NEWS
Christianity in the World Today
Where do Protestant ministers stand on economic freedom? How do they feel about a free market as opposed to socialistic attitudes in trade? What are their views on the link between economic and religious freedom?
To learn some of the answers, CHRISTIANITY TODAY enlisted the services of Opinion Research Corporation, noted survey-conducting firm with headquarters at Princeton, New Jersey. The firm included barometer questions on free enterprise in a representative nation-wide poll of Protestant ministers taken in behalf of CHRISTIANITY TODAY last fall. Answers were secured in detailed private interviews in the ministers’ homes and offices. Clergymen were selected for the interviews on the basis of scientific random-sampling methods.
About one clergyman in five in the survey was reported as “decidedly socialistic” in his economic views. Little more than half of those interviewed saw any definite connection between economic and religious freedom.
Results Of Earlier Survey Confirmed
The poll thus indicated that while a majority of Protestant ministers stand for a free enterprise position, a minority lean strongly toward socialism. Spokesmen for Opinion Research Corporation said these findings showed tendencies to vote for economic freedom at about the same level as those in another national survey the firm took on free market versus socialistic sentiment in 1953. The earlier survey likewise found one out of every five clergymen socialistic in his thinking.
In the CHRISTIANITY TODAY survey, four barometer questions were used to pin-point ministers’ attitudes. The first of the four was asked to establish where the ministers stood on economic and religious freedom. This was the query:
Economic and religious freedom are linked. If the government owns and operates all industry, religious freedom will disappear. In the main do you agree or disagree?
Fifty-five per cent said they agreed unqualifiedly. Twenty-two per cent said they disagreed. The remainder had qualified answers or no opinion.
Noticeable was a tendency for ministers who classified themselves as fundamentalists to be more positive in seeing the connection between economic and religious freedom. Of the fundamentalists, 64 per cent agreed there was a link (17 per cent disagreed) while only 50 per cent of those who categorized themselves as conservatives agreed (25 per cent disagreed). Among those who said they were liberals, 49 per cent agreed; among the neo-orthodox, 46 per cent.
Relatively few clergymen concurred in the following two clear-cut “anti-free enterprise” arguments:
(1) Most businessmen look upon labor as a commodity rather than as human beings. (2) There is little economic justice in the way our business system distributes wealth.
Only 15 per cent commenting on the two statements said they were in agreement with them.
Socialized Housing Wins Majority
The survey also resulted in a high vote for socialized housing, which led to the observation that it “points up the well-known problem of translating principle into solutions for problems facing society.” This was the statement:
The federal government should provide low rent housing for low income people.
Sixty-one per cent of the ministers surveyed said they agreed. Commented the pollsters: “The fact that ministers have a deep feeling of the necessity and Christian correctness of charity leads them to accept answers for pressing social problems that, by their implementation, tend to sap all freedoms including religious freedom.”
A breakdown of the responses on the first inquiry indicated that feelings on the subject of economic freedom cut across denominational lines freely. No one-sided totals were attributed to any single church association. Nor were there any block votes according to ministers’ ages or the size of the congregations they served.
In all cases where percentages do not equal 100, those unaccounted for either had no opinion or had qualified opinions.
The ministers were also asked how important they felt it was to interpret the moral side of social-economic issues. Forty-nine per cent said they thought it was “very important.” Another 43 per cent said it was “fairly important.” The remainder of those reporting said it was not a task of the church.
Worth Quoting
“Surely by this time we have discovered that soft sayings about virtue, the evolution of the race, and the inherent goodness of mankind, will not produce the evangel ism the world sorely needs. We must speak again of the ghastly reality of sin, of the atonement of Christ, of justification by faith, of the eternal profit of goodness and of the everlasting loss to those who will not have Christ.”—Methodist Bishop Arthur J. Moore, at a mass rally in Washington’s Griffith Stadium closing a Methodist convocation on local church evangelism.
Catholic ‘Monopoly’
Beginning August 21, Roman Catholic priests will hold all three chief chaplaincy posts of the U. S. military establishment. For on that date Catholic Chaplain (Brigadier General) Terence P. Finnegan is scheduled to take over as Air Force chief of chaplains, succeeding Major General Charles I. Carpenter, a Methodist who has held the post since it was created nine years ago.
The “monopoly” will end November 1, when Catholic Chaplain Patrick J. Ryan, a major general, retires. Slated to succeed Ryan is Chaplain Frank A. Tobey, an American Baptist brigadier general.
Rear Admiral George A. Rosso currently heads Navy chaplains. A domestic prelate with the title of Right Reverend Monsignor, Rosso last month relieved Rear Admiral Edward B. Harp Jr., an Evangelical and Reformed minister who had served for five years.
Evangelism—Two Types
Evangelist Billy Graham drew an aggregate of nearly 150,000 persons during a series of eight meetings at the California state fairgrounds in Sacramento.
An overflow crowd of 26,000 witnessed the last Sacramento meeting, Sunday night, July 6.
In San Francisco, meanwhile, follow-up teams were counting results of a week-long visitation evangelism program held in the wake of the two-month bay cities crusade. Directors of the program were trained by the Rev. George Housewright of Kansas City, field director of evangelism for the United Lutheran Church.
On July 8, the Church Federation of Greater Chicago said it had decided against sponsoring a Graham campaign.
Alaska Challenge
Does statehood for Alaska open up new Christian opportunities? Will there be extended avenues of witness when the territory comes into the Union?
Says the Rev. Felton H. Griffin, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Anchorage, “The most rapidly growing churches today are the ones where the simple Gospel is preached and practiced.… Statehood will provide (1) added interest on the part of mission boards and added funds to meet the needs here (2) a more stable population (which) will have more interest in the churches (3) growing churches (which) will bring encouragement to the missionaries and pastors.”
“The accelerated rate of evangelical growth,” says Griffiin, “will be increased as we welcome our new citizens.”
The Rev. Malcolm Stuart Sweet, Presbyterian pastor in Juneau and former chaplain of the Territorial Senate, says that Protestant Christianity in Alaska is “definitely conservative, as one might expect in a predominantly mission field, but along with this theological conservatism is a militant social liberalism.”
Church And Farm
Last month the National Council of Churches’ General Board cited seven ethical goals for this country’s agricultural policy: national programs designed to assist farmers to higher levels of living; preservation of the integrity and enrichment of the rural family; the encouragement of voluntary, cooperative, and mutual aid associations among farmers; the conservation of nature’s resources; adequate and healthful diets for the world’s growing populations; fair and reasonably stable levels of income for farm producers; and recognition of human interdependence on a national and world scale.
Some board members sought unsuccessfully to delete a section of the statement which declared that “a violation of the Christian concept of justice exists in the fact that wage workers in agriculture are denied most of the legal and economic protections long accorded to wage workers in industry.”
Asked to comment on the statement as a whole, Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson said:
“These seven basic goals are so soundly conceived and effectively presented that no thinking and well-informed person could view them with anything but sincere regard. Indeed, these objectives are fundamental to many of our agricultural policies now in operation (in America) …
“There is little serious disagreement in agriculture about the basic goals to be sought, though there are differences of opinion as to the best procedures to be followed. This is only normal in a free society. The task of all of us, who have the welfare of agriculture at heart, is to see to it that the people have the facts at their disposal. I have the utmost confidence in the good judgment of a well-informed public.
“It is vital that our individual as well as governmental approach to agriculture should begin, as the statement so well points out, with the acknowledgment that ‘the earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof,’ and that man’s task is one of ‘stewardship of the earth’s resources for the nourishment and enrichment of human life.’
“It is my belief that our rural people are the salt of the earth and a solid bulwark against forces which threaten our free way of life. More than perhaps any other segment of our population they know that ‘whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’ From our rural people must come much of the faith, courage, and leadership to face effectively the local, state, national and world problems of tomorrow. And that is why it seems to me self evident that the ultimate test of any governmental policy must be an ethical test. It must answer the question, ‘How will this policy or this program affect the character, morale, and well-being of our people.’ “It is heartening to have such a clear and forthright presentation of ethical goals for agricultural policy. I feel sure the statement will do much good and I pray God’s blessing upon the good work of the National Council of Churches.”
Dismissal Statements
Here are official reactions to the dismissal of 13 professors from the faculty of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky.
Excerpts from a statement by the chairman of seminary trustees, Dr. Wade H. Bryant, Roanoke, Virginia:
It roots back in part to the change in the by-law structure of the seminary made by the trustees in 1942 placing the administrative responsibility in the hands of a president rather than in the hands of the faculty.
Race Showdown—An Unlikely Site
Early this month Washington-Lee High School won international renown when its national champion oarsmen reached the quarter-finals of the Royal Henley Regatta in England. Washington-Lee had the distinction of being the first U. S. public high school to be invited to the world’s top rowing event.
In coming weeks this same school could conceivably gain world-wide attention again, this time in disgrace. For Washington-Lee High School in the South’s northernmost segregation citadel—Arlington, Virginia—is under federal judicial order to admit Negro students with the resumption of classes on Thursday morning, September 4. Hard-shell segregationist Virginians are dedicated to see that this never happens.
Reason seems to be against a race showdown in Arlington. Situated just across the river from the nation’s capital, the county is an integral part of the Washington melting pot; many of its citizens are northern natives who hold few qualms about integration. The Arlington Council of Churches has displayed a solid front against segregationists who would use sanctuaries for classrooms in the event schools are closed. The proportion of white students to Negro pupils is about fifteen to one.
True, Arlington would appear to be an unlikely place for the school integration problem to come to a head. But so was Little Rock, a city “too far north” for any trouble; surely any strife would be in the Deep South.
A determined minority opposes integration in Arlington schools. The group appealed unsuccessfully to the U. S. Supreme Court. The fear is that other methods may be used come Thursday morning, September 4. Christians are urged to pray that in the shadow of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, peace will prevail.
(The difficulties) were not matters of doctrinal difference nor of academic freedom in the strict sense. Rather they were involved problems dealing with convictions about theological emphasis and the direction in which the seminary should go, the part the faculty should have in the selection of faculty members and deans as well as the promotion and salaries of faculty members, the way the president used his administrative authority, personal differences both with the president and with other members of the faculty, etc.
Statement of joint faculty:
In view of the circumstances that have arisen at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary leading to the dismissal of a number of the members of the faculty of the School of Theology, we take this means of expressing confidence in both the integrity and the administrative ability of President McCall. We pledge to him afresh our loyalty and our continued cooperation.
We wish to express our sympathetic concern for our colleagues who have been dismissed and to express our confidence in their academic ability and their dedication to the Kingdom of God. We cannot concur, however, in their attitudes and conclusions concerning the administration.
As the servants of our Lord Jesus Christ we reaffirm our commitment to seek to know and to teach the truth, using every instrument which God has made available to man in this search for truth, and always under the conviction that our final authority is the inspired revelation of God. We will pursue this ideal as the agents and servants of our beloved Baptist people.
We count upon the continuing love, prayers, and support of our student body, our alumni and the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention of which the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is a vital part.
Statement of dismissed professors:
It was our grave concern over the inner workings of the seminary which compelled us to take our action.
We believe that our problems had to do with (1) relationships between the administration and faculty members, (2) the basis on which the faculty shares in determining educational matters, (3) personal responsibility in the light of Christian teaching, and (4) mutual respect in working together.
Only after many unsuccessful efforts with the administration to correct these problems in a way consistent with these principles, did we refer the problems to the Board of Trustees.
We had hoped for a reconciliation, but all efforts have been unsuccessful.
We express our continuing interests in the welfare of the seminary, those charged with responsibility for guiding its future, and our former colleagues, with whom we share a continuing love for the seminary.
The following report on Russia was written especially forCHRISTIANITY TODAYby Dr. Bob Pierce, president of World Vision, Inc., upon his return from a two-week visit to Russia.—ED.
The Protestant church in Russia is being systematically destroyed by the Communist party.
I saw a frightening close-up of the plan in action during the same days when my heart was warmed at overflow worship services in Kiev, Kharkov, Moscow and Leningrad. Russians have freedom of religion to an extent, partly as an outward Presidium show to the free world and partly because the church has some measure of power in several satellite countries.
Possibly 15,000 are added yearly to Baptist ranks in the Soviet Union. The total number of Soviet Baptists is now estimated at well over a half million.
Moslems, on the other hand, are also showing strength in numbers and activity. Jews are severely persecuted.
I saw tears stream down the cheeks of men and women as they sang and prayed during Protestant services. Thousands stood and listened intently for more than two hours while two complete sermons were preached. The hunger was great. These people were in tune with God.
Then I looked behind the scenes at the Communist plan. It works like this:
Religious instruction is forbidden in all institutions for any child up to the age of 18. Sunday Schools do not exist. Give me a child during the formative years, Lenin had said, and his future as a Communist is certain. The Communist party has severed the roots of the
Protestant church by taking the children.
At the age of seven, boys and girls are encouraged to join the Octobrists, Communism’s youngest organization. They proudly wear a red star. At the age of nine, they are pressured to join the Young Pioneers and wear the famous red neckerchief. Young Pioneers have special clubrooms in schools. They sponsor every athletic contest and award every prize. Membership is almost unanimous. What youngster would have the courage not to join? At fourteen, they graduate to the Komsomol (Young Communist League) which leads to the Communist party.
No Christian can belong to the Octobrists, Young Pioneers or the Komsomol. This is why churches have so few youth.
The Kremlin goes another step. Not one Protestant seminary exists in Russia proper. The Kremlin says churches are free to have seminaries, but that buildings are not available.
And still another step. The greatest book ever written is not sold in Russian book stores. What few Bibles the government has printed are distributed within churches. I saw ladies with the love of God in their faces and the frayed Word of God in their hands. Some of the pages were tied together with strings. Others had loose pages folded in papers and scarves.
That is the Communist plan: cut young roots, eliminate pastors, and cut off publication of Bibles.
The plan is ingenious, and thus far successful, but I met men and women who had fallen in love with Jesus Christ. And they are telling others, with the aid of their yellowed pages. The Word of God will not return unto him void.
The Lutherans
Convening Lutherans occupied themselves largely with church merger discussions last month. Two key union movements moved through the talks virtually unchallenged in formal action.
The bigger of the two merger plans would bring together the United Lutheran Church in America, the Augustana Lutheran Church, the American Evangelical Lutheran Church, and the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church (Suomi Synod). The new body, tentatively called the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, would have more than 3,000,000 members.
Augustana’s 99th annual synod at Jamestown, New York, voted down internal reorganizational proposals in view of anticipated union, but also rejected a delay in current talks to allow discussion of a larger merger. Suomi’s 69th annual convention in Detroit upheld a decision to affiliate its seminary with a United Lutheran theological school.
The other Lutheran merger plan, though smaller, is closer to consummation. It would bring together the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the American Lutheran Church, and the United Evangelical Lutheran Church into a denomination of more than 2,000,000 members.
Evangelical Lutherans, at their 23rd biennial convention in Minneapolis, took issue with a joint merger committee’s recommendation that the united memberships be called the American Lutheran Church. They preferred “The United Evangelical Lutheran Church.”
Perhaps ironically, the group now known as the United Evangelical Lutheran Church, meeting in its 62nd annual convention at Blair, Nebraska, gave blanket approval to the name originally suggested and other plans which call for completion of the merger by 1961.
The Lutheran Free Church decided at its 62nd annual conference in Minneapolis to submit a plan for participating in the smaller merger to a third congregational referendum in 1961.
Other Meetings
These were among highlights at other leading religious gatherings:
At Boston—Some 2,000 delegates to the 14th biennial meeting of the General Council of Congregational Christian Churches had to deal with congregations which are refusing to merge with the Evangelical and Reformed Church. The council says only 100 or 200 of its 5,544 churches have declared they will not join the new United Church of Christ formed a year ago. Dissidents, nevertheless, prompted concern at the seven-day meeting. Dr. Truman B. Douglass, executive vice president of the Congregational Board of Home Missions, urged that the legal principle of “obedience and support to the will of the majority” be followed “in our relationships together as a fellowship of churches.” Board of Home Missions directors said nonmerging churches would not be forced to pay off “grant mortgages.” The church union is fighting a suit brought by four Midwest Congregational churches and 10 individuals. A constitution for the new body is subject to approval of local churches after it is presented to a United Church general synod. The meeting of the Congregationalists, who now number 1,392,632, opened with a call for more world-wide sharing of mission resources by Dr. Alford Carleton, executive vice president of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Carleton warned, however, against duplicating mission channels and “top heavy administrative machinery.” Referring to the projected merger of the International Missionary Council with the World Council of Churches, which has headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, he said “there must be no Vatican created in Geneva to handle the Protestants’ work around the world.”
At Salt Lake City—The world’s largest Mormon metropolis was host to the 14th biennial congress of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America June 29-July 5. Archbishop Michael told some 2,000 clergy and lay delegates that “all departments and phases of Greek Orthodox life in America show progress.”
At Des Moines, Iowa—Some 1,000 delegates to the 250th anniversary conference of the Church of the Brethren agreed to allow ordination of women. Until now, Brethren women have been allowed to preach but have had no general right of ordination. The conference featured a “brainstorming” session during which delegates came up with about 6,000 specific proposals for strengthening the future program of the church. They also approved a new policy statement permitting acceptance of members from other denominations without rebaptism.
Tax Relief
The Internal Revenue Service says official clergy and lay delegates to church conventions are now entitled to claim unreimbursed travel expenses as income tax deductions.
At Cleveland—Back in 1863, 20 delegates met at a Battle Creek, Michigan, meeting house for the first “general conference” of the Seventh-day Adventist church, when they had a membership of 3,500. Last month, the booming church’s 48th quadrennial session drew 1,200 delegates plus thousands of traveling members representing more than a million Adventists in 185 countries. Said the Rev. Reuben R. Figuhr, who was re-elected world president, “We are a universal church.” Adventist tithing, at $213 per capita in North America, surpasses all the large denominations, and Adventist public relations tries to set a corresponding pace. Said the Rev. Howard B. Weeks, Bureau of Public Relations secretary, “The past four years have seen many gains in the release of favorable Seventh-day Adventist information. In the press in North America alone more than 2,000 church press secretaries, cooperating with public relations officials, have been responsible for the publication of 225,000 newspaper articles about the church. This represents a gain of approximately 50 per cent over the preceding four years.”
At Keystone Heights, Florida—Delegates to the biennial General Conference of the Advent Christian Church voted to amalgamate its American Advent Mission Society and Women’s Home and Foreign Mission Society.
At Birmingham, Alabama—Retiring Moderator Dr. William T. Ingram warned commissioners to the 128th General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church that Christians are in danger of being engulfed by secular culture. Ingram was succeeded by Dr. Wayne Wiman.
At Winona Lake, Indiana—“The Christian church today is sick from an overdose of the three T’s—taboos, tradition, and tranquilizers,” said Dr. Arnold T. Olson, president of the Evangelical Free Church of America. Olson told the church’s 74th annual conference that there is a need to get back to the three P’s—prayer meeting, personal witness, and private Bible study.
At Anderson, Indiana—The 70th annual convention of the Church of God drew some 20,000 persons. The policy-making General Ministerial Assembly, representing more than 115,000 members in the United States, voted to establish a commission on Christian education.
At Grand Rapids, Michigan—The annual synod of the Christian Reformed Church upheld women’s right to vote in congregational affairs.
At Flat Rock, North Carolina—Delegates to the 154th annual general synod of the 28,000-member Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church voted to emphasize evangelism in programs for the coming year.
At Winona Lake, Indiana—Delegates at the 23rd quadrennial General Conference of the Pilgrim Holiness Church approved a proposed merger with the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America. The Wesleyan church will vote on the union at its General Conference at Fairmount, Indiana, in June of 1959. If the union is consummated, it would create a new denomination of about 100,000 communicants in some 2,000 congregations.
At Denver—Mounting nationalism is posing difficult problems for American missionaries in many countries, according to the Rev. Vincent Brushwyler, general foreign missions director of the Conservative Baptist Association. Brushwyler told the association’s 15th annual meeting that “there is an increasing resentment toward America and toward our missionaries in India and many nations of the Middle East.” He reported the association now has 365 missionaries in 12 foreign fields.
At Miami Beach—Resolutions passed by nearly 500 delegates at the 73rd annual meeting of the Evangelical Mission Covenant Church of America urged boycotts if necessary to (a) curb indecent literature, and (b) to discourage materialistic advertising.
At Cape May, New Jersey—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Alabama pastor and a Negro leader, said his race has developed “a sense of dignity and self-respect” since World War II. King addressed more than 2,000 Quakers at the biennial meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (General Conference).
At Des Moines, Iowa—The Baptist General Conference of America voted, in deference to its Canadian churches, to drop “of America” from its name. The change will become effective with an altered constitution in about a year. In 1945, the group dropped the word “Swedish” from its name.
At West Lafayette, Indiana—United Presbyterian Women, formed with the merger of Presbyterian and United Presbyterian women’s groups, dedicated themselves anew to an active program of evangelism. Some 5,000 women attended the week-long merger meeting.
At Philadelphia—The Rev. David P. Johnson of Kitchener, Ontario, was elected to a second three-year term as president of the General Convention of the New Jerusalem in the U. S. A. (Swedenborgian) at its annual meeting.
Canada
Baptists Waning?
“Statistical reports suggest that our numbers are on the wane,” the Rev. J. Frank Patch, general secretary of the Baptist Union of Western Canada, told 260 delegates attending the group’s 85th convention in Regina.
In contrast, the Rev. Arnold T. Ohrn, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, told 8,000 at the Baptist World Youth Conference in Toronto that “there is nothing in church history to equal” Baptist growth. Nonetheless, Baptists are too often “oblivious, indifferent, and unconcerned” about evangelism, said Dr. Jitsuo Morikawa, secretary of evangelism of the American Baptist Convention. A conference rally addressed by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, a Baptist, attracted 15,500 persons.
Other Dominion developments:
—The annual convention of the American Lutheran Church in Canada was told that bilingualism is dying out among U. S. Lutherans even though Canada needs pastors fluent in both German and English.
—Commercial Sunday sport was made legal in Vancouver over church protests.
—A Sacred Heart League rally witnessed by 25,000 heard progress reports against indecent literature in Montreal.
Britain
Lambeth Opening
The ninth Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops convened in London this month. More than 300 delegates were on hand for the once-a-decade meeting.
The Lambeth Conference is the only central authority among Anglican churches. It is a deliberative assembly whose “duty” in formulating conclusions and spiritual advice for the fellowship of Anglican churches is “not command and coercion but guidance and persuasion.”
After a week of joint sessions, the bishops split into committees. Topics being discussed are the authority and message of the Bible, church unity, reconciling international conflicts, the family in modern society, and progress in the Anglican communion.
A “message to the world” will be drafted in the plenary session which is to conclude the conference August 10. The report will be released later.
Bishops were meeting at the home of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Dwindling Ranks
Annual assemblies of principal Protestant churches in Northern Ireland found problems of church extension and dwindling non-Catholic ranks.
The Methodist conference meeting in Belfast and the Presbyterian General Assembly meeting in Dublin both approved arrangements for closer cooperation in areas where Protestants are few and in a new district near Belfast where a second Presbyterian-Methodist joint congregation is to be established.
Middle East
Nature Of A War
Maronite Patriarch Paul Meouchi is credited with saving the Lebanon civil war from becoming a solely Christian-Moslem religious conflict.
Christian Arabs reportedly believe that issues behind the revolution are now relegated to the political realm because Meouchi allegedly opposes the government of Maronite President Camille Chamoun.
E. N.
Israeli Orthodoxy
Orthodox Jewish religious standards spelled trouble for the government of Israel last month.
Minister of the Interior Israel Bay Yehouda ruled that citizens would be considered Jewish on their own word, whereupon two of his colleagues withdrew from the government. Fears were expressed that the ruling was liable to destroy the 2,000-year-old Jewish tradition of identity between the nation and religion, since children of mixed marriages might then be registered as being of the Jewish faith.
Conservative Jews elsewhere saw additional reason to protest. Some 200 representatives of the World Union of Orthodox Jewish Communities paraded in front of the White House as a demonstration against the drafting of women into the army of Israel and the building of a swimming pool for both sexes in Jerusalem. They also charged that religious demonstrators in Israel are jailed.
The Central Conference of American Rabbis, on the other hand, challenged orthodox monopoly in Israel. At a meeting in Chicago, the group announced it would seek joint action with conservative Jews to promote non-orthodox religious practices in the Holy Land. Orthodox rabbis are the only Jewish clergy in Israel allowed to perform such functions as marriages, divorces and burials.
People: Words And Events
Deaths: Dr. Umphrey Lee, 65, chancellor emeritus of Southern Methodist University, in Dallas … Israel A. Smith, 82, president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, in Bethany, Missouri … the Rt. Rev. Herbert Gresford Jones, 88, Britain’s oldest Anglican bishop, in Liverpool … Dr. Edward Scribner Ames, 88, minister and philosopher, in Chicago … Alexandros III, 90, Greek Orthodox patriarch, in Damascus … Ignatius Moubarak, Maronite archbishop of Beirut … Dr. George Russell Olt, 62, Anderson College dean and Cincinnati pastor, in Anderson, Indiana … Dr. Sam Higginbottom, 84, former moderator of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., on Long Island … the Rev. Alexander A. Pieters, 87, retired Presbyterian missionary to Korea, in Pasadena, California … Miss Frances T. Wooding, 59, Presbyterian missionary-educator in Iran, in New Haven, Connecticut … Dr. Carl Heath Kopf, author and pastor of the First Congregational Church, Washington, D. C.
Elections: As moderator of the General Council of Congregational Christian Churches, Dr. Ray E. Phillips … as chairman of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, Dr. Ramsey Pollard … as president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Robert E. Naylor … as a Methodist Board of Education staff member, the Rev. Elmer A. Thompson … as president of American Association of Theological Schools, Dr. Ernest C. Colwell … as president of the Evangelical Mission Covenant Church, Dr. Clarence A. Nelson … as president of the National Sunday School and Baptist Training Union Congress, Dr. O. Clay Maxwell … as moderator of the Church of the Brethren, Dr. William M. Beahm … as president-designate for 1959–60 of the Methodist Conference of Ireland, the Rev. R. E. Ker … as moderator of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Dr. B. L. Hamilton … as president of the Lutheran Free Church, Dr. John M. Stensvaag … as editor of Crusader, official monthly newsmagazine of the American Baptist Convention, Paul C. Allen … as Ministerial President of the Hungarian Reformed Church, the country’s largest Protestant body, Dr. Albert Bereczky … as editor of the Canadian Presbyterian Record, the Rev. DeCourcy H. Rayner … as chairman of the board of directors of Emmaus Bible School, Dr. Theo J. McCully … as president of Christian Medical Society, Dr. Ralph Blocksma.
Appointment: As dean of Southeastern Baptist Seminary, Dr. Olin T. Binkley … as professor at Drew University, Dr. Will Herberg … as faculty member in charge of the Missions Department at Toronto Bible College, the Rev. Douglas C. Percy … to the staff of Word of Life Fellowship, Inc., Dr. Charles J. Woodridge … as news director of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Ashley P. Cox, Jr.
Resignations: As staff member of the National Lutheran Council, the Rev. Charles P. Carroll … as staff member of the Methodist General Board of Education, the Rev. R. Delbert Byrum … as minister of the First Presbyterian Church, Princeton, Indiana, the Rev. Edward W. Greenfield (to become editor of Faith and Freedom for Spiritual Mobilization).
Construction: Commenced on a new office building for the Young Calvinist Federation, youth organization of the Christian Reformed Church, in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Grant: To the American Association of Theological Schools Fund, Inc., $500,000 from Sealantic Fund.
Digest: Christopher Dawson, British Catholic historian and author named to be first guest professor of Roman Catholic theological studies at Harvard Divinity School, was refused a United States visa for health reasons … Don Biagio Bailo, a parish priest in Italy, was acquitted of defamation charges stemming from accusations against couples married outside the church … This fall, Wheaton Academy becomes independent of Wheaton College. In recognition of the college’s centennial year, 1959 Illinois auto license plates will bear Wheaton colors, orange and cobalt blue … Ground has been purchased for Hawaii’s first Presbyterian church.
