do you have to lose by trying it? Nothing.

If a few, brave, Christian state legislators brought it to the floor for a full vote, it would pass easily, if not unanimously. How many other legislators would vote against it, going on public record as saying: "I believe abortions should be allowed to be done during satanic rituals and paid for with tax dollars"?

* * * *

AN APOLOGY TO GEORGE GRANT

By the time I had twice hand-written all the preceding thousands of words in this issue, I realized I had been unfairly severe, at one point, in my renunciation of George's call for patience. Having written night and day for the past several days, I don't have the heart to go back and redo it.

But the main reason for not redoing it is that I still stand by everything I said about the irrelevance of patience and/or impatience in the matter of saving children from death by torture. What I apologize to George for is seeming to imply that, by his call for "patience", he is offering anyone an excuse for not taking immediate action. I'm sure that's not what he means at all. Unquestionably, in my mind, George's intention is to call us all immediately into activism and only then, in the midst of sustained activism, to wait patiently for results.

I still refute that position, for all the reasons already explained, plus two more. For one thing, people won't take it that way. Those people whom George and I most want to reach -- the arm-chair prolifers and the couch potatoes who have never done anything beyond one of those silly, childish, meaningless "life chains" (if even that much) -- these people will jump on any call for "patience" as an

Uncle Ed. Sez:

Johnny Brockhoeft pointed out some pretty glaring hypocrisy in George Grant's book, in that he praised pro-life in action in every other century but condemned it in this one.

But I'm glad George wrote it exactly like he did.

Because if he wrote it so that those heroes of the past are not just wistful tales of the past but examples that we should follow, why, you couldn't sell enough books to ink up your press! And if he had not been able to market his books, the rest of us would not have the benefit of the inspiring research he has done on pro-life heroes of the past.

Any author has a simple choice: tell the whole truth and reach a fraction of the nation, or tell a fraction of the truth and reach the whole nation.

Most of us won't take the truth from our own parents, free, let alone pay 20 bucks to read it in a book!

But where George didn't know what he was doing, God did. God was pretty smart, to slip us all this valuable information by letting those errors go in George's book.

Now that the book is out, though, and the promotions have peaked, I don't see where it would hurt if George would see the merits of Johnny's excuse to remain idle and lukewarm. My final point is that any strategy which would require years to implement (while babies are slaughtered daily), and any movement of people willing to follow that strategy -- neither that strategy, nor those people, will ever prove effective in attaining ultimate victory.

Uh-oh. I just thought of another possible interpretation of George's call, which, in the case that is what he really means, I owe him a more unequivocal apology. If by "patience" he means only "steadfastness", then I have no problem with his position. If he means only to encourage activists not to give up when they do not immediately see statistically spectacular results, then I agree with his position wholeheartedly and offer my sincerest apology.

Personal mail:

John Brockhoeft 01886-017

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Personal letter from P&A Editor to Brockhoeft:

PRAYER & ACTION NEWS

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10:53am, May 24, 1994

Dear Johnny,

It's amazing how you are so matter-of-fact on the phone yet can be so hilarious in print! I spent Saturday evening and all day Sunday typing your story. I suppose most readers won't get quite the charge out of it that I did, because often my laughter was at the cleverness with which you handled plot twists, which for most readers won't be the release of tension that it was for me. You see, many times during your story I would start to get concerned, sensing that this line of plot was running out of time before it would start to get boring, or you explanations were reaching the point of being patronizing. Not that the plot lines ever reached that point; it's just that, as editor, I was concerned in advance, wondering, "Johnny has handled everything skillfully so far, but the longer this gets, the more skill it takes to hold interest. Will Johnny have the skill to execute the next plot twist with flair?"

It's not as if I know of any rules governing this sort of thing. It's too intuitive for me to know how to describe them, if there are any. Yet like an amateur musician who "knows what he likes", I have a strong sense of when it is done well or done poorly. And you never disappointed me, Johnny! So when I would start getting nervous, thinking it's getting about time for a plot twist )) will it be right around the corner where it belongs? Then I would round the corner, and there it was, right on time, and I would laugh with relief that you did it, and with admiration at the cleverness with which it was done.

Most readers, I'm sure, won't even think such thoughts. They will start with the assumption that you are a Frank Peretti-class writer, and will just take your cleverness for granted, assuming you have been writing stories like that all your life, (have you? I don't know a thing about your writing past) and will have no more appreciation for your cleverness than has a rich American for the fact that the lights come on when he flips a switch.

Even your hilarious wind-down was terrific, where you ridiculed anyone dumb enough to believe there actually is a time machine waiting for you, yet you did it so skillfully that you will not disturb the faith of anyone who may, in fact, be that dumb. Wind-downs are needed because after the main events are all over, and a reader has been really enjoying the story, the reader doesn't want to have to stop abruptly.

And of course the whole suspense scene well served the real purpose of the whole writing effort, to get your readers to concentrate on a couple of pages of philosophy about how loving your neighbor can require force.

One plot question you never did answer was how Bonhoeffer knew your name when you showed up. The omission did not occur to me until this point in writing this letter, so I hope it will not be noticed by many readers. The purpose of the question, of course, is to hook the reader with curiosity, so they will follow through sections that may hold less interest for them, out of a passion to satisfy their curiosity. But once you had completed your purpose, your two or three pages of philosophy, your wind-down should have included an explanation of how Dietrich knew. I would be tempted to edit in such an explanation, if I could think of one! Try to fix one up for your next printing. It's times like this that I wish I were able to type up your stories as soon as they came, so I would have time to write you with questions, or wait for your call.

There is one point that still intrigues me, where you stepped just on the verge of saying something profound about the whole idea of time travel.

You had asked the future folks if someone from their future could visit them, and they answered, amidst laughter, that they thought there was a time beyond which no man could go, an eternal present, and "that time is our time".

Dorothy just reads stuff like that and passes over it, wondering only, if anything, what would be the point of expending mental effort to understand something that is imaginary anyway.

Not so for yours truly, who is never happier than when exploring the frontiers of the knowable, and someone offers a purported clue.

So I came up with two or three ways to take that little dialogue. It could mean "our", meaning only the time of the future folks and not 1994 folks, which would be a presumptuous statement that would be funny only in a callous way. Or it could mean "our", meaning "each person's" time, which probably offers the most potential for light hearted humor although it isn't yet clear, and it wouldn't preclude a visit from their future.

I toyed with the idea of editing it to make it clearer, but I never could come up with a thought to clarify. So I left it alone, reasoning that it isn't too much of a distraction to leave something obscure, when it is about something that is probably incomprehensible anyway.

Still, if you do have some clear thoughts on this fascinating subject, I am curious to know them.

I did make a few minor changes in your story, while leaving you the blame for them. They consisted of moving a few commas to make the flow more understandable, replacing a few "was's" with "were's", and the most substantial thing I did was slightly shorten some of your explanations when I thought they only underlined the obvious and were thus patronizing. My lengthiest deletion was at the very beginning.

If you weren't in prison, or if I could get this done more in advance, I would show you all these changes so you could approve or veto them, like normal publishers do.

I have always made some such changes in your story, yet you have never mentioned them. I hope you are comparing your original with my edition, so you can inform me, or a future publisher, of changes you will want when it is time to republish them. It would also help me to know how well my judgment agrees with yours, because I would rather it be your judgment that prevails if there is a difference.

I'm glad there weren't any trials to cover with this issue! (At least none that I knew about.) Even so, there were good things I had to leave out to make room for the story. Not complaining! But just to let you know that if future stories are any longer, they will probably have to be divided.

In Jesus' Name

Dave Leach

Chapter 9, The Brockhoeft Report

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