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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, January 31, 1980
Page 13
"I began to feel very cheap, couldn't pray, couldn't sing hymns at
services without crying. Well, I confessed all this to my husband-
got it all out in the open and above all went to God--got it all
cleaned up and am back on the [right] road again."
--Mrs. E. R. (Member)
"I noticed right after I sent the first payment in tithes in August
of 1979 that my business seemed to have a steady climb. Even with
gasoline allocations in the summer which is still going on, of course,
God has not let me down."
--Mr. John Webber (Cleveland, OH)
"We are supporting you wholeheartedly in our prayers as well as
tithes and offerings. There is just no way that I can outgive God.
Since the first of this year, my weekly gross pay has increased by
33%."
--William Orn, Jr. (St. Paul, MN)
ON THE WORLD SCENE
HAS STRAUSS FOUND HIS ISSUE?: In the last issue of the Pastor General's
Report we summarized the fact that Franz Josef Strauss has not yet devel
oped a suitable gameplan to challenge incumbent West German Chancellor
Helmut Schmidt. He was in need of an issue to come down hard on the
opposite side of Mr. Schmidt. Perhaps he has now found one: The current
Bonn government's reaction to the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan--and its
apparent desire to continue detente at all costs, Soviet expansionism or
not.
The Bundestag (parliamentary lower house) debated the issue at length. In
the debate and in statements on other occasions, Herr Schmidt has counsele<
against an overreaction to the Afghanistan crisis. He, and of course most
Germans, don't want a return to the Cold War era in Europe itself. It
would most certainly affect the relations between West Germany and commu
nist East Germany. During the development of Germany's own version of
detente, called ostpolitik, a sizeable opening of the door to GDR has been
made in both trade and interpersonal relations (visits to families behind
the Iron Curtain, etc.)
Ostpolitik has largely been a creation of the Social Democrats, headed by
party chairman Willy Brandt. SPD officials feel they have much at stake tc
see that it doesn't falter. In the Bundestag, Schmidt said that "we will
not permit what we have achieved in ten years of defense and detente polic�
to be disparaged or torn down." He argued that the dialogue between East
and West must continue, all the more so in this time of crisis.
Challenger Strauss has taken the other approach, basically this: "Detente
yes, but detente has its limits. And let's not be fooled by the Russian
view of detente.
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The Berlin TAGESSPIEGEL praised Strauss's role in the
debate by saying: "Strauss spoke in the debate as a man with a sense of
proportion. He did not in the least demand that the government change its
course. Fundamentally, he simply blamed the government for having nour
ished illusions about the international behavior of the Soviet Union."
Some SPD officials could be rightly accused of living on illusions.
Significantly, a senior SPD official said only last summer that the Soviet
arms buildup in Europe was defensive in character.