Christianity in the World Today
President and Mrs. Eisenhower, Vice President and Mrs. Nixon and members of their immediate families were seated in the congregation at National Presbyterian Church.
Seated nearby were Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, a half a dozen other Cabinet members, the governors of more than 12 states and many members of Congress.
And this is the sermon they heard—from the pastor, Dr. Edward L. R. Elson:
“ ‘In the beginning God.’ On these first words of the Bible early America staked down its life.
“This central tenet of our life was explicit in our Declaration of Independence. It is implicit in our instruments of government. It permeates our institutions. And it is manifest in our common days. The virtues of our people and the values of our culture are derived from the premise that this is ‘a nation under God.’
“This basic truth has been mediated to our people through many religious traditions and by many denominations. All espouse in common a faith in a transcendent God in history and beyond history. In some this faith in God has been intimate and personal; in others an attitude of life derived from the social climate and the cultural atmosphere produced by religious faith, principally evangelical Christian faith.
“To be sure, America has as a principle the complete separation of the institutions of the church from the institution of government. In our plural religious structure, this separation has been a source of virility to both Church and State. But while we cling tenaciously to this principle of separation, no doctrine of American life has ever or ever will eliminate or minimize the presence, the power, or the influence of religion in our national affairs. Religion and national destiny are forever intertwined.
“To be ‘under God’ is to acknowledge that this is God’s world—that he is the sovereign Lord and Ruler of all life. He is the God of Creation. Man, created in his image, bears some of God’s characteristics. Man is a person as God is a person; and the only reason for treating human beings with dignity and respect is that they are persons created in God’s image, with immortal souls and an eternal destiny. Thus created by God in God’s own image, man is free under God’s rulership. His freedom is God-bestowed, not an attainment but an obtainment. Man is born free and the chief end of this free man as the catechism long ago said is—’to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’ God himself is the Lord of Creation and he will have no other gods before him. Therefore, that nation which deifies itself, or absolutizes some reality in its life cannot be a nation ‘under’ God. Such is idolatry, for that nation usurps God’s place. Americans have always rejected this temptation. Americans believe God is above the nation.
“To be ‘under God’ is also to be under His Providence. There is a destiny for that nation whose ‘God is the Lord’—a destiny shaped and determined by the Almighty himself. Our spiritual forbears convenanted with God, not as a tribal or a racial deity but as the universal God, who while being the God of all people, becomes in a special sense the God of those who accept his purpose for human life.
“Our history has meaning only in these terms. We are a people under God’s Providence.
“To be ‘under God’ is to be guided by him. That nation which seeks to understand and obey his laws; that nation which seeks to discern and do his will—only that nation becomes an effective instrument of God’s purpose on the earth. Above all, over all, guiding all, empowering all is the transcendent God. To the degree we possess his mind and spirit, which is at the center of the universe, and which we Christians believe to be revealed by Jesus Christ, we are and we shall remain a ‘nation under God.’
“This concept of freedom under God cannot survive as a mere intellectual expression. Apart from its Source, it will wither and die. But enriched by prayer, strengthened by worship, maintained by a variety of spiritual disciplines, our great nation can successfully confront all forces which would corrupt its life or destroy its freedom. A dynamic and witnessing faith is not an option for our time; it is an imperative for all ages.
“But deeper than these truths, a nation ‘under God’ is a nation under God’s judgment. God is sovereign Ruler of a moral universe. Man is not the final source of values. Nor is the nation the highest tribunal of judgment. The values by which both men and nations are judged are eternal. They rest with God. Man and his institutions are under God’s final judgment. There is a divine order above all and beyond all, in time and beyond time, where love and justice and righteousness and truth are absolute—the perfect order of God’s Kingdom, where God rules the heart and conscience of all beings. There is a higher court of Judgment above all persons, above all nations, above all cultures, even above all universes—the Court of God’s eternal perfection. A nation ‘under God’ is always under His judgment.
“Here in this Capital City this truth was legislated into our Pledge of Allegiance, is printed on our postage stamps and impressed on our coins.
“Now let us each impress it deep within our own hearts and manifest it in our lives and national conduct. Such testimony, to be sure, will sharpen the irreconcilable differences between the two great poles of power in our world today. But it will also give us the strength to live in these times and play our God-appointed role in history.
“Our dominating concern in Washington on January 20, 1957, is not what we know, not the skills we possess, not the wealth we have accumulated but rather the spirit we convey to the world. To whom are we committed? By whom are we led? These are the commanding questions.
“Freedom under God is not permanently secured, nor safely installed anywhere without personal responsibility and unceasing vigilance. Freedom is always only one generation away from extinction. Freedom must be won, understood, guarded and enriched in each age.
“Not out of fear, or insecurity, or a substitute for solid thinking; not as an escape to an easy and comfortable way do we seek to reclaim our ancient heritage. But rather we worship and pray, we trust and obey, because it is the very life-spring of our national being.
“On days such as this I like to think of our spiritual kinsman, the pioneer American who faced the frontier and the future with three implements in his hand. He carried an axe, a gun and a book. With the axe he felled the trees, built his home, his school, his church. With the gun he provided meat for his table and protection from the predatory forces about him. The Book was the center of religious devotion, the textbook of his education and the inspiration of his institutions.
“Today’s American no longer carries the axe, the gun, the Book. His axe has become America’s gigantic industrial machine, and the world sees that. His gun has become America’s powerful armament, and the world knows it well. His Book, by the power of the Person revealed therein, is pouring forth the light of a new spiritual birth, and the world must clearly see that.
“If we are to lead in this hour America must become a citadel of man’s true freedom and a vast bastion of spiritual power, whose light shines in American lives so brightly at home it will illuminate the dark places of all mankind.
“Rightly do we sing:
“Our Father’s God, to Thee Author of Liberty,
To Thee we sing Long may our land be bright,
With freedom’s holy light;
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God, our King.”
Two hours after leaving the service, the President and Vice President took their oaths of office for the new terms in a private ceremony at the White House. (This ceremony was repeated the following day before thousands of deeply-interested Americans.)
As President Eisenhower took the oath, his hand rested on a Bible that his mother gave him before he graduated from West Point in 1915.
The King James Bible was open to Psalm 33, verse 12, which reads:
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom He hath chosen for His own inheritance.”
END
Beavan Resigns
Jerry Beavan, public relations director of the Billy Graham team and executive secretary of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, has resigned, effective February 1.
The announcement was made in the New York offices of the Billy Graham Crusade.
Beavan, who has been on a two-month rest leave, explained that health was a basic factor in the decision, together with the necessity of curtailing the excessive travel, which has averaged over 100,000 flying miles per year during the past six years.
Dr. Graham, in accepting the resignation with regret, announced that Beavan would serve in a behind-the-scenes advisory capacity to the Graham staff in the direction of the forthcoming New York Crusade. Beavan helped develop the New York organization in the past year.
Dr. Graham also stated, “We have reluctantly accepted the resignation of Mr. Beavan. He has been a key factor in the development of our organization. We will miss him. We remain close personal friends.”
Nae Asks Aid Halt
The National Association of Evangelicals has urged Congress to bar any further economic assistance to Colombia “until such a time as all religious violence is stopped.”
Dr. Clyde W. Taylor, Secretary of Public Affairs of the NAE, directed the request to members of the U. S. Senate and leading members of the House.
The request was accompanied by a memorandum giving several examples of the “hundreds of cases of religious pressures which are brought to bear on the Protestant minority in Colombia.”
Officials of the NAE stressed that they were not requesting the action because of any feeling of bitterness, nor in a spirit of retaliation. Rather, they said, the need for this action stems from the fact that it is entirely inconsistent with the U. S. policy in world affairs to grant economic support to a government which has ceased to protect the freedoms essential to the development of free nations.
Only the weight of Congressional concern, expressed in active measures to withhold economic assistance to a country which allows such conditions to exist, will be effective on stimulating corrective measures by the Colombia government, Taylor said.
Laymen’S Leadership
Lively discussions on the problems of the Christian conscience in business and the challenge of being a witness for Christ in every walk of life highlighted the second Laymen’s Leadership Institute at Louisville, Ky.
More than 300 leading laymen, representing business administration, finance, insurance, law, oil and sales, attended the Institute, held at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
The main addresses were on such themes as “The Layman and Prayer in a Program of World Evangelization,” by Maxey Jarman;“Christ, the Only Hope,” by General William K. Harrison; “The Layman and His Faith,” by Howard E. Butt Jr.; “The Bible is My Business,” by Dr. Duke K. McCall; “God’s Priority in Man’s Affairs,” by Richard C. Halverson; “A Journalist’s Inquiry Into a Religious Dilemma,” by Stanley High; “Research, Reason and Revelation,” by Dr. George K. Schweitzer, and “Christ In This Hour of Crisis,” by Dr. Billy Graham.
A personal testimony of daily experiences with Christ was given by Alvin Dark, professional baseball player.
Halverson decried the compartmentalization of life by too many business men. He recalled the words of a banker who said, while praising his pastor, “what my pastor does in the worship hour on Sunday morning has absolutely nothing to do with what I do in my bank.” This banker, Halverson said, is a traitor to Christ and all he represents.
He continued:
“Secularism, that is, godlessness, is a worse enemy than communism. And this godlessness is widely practiced by professing churchmen.”
High warned against an “otherworldliness” that is oblivious to the Church’s involvement in the affairs of here and now.
“Christianity,” he said, “has been least significant when it has been too otherworldly and most significant when it has been most deeply involved in the woes and needs of the people.”
The journalist said that Old Testament prophets, once they had a living encounter with God, spoke with a thundering “Thus saith the Lord” to the sins and idolatries of their age.
He added:
“Let the Church be the Church, in the noble sucession of St. Francis, Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, John Wesley … let it proclaim both the grace and righteousness of God for this wicked generation.”
Dr. Graham spoke about the grace that saves, schools and serves. He called for reality in religion, for total surrender to the will of God and for total self-denial.
W. M.
Graham At Yale
Dr. Billy Graham will be guest preacher at the Annual Yale Christian Mission in New Haven, Conn., February 11–14.
His sermons, scheduled to be delivered on four successive evenings in Yale University’s Woolsey Hall, will be broadcast to local churches. Twelve associate missioners will help the evangelist with student consultations and discussions.
Members of Dr. Graham’s evangelistic team are not scheduled to take part in the series of services.
The invitation to Dr. Graham was extended by the Mission Committee, comprising Yale undergraduates appointed by the Council of the Yale Christian Community, the University Church and the Yale Christian Association.
The annual student mission at Yale dates back to the early years of the century. One of the guest ministers at Yale during the last few years was Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr.
Bills In Congress
The following bills, relating to religious affairs, have been introduced in the 85th Congress:
★ To permit income tax deductions for tuition payments to religious schools, on the same basis as charitable institutions … income tax deductions for tuition payments on children through 12th grade of private schools.… excise tax exemptions for private and parochial schools on same basis as public schools.
★ To make Good Friday a legal holiday.
★ To ban serving of alcoholic beverages on commercial airliners (passed House last year but failed in Senate).
★ To permit American missionaries serving abroad to buy supplies at commissaries and post exchanges maintained by U.S. Armed Forces.
★ To provide heavier penalties for peddlers of indecent literature.
★ To make it a Federal penalty punishable by five years imprisonment to mail obscene literature to unmarried minors.
Numerous bills, introduced by a number of congressmen, relate to civil rights.
Broadcast Probe
An effective national policy and organization at the local level to protect the rights of all paid religious broadcasts were among the top items considered in closed business meetings at the 14th annual convention of National Religious Broadcasters, Inc., in Washington, D. C., January 30–31.
The strong considerations followed reports from many evangelical pastors about being taken off the air because of the announced policy of the Broadcasting and Film Commission of the National Council of Churches in favor of “free” and “sustaining” time.
“Free” time may mark the end of “freedom” for evangelical broadcasting in America, said the official news-letter of the NRB.
Delegates to the convention were told that the National Council pressure follows this pattern:
★ “Local churches are objecting to the ‘commercialization’ of religion by the sale of time.
★ “There are too many ‘religious hucksters, religious exploiters, faith healers’ and ‘cultists’ on the air. The only way to control this situation is to put Protestant time in the hands of the Council of Churches.
★ “Paid-time broadcasters do not represent ‘the theology or worship practices of the main body of the American people.’
★ “The NCC represents within its membership all the ‘cooperative, substantial’ and ‘trustworthy’ elements in Protestantism. Local representatives should be given priority in the allocation of radio and television time.
★ “The local Council of Churches or ministerial association should be consulted and should have the right to approve all religious programs other than Roman Catholic or Jewish.
★ “Local stations should have a policy in line with that of the Federal Communications Commission, the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters and the National Council of Churches.”
The NRB estimated that hundreds of evangelical programs have been dropped at local levels since the NCC effort began last April, because of the lack of “effective strategy to meet the situation.” It was stated, however, that the radio-television industry “on the national level” has been “eminently fair and generous in its attitude toward ‘paid’ religious broadcasting.”
Moral Leadership
Christian leaders from many parts of the world have been converging on Washington, D.C., in recent days.
The reason: International Christian Leadership Conference, February 6–9, and highlighted by Prayer Breakfast for the President February 7 at the Mayflower Hotel.
Dr. Billy Graham will speak at the annual banquet. Senator Price Daniel of Texas is president of the organization.
Sigurd Anderson, general conference chairman, stated:
“America’s top role in world affairs is indisputable, as is the fact her leadership must be more than political, economic and military. The world today desperately needs the moral and spiritual leadership which our country is in a unique position to give.
“The International Christian Leadership Conference will be a testimony to the world that America takes her spiritual and moral responsibility seriously.”
Warning To Clergy
Church membership, to some, is not as demanding as membership in many civic clubs.
This opinion was expressed to an estimated 300 ministers from 31 states by Dr. G. Ernest Thomas, director of the first National Conference on Spiritual Birth and Growth sponsored by the General Board of Evangelism of the Methodist Church. The conference was held recently at Kentucky Lake State Park.
Dr. Thomas warned the ministers against permitting their churches to become merely clubs. He stressed the need for “spiritual rebirth bringing with it the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Deep In The Heart
The Baptist General Convention of Texas has launched a mammoth stewardship program aimed at increasing annual gifts to churches from $75,000,000 in 1957 to $80,000,000 in 1958.
Dr. C. C. Warren, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, is one of 27 speakers touring the state in behalf of the program.
Meanwhile, the Southern Baptist Convention’s effort to establish 30,000 new preaching stations by 1964 has been voted the top news story of 1956 in the Convention.
Baptist editors voted as second most important the record $20,000,000 given in direct support to Convention missionary and agency work.
‘Utopian Dreamers’
Dr. W. A. Criswell, pastor of the 11,800-member First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, lashed out at the “so-called social gospel” in a recent address to the 19th annual Texas Baptist Evangelistic Conference.
He said the social gospel is “destroying Christendom under the guise of social consciousness,” and declared that “its fruits, whether in New York, Japan or India, are a dead church, a dead gospel, a dead denomination, a dead seminary and a dead preacher.”
Dr. Criswell described such preachers as “utopian dreamers and arm-chair philosophers.” He said that liberal churches today, “with their abandoned Sunday evening services, their deserted prayer meetings and their cold intellectual sermons, are occupying themselves with pimples of the skin when the disease of death lies in the blood stream of the heart.”
He added:
“Men with a passion for social righteousness are to be commended. The amelioration of working conditions, the building of better community playgrounds, the organization of groups for the peace and the good of the world—these things and a thousand others like them are acceptable to God and to man. It is not for these things that we arraign the social gospelers. We would support these humanitarian movements with all our hearts and souls. But the modernists have committed evils. They have forsaken the Lord God, ‘the foundation of living waters, and they have hewed them out broken cisterns that can hold no water.’
“They made a God of judgment and wrath a soft, yielding Father, who has so made the world that we inevitably grow better and better. That one should think there is a final reckoning for evil or a hell awaiting the wicked is to insult the sentimental fatherhood of God.
“Salvation, moreover, to the social gospelers, means that what a man requires is not regeneration in the old sense of the terms, but simply an awakening to what he really is.…
“Man has one need above all others, and that is the need for redemption. If he cannot be saved from his sins, no system into which he is placed will work toward peace and perfection.
“Our hope is in the gospel of repentance and faith. We sin individually and we must repent individually. Each one of us must find pardon for himself in the atoning grace of Christ and eternal life through a personal faith in Him. The primary task of the Church today is to preach the gospel of salvation everywhere, to offer redemption from the bondage of sin and eternal life in Christ Jesus now and in the world to come. We can never have a better world until better people live in it. There is more lasting social good accomplished by bringing men to Christ than by all the highspun theories of all the armchair philosophers in the whole world.”
Restudy Of Doctrine
The American Baptist Convention’s missionary program in the Orient, caught increasingly between denominational and ecumencial pressures, has wavered ambiguously for some years.
Lacking a cooperative program, Northern Baptists, who once held the lead in mission work among the Japanese, have now been strongly outpaced by Southern Baptists. At the same time, ecumenical aggression has tended to reduce Northern Baptist strength, whereas Southern Baptists have worked independently of national church agencies.
In an effort to halt this erosion, the ABFMS has named a committee to restudy the Baptist doctrine of the church. Composed of leaders from within the board, the committee, while predominantly conservative in theology, also includes representatives of the liberal view.
The committee’s task is a big one: to exhibit a Baptist doctrine of the church which will encourage cooperation with Southern Baptists and ecumenical forces at the same time, without loss of Northern Baptist strength.
Governor And Bible
Governor Orval Faubus, in his second term inaugural address before the Arkansas General Assembly, cited five passages from the sixth chapter of Galatians, which, he said, have been guideposts of his administration.
The passages are:
“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
“Let every man prove his own work.”
“Be not deceived: God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
“Let us not he weary in well doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”
“As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men.”
And One Hindu
(The following statistics on the religious affiliation of members of the 85th Congress were compiled by Robert Tate Allan’s Washington Religious Report Newsletter. The figures may vary slightly from reports of other religious news sources, because some members of Congress, at their own request, are classified as just “Unlisted” or “Protestant.”)
Senate
Methodist, 18; Baptist, 14; Lutheran, 4; Presbyterian, 13; Congregationalist 8; Disciples of Christ, 2; Evangelical and Reformed, 2; Episcopalian, 12; Quakers, 2; Unitarian, 2; Mormon, 3; Jewish, 2; Unlisted, 1; “Protestant,” 2; Roman Catholic, 11.
House Of Representatives
Methodist, 84; Baptist, 55; Presbyterian, 52; Lutheran, 15; Congregational, 19; Disciples of Christ, 14; Evangelical and Reformed, 4; Mormon, 4; Episcopal, 45; Quakers, 2; Unitarians, 3; Church of Christ, 4; Apostolic Christian, 1; Universalist, 2; Evangelical Free Church, 1; Christian Scientist, 2; Hindu, 1; Jewish, 8; Unlisted, 26; “Protestant”, 18; Roman Catholic, 75.
Edmunds Honored
A Southern Baptist educator has been elected president of the Association of American Colleges for the first time in its 42-year-old history.
He is Dr. J. Ollie Edmunds, president of Stetson University, DeLand, Fla.
Dr. Edmunds succeeds Dr. Arthur G. Coons, president of Occidental College, Los Angeles.
Digest …
► “Fishers of Men” pin President Eisenhower in hour-long visit at the White House.
► Dr. H. L. Turner, president of Christian and Missionary Alliance, on tour of mission fields in Africa. Returns late in March.… Carl L. Cleaver elected president of New York Bible Society. Associated with Reynolds & Co., member of New York Stock Exchange.
► Methodists launch drive for 1,200 new clergymen a year.… Record $23,533,296 contributed by Methodists in 1956 for missionary work.
► Six American Lutheran church bodies announce giving goal of $35,550,000 for 1957 and $120,635,000 for the three-year period ending in 1959.
► Kresge Foundation of Detroit grants $1,500,000 to help build Methodist Church’s new theological seminary.
Britain
Claims Disputed
The Roman Catholic Church is making rapid progress in Britain, reports the Catholic Directory for 1957.
According to published statistics, the Roman Catholic population in England and Wales rose by 122,300 to a total of 3,292,000 during 1956.
In commenting on these figures, the Sunday Express quotes recent words of Eric Treacy, the Roman Catholic Archdeacon of Halifax, York, who forecast that by the end of this century the Anglican Church will no longer be an established church.
These are the quoted words:
“A nation with a predominantly Roman Catholic population will by then have taken steps to have the Constitution of the country changed, so that the cathedrals and ancient parish churches are made over to the Roman Catholics; the King (or Queen) of this country is crowned by a Roman Prelate; and the Anglican Church and its clergy are deprived of the privileges that now belong to them as ministers of the establishment.”
A qualified Protestant observer had this to say:
“These opinions are without solid foundation, nor are the Roman Catholic statistics so impressive as they appear. It is well known that the numerical growth of the Roman Church in the last few years is due in large measure to the influx into Britain of refugees from Central Europe and of employees (e. g., nurses) from Ireland, nearly all of them Catholics. It is also well known (although no statistics are available) that considerable numbers of Roman Catholics are received each year into the Church of England.
“Despite the high-sounding claims of the Roman hierarchy, the Anglican Church shows no signs of decline. Its membership includes over 60 per cent of the population of England, and the number of its communicants increases year by year. The Protestant Free Churches in Britain are also gaining in strength. This is certainly true of the Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists and Presbyterians. And the Free Churches continue to exert a powerful influence in the spiritual life of the nation. The Romans are laboring under an illusion if they think they are having everything their own way.”
F. C.
Revising Canon Laws
The Church of England is in the process of overhauling its Canon Laws—last revised in 1603.
It is generally agreed that a certain amount of revision is called for, if the Canons are to retain any sort of spiritual authority. But evangelical churchmen have become increasingly uneasy, lest in the process of revision, the distinctively Reformed character of the Church of England be endangered.
The Church Society, founded in 1950 and representing the more extreme evangelical opinion in the Church of England, has issued a broadsheet in which a direct attack is made on the proposed new Canons. It describes the revision as “an attempt, behind a smokescreen of respectability and legalism, to whittle away the faith once delivered unto us by the Apostles and to reverse the Reformation doctrine which is built upon this faith.”
Among other things, the Society protests that many of the revised Canons would give increased power to the bishops, undermine the authority of the Bible, legalize Mass vestments and the confessional and enforce Confirmation as an essential condition of admittance to Holy Communion.
A strongly-worded answer to these charges has come from the Bishop of Rochester, Dr. C. M. Chavasse, in a letter to the London Times. Describing himself as “the senior Evangelical Bishop in the Church of England,” Dr. Chavasse repudiates the Church Society’s broadsheet as “false and scandalous” and calls it a “scurrilous document” produced by “irresponsible and unknown agitators.”
Fuel has been added to the fire by speeches made at the recent Islington Clerical Conference—an annual rallying point for Anglican evangelicals. An estimated 500 attended. The president of the conference, the Rev. Maurice Wood, vicar of Islington in N. E. London, disassociated himself from the views expressed by the Church Society and forbade the sale of the broadsheet.
“Canon Law revision,” he declared, “is not a plot to drive evangelical clergy out of the Church of England. There is no need to make ourselves into a persecuted minority.”
F. C.
Sunday School Decline
The London Times has surveyed the place of children in church and concluded that the name, Sunday School, is no longer in favor.
It has discovered some attempts to change the name to “children’s church,” “junior church” and “family church.” Attendance at British Sunday Schools is steadily dropping, however, no matter what the name.
Europe
Crisis Deepens
The crisis within the Italian Communist Party (cited in November 26 issue ofCHRISTIANITY TODAY) is deepening.
The confusion that the Hungarian slaughter caused upon the rank and file of Italian Communists became manifest during the recent Eighth Congress of the Italian Communist Party held in Rome. Some outstanding leaders of the party openly accused the Stalinist bosses and asked for a more democratic leadership. Signor Togliatti and his followers, however, succeeded in silencing the opposition and in closing the Congress in absolute conformity to Moscow’s orders.
In the days that followed, the victory became less real. Signor Eugenio Reale, one of the founders of Italian communism and a former ambassador to Warsaw, resigned from the party. His example was followed by six notable personalities in the field of culture. One of these, Professor Vezio Crisafulli, who had been a candidate to the High Constitutional Court, said on behalf of the others, “To come out from the Communist Party had become for us a matter of conscience.”
An untold number declined to renew their membership cards.
The latest blow was given by Signor Nenni, leader of the Socialist Party, who offered his Stalin Prize (over $25,000), received from the hands of Stalin, to the Italian Red Cross in aiding hundreds of Hungarian refugees pouring into Italy.
R.T.
Seminary In Germany
Formation of a theological training center in West Germany for Spanish Protestant ministerial candidates was voted at the annual conference of the Gustav Adolf Work of the Evangelical Church of the Rhineland.
The decision to set up the new training facilities was made after the conference heard a report by Dr. Manuel Gutierrez-Marin, president of the Spanish Evangelical Church, on the “distressed situation” of that body.
Praise For Niemoeller
Dr. Martin Niemoeller, president of the Evangelical Church in Hessen and Nassau, was greeted on his 65th birthday by religious, cultural and political leaders all over Germany.
Bishop Otto Dibelius of Berlin, chairman of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKID), hailed him as “a courageous man who tells everybody what he thinks must be told.”
Even his adversaries cannot deny that he is one of the most outstanding personalities of German Protestantism in the 20th century, asserted the bishop.
During recent years, Dr. Niemoeller has become a highly controversial figure.
His statements on political questions, particularly his opposition to the rearming of West Germany, have frequently evoked criticism from church and civic leaders and brought praise from pro-communist groups.
News Behind News
A communist newspaper in Czechoslovakia has complained about a slowing down of atheistic propaganda.
The paper, Nase Pravda, said the population is still deeply religious and hence, there must be no relaxation in anti-religious campaigns.
Africa
New Nasser Move
Egyptian President Gamel Nasser, frustrated eastward, may turn westward into the African continent in a bid to regain his prestige as the Arabs’ “strong man.”
Coastal newspapers in West Africa recently have headlined rumors of Egyptian influence among the area’s Moslem population. The papers look upon this influence, based upon religious ties and Arab nationalism, as a threat to their own nationalist ambitions.
With self-government for the Federation of Nigeria approaching, political leaders of the “Christian” south fear that the Moslem rulers of the vast and rich northern region may want to secede from the Federation in favor of the Moslem “lodestar” across the Sahara.
“The Sahara is a bridge rather than a barrier between Egypt and us,” Prime Minister Alhaji Ahmadu of Northern Nigeria said in Cairo during his pilgrimage to Mecca last June. The Prime Minister of Somalia and the Secretary-General of the French Cameroons Party also were among the leading African figures who visited Egypt last year.
Low air fares are making the Mecca more attractive to West Africans. An estimated 10,000 of them now make the “Hajj” each year. So many went from Nigeria last year that the government sent a special mission, including a physician and a team of medical workers, to look after their needs.
It is on this religious feeling of kinship that Nasser is working. The trip to Mecca whets the appetite for national liberty as pilgrims rub shoulders with nationalists from other areas of the colored world. At the same time, the sense of unity in Moslem Africa tends to undermine loyalties to the western world.
Nasser has not been silent in wooing the affections of Africa. In his Philosophy of the Revolution, he said, “If we direct our attention to the continent of Africa, I would say, without exaggeration, that we cannot, even if we wish to, in any way stand aside from the sanguinary and dreadful struggle now raging in the heart of Africa between 5,000,000 whites and 200,000,000 Africans.”
Egyptian officials announced last October that they would open a consulate in Nigeria.
Alhaji M. A. Deke, a former employe of the Islamic Congress, has told the West African press that diplomats from Egypt have been visiting Northern Nigeria in the role of businessmen. He also revealed that the Congress recently sent 20,000 Islamic books of a political nature to the Northern Region. All this, he stated, was designed to build up a Moslem empire headed by Nasser.
Leaders of Christian missions in West Africa, already concerned about the way in which Islamic “evangelism” is outstripping the growth of the Christian Church in some areas, are closely watching these signs of strengthened ties between Nasser’s Arab nationalism and the African Islamic religion.
W. H. F.
Gold Coast Nuggets
Only 10 students showed up when a youth camp, with Christian lecturers, was held on the African Gold Coast four years ago.
Converts among these 10 provided camp officers for the next year. In December, 1956, four camps were held on the Gold Coast, with 170 attending.
The idea has spread along the coast to Sierra Leone and east to Nigeria, where the country’s first boys’ camp was held last Christmas. Two of the many who made decisions for Christ were from Moslem homes.
One of the converts at the camp four years ago was Felix Konotey Ahulu. Today, he is in England studying to be a medical doctor and trying to win students for Christ.
Norway
Report On Revival
Hundreds of Norwegians have surrendered their lives to Christ, in the wake of an evangelistic campaign that began last fall.
The campaign was scheduled to end many weeks ago, but interest has mounted and the rush of people continues. Thousands jam the white parish church of Hoyland near the city of Stavanger. People come from far away and police are kept busy regulating queues.
The revival leader is the Rev. Johannes Skauge, a secretary of foreign missions. He speaks in a simple, objective and direct manner. He never appeals to the emotions. There are no solos and choir numbers. The speaker, in giving the invitation, says, simply, “Let us sing this hymn while you come along.”
A young couple walks toward the altar. Others follow. Soon, there is no more kneeling space. Others wait.
In the periodical, “Our Church,” a reporter wrote:
“Hardly anything has touched me so deeply as what I have just seen: people breaking away from the road of perdition to seek God. Christ has but rarely appeared to me in such majesty as when I was watching the multitude striding forward towards the altar to let God take the lead.”
T. B.
India
Csi Adds Big Church
The executive synod of the Church of South India voted at its meeting in Madras to accept the application of Christ (Anglican) Church at Trivandrum to become a member.
This action brought into the CSI the largest Anglican congregation in Travancore-Cochin state not already a member.
CSI, formed in 1947, now includes Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, Reformed and Congregational bodies.
