Although Liberia as a republic is a distinct product of U. S. Christian colonization, it may well prove to have been a difficult introduction to Africa for the Billy Graham team. Some team members felt that the first stop on their nine-country evangelistic tour posed more problems than any other.
The Graham African crusade began January 13 in a 1,500-seat stadium in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital, chief port, and principal city. Nightly meetings were conducted for a week with evangelist Howard Jones, U. S. Negro minister who is the African expert of the Graham team. Graham dedicated a new 50,000-watt transmitter for ELWA, a Christian broadcasting station, and addressed the two closing services of the Monrovia series, on January 21 and 22.
When slaves freed from America were settling on the west coast of Africa during the first half of the nineteenth century, they found they had to battle aborigines just as colonists in America fought Indians. Nevertheless, a chunk of land now compared in size with the state of Ohio became an independent country in 1847. It was the first republic in Africa (the second: Egypt). It is one of only two Negro republics in the world (the other: Haiti).
Descendants of the slave colonists, called Americo-Liberians, still form the ruling and intellectual class of Liberia, though they are far outnumbered by the natives of the interior. Some estimates say there are fewer than 15,000 Americo-Liberians in the entire country, said to have a population nearing 2,000,000.
“This is a sick country,” John Gunther’s Inside Africa quotes an American official in Liberia, “maybe it will get well.” In 1953 Gunther found the Liberians “too poor, too mercilessly exploited,” more than 90 per cent illiterate, and abounding in thievery and corruption.
A chief drawback to mass evangelism in Liberia is the lack of adequate roads. There are only a few miles of paved highways in the entire country. Other roads become impassable during rainy seasons. Result: Travel between communities is at a minimum and large gatherings of people are rare.
Liberia’s backwardness is a distinct reflection on Christian America, for the country has been closely linked with the United States politically and religiously from its inception. Monrovia was named after U. S. President James Monroe. Many sincere, well-meaning Christians were behind efforts of the private American Colonization Society which promoted the settling of the slaves in what is now Liberia. These slaves took along their Protestantism. A number of missionary groups in Liberia trace their roots back more than 100 years.
Most Americo-Liberians are still nominal Protestant Christians living largely along the 350-mile coast line. Methodist and Episcopalian work is well situated among these coastal people. Lutherans are noted for their work in the interior, where as many as 40 dialects are spoken and where paganism prevails.
Other groups working in Liberia, both on the coast and in the interior: Baptist Mid-Missions, Seventh-day Adventist, Assemblies of God, Child Evangelism Fellowship, Sudan Interior Mission, World-wide Evangelization Crusade, and Open Bible Standard Missions.
The nominal Christian culture does have official standing. Competent missionary work has the fullest sympathy of the government. William V. S. Tubman, President of Liberia since 1943, is a graduate of a Methodist missionary school and first visited the United States in 1928 as a delegate to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Kansas City.
Roman Catholicism is represented in Liberia, but its influence is not believed to be strong.
The Graham team, having flown in from Dakar via commercial airliner, landed at Roberts Field, some 50 miles from Monrovia. Their auto trip to the capital took them through the rubber plantations which are now so closely identified with the Liberian economy. Rubber is the chief export, and most of it comes from land acquired in the twenties by Firestone Tire and Rubber Company interests. Firestone employs more than 25,000 Liberians and is a major source of government revenue. Gunther said Firestone does more for its workers than the government itself does for the majority of citizens.
Another bold U. S. enterprise was set up in 1952 when R. G. LeTourneau, noted Christian industrialist, leased 100,000 acres of land and shipped in construction and agricultural machinery for large scale commercial cultivation and mechanized production of rice, sugar, cocoa, coffee, and lumber.
Under Tubman, Liberia has made remarkable progress in recent years. But as with its physical resources, which have yet to be fully measured, Liberia’s spiritual potential still represents a challenge to the Christian world.
Mrs. George A. Padmore, wife of the Liberian ambassador to the United States, has said that the Christian church has in Africa the most massive single opportunity of its history.
But she asserted that “here is the first time that the challenge of an entire continent has confronted the church with such a limited timetable.”
Crusade Coverage
Coming issues of CHRISTIANITY TODAY will include special, interpretative dispatches cabled directly from the scene of Graham’s African meetings by News Correspondent Tom McMahan.
McMahan also is preparing twice-weekly stories for the Columbia State, largest newspaper in South Carolina, where he is religion editor, and for more than 425 other U. S. dailies which sought coverage of the crusade in Africa.
McMahan will travel with the Graham team for the duration of the crusade.
8,500 Hear Graham In Monrovia
Billy Graham’s two evening meetings in the Liberian capital city of Monrovia drew an aggregate attendance of approximately 8,500.
The meetings addressed by Graham climaxed a crusade begun a week earlier with associate Howard Jones.
Some 1,160 persons recorded commitments to Christ, of which 671 were first-time decisions.
Although the Monrovia crusade was pitched to English-speaking city church people, a surprising number of semi-illiterates attended the meetings.
A new transmitter erected by ELWA, Christian radio station, was pressed into temporary service, extending the impact of the crusade. Missionaries and national churchmen said the crusade saw unprecedented unity.
On the day of his arrival, Graham was invited to the executive mansion of President William V. S. Tuban, who extended an official welcome.
Later, in a special ceremony, the evangelist was awarded the Order of African Redemption, second highest decoration in Liberia.
From Liberia, the Graham team was scheduled to move on to Ghana, then to Nigeria, where meetings were slated for this week.
Temperance Aloft
Commercial airlines are prohibited from serving alcoholic beverages to any passenger “who appears to be intoxicated” under a Federal Aviation Agency regulation which becomes effective March 10.
The rule also imposes civil penalty of up to $1,000 on any passenger who insists on drinking from his own bottle while aloft. The passenger must give his bottle to the stewardess who can then supply the “set-ups.”
FAA Administrator Elwood R. Quesada, in announcing the regulation, stoutly defended the growing practice of airlines in serving alcoholic beverages to passengers in flight and attacked legislation pending in Congress which would ban the serving of liquor on planes.
“It is a generally accepted fact that flat prohibition has not proven successful in preventing consumption of alcoholic beverages,” said Quesada.
A Mosque for Zürich
The Ahmadiyya Moslem Mission plans to build a mosque in Zürich, the first in Switzerland.
Layman’s Leadership
Some 850 persons, including leading business and political figures, assembled in Miami Beach’s Americana Hotel last month for a four-day “Layman’s Leadership Institute.” Aim: to strengthen spiritual lives of participants.
Addresses, personal testimonies, and discussions constituted the program.
Information to the selected and invited participants stressed the institute’s functioning as an interdenominational meeting without a membership organization, without elected officers and void of funds solicitation.
The institute, fifth of an annual series, was a project of a laity research foundation now known as Christian Men, Incorporated. Sponsors were Dr. Duke McCall, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, evangelist Billy Graham, and Texas grocery executive Howard E. Butt.
Why The Jews?
A prominent Hebrew Christian identifies current anti-Semitic demonstrations as part of an “anti-Christian scheme.” [See also editorial on page 23—ED.]
The Rev. Daniel Fuchs, missionary secretary of the American Board of Missions to the Jews, suspects some foreign demonstrations may also betray anti-American feeling.
Fuchs characterizes the anti-Semitic expressions as a trend inspired by Satan.
Among those at this year’s institute: Senator Stuart Symington, Florida Governor LeRoy Collins, Dr. L. Nelson Bell, Executive Editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, and Maxey Jarman, shoe manufacturer.
Ecumenical Radio
The Lutheran World Federation plans to share broadcasting time of its projected radio station in Ethiopia with the Near East Christian Council.
The two groups worked out an agreement for joint use of a proposed 50,000-watt transmitter after each had asked a franchise from the Ethiopian government only to learn that just one would be issued.
The government informed the LWF early in December that it had been granted permission to erect and operate the first private radio station in Ethiopia.
As part of the radio project, plans call for studios to be erected in five countries—Ethiopia, Tanganyika, South Africa, Madagascar, and perhaps India. These studios will feed programs in various languages to the Ethiopian transmitter. Some of the funds for the project, which also includes a second 50,000-watt transmitter, will be raised in the United States by the National Council of Churches’ overseas radio, visual education and mass communication committee.
Both short and medium wave frequencies will be utilized. The station is scheduled to be on the air by Christmas Day, 1961.
Participating in the Near East Christian Council are national Protestant, Orthodox and Coptic churches in the United Arab Republic, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Aden, Sudan, Algeria, Tunis, and Iran, plus foreign missions groups situated in those countries.
Easing Rules
Two Eastern universities eased chapel attendance rules last month.
Princeton University trustees announced that sophomores will not be required to attend chapel services, leaving only freshmen who must be present for worship at least half of the Sundays of the school year.
Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, will no longer require any of its students to attend chapel.
Fire at Taylor
A $750,000 fire last month destroyed the administration building of Taylor University, liberal arts school in Upland, Indiana, which numbers among its graduates many leading evangelicals.
Following the pre-dawn blaze, which started in a basement chemistry laboratory, classes met without interruption in improvised quarters.
University officials immediately launched a drive for $1,500,000 to erect replacement facilities.
Taylor University was established in 1846 by Methodists. The school became independent in 1922, but retained high Christian standards.
After the Twelve
A Dutch father gave his newborn son the names of all 12 of Christ’s Apostles, the Dutch Radio reported last month. It said a registry office clerk argued with the father, saying the boy would have much trouble filling forms when he grew up, but the man insisted on officially recording all 12 names.
Protestant Panorama
• President Eisenhower says construction of the National Presbyterian Center in Washington “will be something that will challenge us and show that our Protestant beliefs can be held forth as one of the truly basic values of civilization.” Eisenhower made the remark during the unveiling last month of a tentative design for the center, projected at a cost of $20 million to replace the National Presbyterian Church.
• Some 10,440 converts from Roman Catholicism were admitted to the Church of England between 1954 and 1956, says the latest Anglican yearbook.
• The Salvation Army in the United States will be received as an affiliate member of the National Holiness Association at the NHA’s spring convention. The Army, now numbering more than 250,000, becomes the 14th denominational group to be fully affiliated with the NHA.
• The first Protestant communion service at the U. S. South Pole Station was conducted last month by Navy Chaplain Edwin R. Weidler, minister of the Evangelical and Reformed Church.
• A National Council of Churches agency is sponsoring what is described as the first effort to train Protestant church administrators at the regional level in responsibilities involved in administering large, corporate church enterprises. The effort got under way with a 12-day session in Detroit last month. More than 50 ministers from 13 Protestant denominations attended the session, held under auspices of the NCC’s Department of the Urban Church.
• “A Protestant minister should not vote for a Roman Catholic candidate under any circumstances.” The statement, which appeared on a questionnaire sent to readers of Monday Morning, a magazine for Presbyterian clergymen, drew this reaction: 379 agreed, 390 disagreed, and 17 were undecided.
• A number of Protestant ministers are under subpoena to appear before a grand jury in Wheeling, West Virginia, when it begins a probe of vice and corruption February 8.
• Dr. Lester A. Crose, secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Church of God (with headquarters in Anderson, Indiana), is making a world tour in connection with the board’s 50th anniversary observance.
• The United Church of Christ is introducing a new Sunday School curriculum to some 8,000 congregations across the country.
• Baylor University Press plans to publish a semi-annual Journal of Church and State to be devoted to a study of Church-State relations.
• A specially-commissioned committee of the Kentucky Methodist Conference is exploring possible merger with the Louisville Annual Conference.
• Dallas Theological Seminary dedicated a $400,000 library building January 18. The edifice, of modified Spanish modern architecture, is designed to accommodate 100,000 volumes.
• Twenty Protestant ministers joined six Catholic priests in a joint protest last month to the Port of New York Authority, denouncing its choice of a site for a jet airport in Morris County, New Jersey. The clergymen say the airport would cause a mass turnover of area residents and would give rise to deterioration in living conditions.
• Lung cancer is 90 times less likely to occur among Seventh-day Advenists, who don’t smoke, according to a report made public last month by the Sloan-Kettering Institute of Cancer Research. The report also discounts air pollution as a great risk factor inasmuch as it came out of a study made mostly of Seventh-day Adventist men who live in smog-ridden Los Angeles.
• “Voters do well” to study papal decisions which place the church over the state, according to a statement adopted last month by the Harris County (Houston, Texas) pastoral conference of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.
Church Attendance
A Gallup Poll shows church attendance leveled off during 1959 following a record high in the previous year.
An estimated 49 million adults attended church services during a typical week in 1959, or 47 per cent of the adult civilian population (excluding those living in institutions).
During an average week in 1958, 49 per cent of the population was to be found in church, the poll said.
‘No Basic Changes’
A special fact-finding commission of The Methodist Church advises against “basic changes” in the church’s regional and racial jurisdictional structure.
A 32-page report prepared by the church’s 70-member Commission on the Jurisdictional System says immediate alteration of the system would be “harmful” to the denomination and “especially disastrous to Negro Methodists.”
The report will be presented this spring to the quadrennial Methodist General Conference, which appointed the commission four years ago to study segregation in the church and the jurisdictional system.
Since 1939, The Methodist Church has been divided into six U. S. administrative jurisdictions—five regional and one all-Negro central jurisdiction. Opponents of the existing system claim that it encourages sectionalism and segregation.
“The central jurisdiction assures racial integration in the highest echelons of our church,” the report counters. “There is no other denomination in America where this degree of racial integration in the governing bodies of the church has been achieved.”
AME Observance
Philadelphia will be the focal point of a three-day celebration by the 1,200,000-member African Methodist Episcopal Church in honor of the 200th birthday of the denomination’s founder, Richard Allen. Services are planned February 14–16.
Allen was born in Philadelphia February 14, 1760, of slave parents. In protest of the segregation of Negroes he withdrew as a communicant of Old St. George’s Methodist Church in Philadelphia and founded the first AME congregation in 1816.
The AME Church is represented in 47 states, Canada, Bermuda, the West Indies, South America, and Africa. In the United States there are some 5,000 local AME congregations.
The Drive For Peace
The Christian message bears “tidings of peace” to the world. Why, therefore, does widespread distrust shadow the “drive for world peace” currently being advanced in the churches?
Answer: Ecclesiastical leaders today insist on blending Christian concerns with political propaganda. Doubtless legitimate elements of Christian motivation support these Church efforts for peace. But the ecclesiastical thrust often dilutes and even loses the biblical emphasis on spiritual regeneration and reconciliation in a cross-current of political and ecumenical tensions.
• In the United States, the National Council of Churches is following up its Cleveland World Order Conference, which urged U. S. approval and U. N. admission of Red China, by a “peace program” (see “The Church’s Mission and NCC’s Propaganda Drive,” page 22) distressing to many American Protestants. Despite the NCC General Board’s artful dodge of responsibility for the Cleveland commitments, NCC policy, to many observers, seems an evasive disguise in politico-economic affairs (see Council President Dahlberg’s comments in Formosa, p. 27).
• The Third Christian Peace Conerence (CPC), scheduled in Prague, Czechoslovakia, from April 20–24, 1960, has an eye on “ending the Cold War.” Not only pro-Communist regime Protestant and Eastern Orthodox churchmen, but all ecumenical agencies are being invited. The conference expects 150 participants, among them representatives of churches (including the “young churches”), church councils, and individuals. Its leaders welcomed Khrushchev’s proposals to the United Nations.
• An All-Christian Conference for World Peace (ACC) is tentatively projected early in 1961 somewhere in Europe, after the World Council of Churches assembly in New Delhi the same year. Behind the scenes leaders are debating the merits of 1961 or 1962 for this ACC session, which is viewed by some as the fusing point of the world thrust by both the ecumenical and peace movements. Some ecumenical leaders think a 1961 date will prove damaging to the New Delhi assembly, at which integration of International Missionary Council into WCC will be in the forefront. But peace proponents think that a world conference will be “stale” by 1962. They argue that Khrushchev’s U.N. initiative has now “left the churches behind the politicians.” The effect of Khrushchev’s visit to the United States has already been to persuade some satellite rulers that the churches are no longer indispensable peace propaganda agencies, but can now be by-passed by a strictly political thrust.
Anxieties over the blending of Christian concerns with specific programs of political action exist on many levels. Some Christian observers are distressed over the activities of politically-minded secretaries. Others note the readiness of certain leaders (some serving even on theological commissions) to dispense with dogmatic foundations for practical Christian goals and programs. Many complain that the peace propagandists tend to oversimplify the problem of reconciling Christians and Marxist atheists. Others, although recognizing that church spokesmen are determined not to become agents of government, point out that ecclesiastical strategy nonetheless often seeks and shapes an official status-role with government.
C.F.H.H.
The League of Nations, which after World War I set up principles for recognition of governments, said recognition should not be extended to any government that came to power in any way other than by the will of the people over which it ruled. Has the Red Chinese regime come into power by the will of the people? A resounding “no” comes from some 10,000 people who each month flee the mainland into Hong Kong. A similar answer is voiced by the majority of Korean war prisoners, who voluntarily went to Formosa rather than to return to their Red-dominated homeland. These have had the privilege of making their choice; most Chinese have not had the chance; their rulers dare not let them see the outside world.
Another principle established by the League of Nations was that recognition should be extended only to a government which keeps its promises and honors its agreements. When the present regime came to power in China, it immediately seized U. S. consular property, appropriated American business, and confiscated other foreign property. Protests were ignored. This lawless behavior has characterized the regime to the present time. It is difficult to imagine normal relations with such a government.
What happens when groups of people in the Free World—sometimes even Christian groups—send petitions to their governments advocating recognition of Red China and pressing for her admission to the United Nations? Millions of oppressed Chinese, Poles, Hungarians, and others feel they have been betrayed. These have suffered for their principles in the hope that the Free World will likewise challenge tyranny, condemn its principles, and oppose its spread.
Inasmuch as there are today two Chinese governments, each purporting to be the rightful government, people in favor of recognizing the Red regime often belittle the Nationalist government. On the mainland, they say, it was a corrupt and inefficient government whereas Communists have brought reform and modernization.
Those who were in China at the close of World War II must admit that there is much truth to this charge. The country had been through a long war with Japan, as well as a simultaneous civil war with Communists in the northwest. Actually, the end of the war did not bring peace to China. Civil war flared anew when Russians who disarmed the large Japanese army in Manchuria turned over their war equipment to the Communists. There was little time to reorganize the government and to put things in order. People were weary of fighting. Communists descended with fresh troops and glowing promises. Quickly they rolled up a large following.
To judge the government of Chiang Kai-shek, you must begin in 1927, when his government came to power. During Chiang’s first five years in office China made the greatest progress of her long history—in education, sanitation, industry, communications, and in many other ways. Some say that despite its imperfections, the government of China at that time was the best the country had ever had.
Then China was involved in a terrible war for more than a decade. Her coasts were blockaded, her soil occupied. All the evils of that grim period came to fruition in the post-war years.
The government of Nationalist China finally moved to Formosa, where again it established democratic rule. There, many U. S. advisers and observers have praised the kind of government now in operation as even better than that of Chiang’s early years on the mainland. People enjoy a free press, public education, and progressive governmental policy which is changing the country from an agricultural to an industrial economy.
The issue often comes down to a choice between Free China and Red China. Considering all the facts, it seems hard to understand that anyone in good conscience would not favor Free China.
Christian people often ask: “Is Generalissimo Chiang really a Christian?” Yes, he is, however unusual that may seem for a president in a nation largely non-Christian. So is Madam Chiang. Both attend church regularly and are earnest students of the Word of God. They witness outspokenly to their Christian convictions. Having such national leaders in these dark and uncertain times is a strong encouragement to the Christian cause in Free China.
End of an Era?
Noted Protestant theologian Paul Tillich warns that there is “a trend away from Reformation individualism” and toward “authoritarian” forms of religion which may end the Protestant era.
He remarked to newsmen in Los Angeles last month that this trend was indicated by recent mergers of Protestant groups, the ecumenical movement, and Roman Catholic encouragement of Christian unity.
“Ecumenicity doesn’t do much theologically,” he noted. “What is produced in terms of theology is not very impressive. A committee cannot make a theology,” so victory is based on “the lowest common denominator.”
Dr. Tillich, professor at Harvard Divinity School, made the observations at a news conference preceding a lecture series he delivered at Occidental College (United Presbyterian).
“The Protestant theology is essentially non-conformist,” he said, “but rugged individualism has disappeared and has been replaced by ‘Organization Man,’ the development of the collective spirit.”
He declared that “the trend toward spiritual security and, therefore, authoritarian forms of religion poses a threat to Protestantism.”
Tillich’s remarks, however, gave scant comfort to the mid-century “evangelical revival.”
Popularity of “primitive orthodoxy revivalism” also evidences a desire for security since “authority gives security,” he said.
“Today’s younger generation wants to be sociologically, ethically and spiritually secure,” he observed. “One hardly finds a type of liberal theology in theological faculties of American educational institutions.”
“The liberal philosophy which I found when I came to America 26 years ago does not exist today,” the German-born theologian added. “The liberal movement came suddenly to an end in the 1920s.”
Despite all this, Dr. Tillich said, “You can’t kill the prophetic spirit, although it may go underground” if the Protestant era should be ended by authoritarianism.
Mental Health
The first annual meeting of the Academy of Religion and Mental Health was held in New York January 14–15. Organized in 1955, the academy claims to be the first organization ever to be established for research in relations between religion and mental health. Membership includes 1,000 psychiatrists and 1,300 clergy. The meeting helped to inaugurate 1960 as “World Mental Health Year.” The World Federation for Mental Health was a joint sponsor.
Among those who addressed the New York meeting was Dr. Paul Tillich. Tillich, who rejects the concept of a personal God, credited depth psychology with helping theology to rediscover the biblical doctrine of God as a near, embracing and accepting God.
People: Words And Events
Deaths:Dr. Reuben E. Nelson, 54, until last year the general secretary of the American Baptist Convention, in New York … Catholicos Melchisedek III, 88, head of the Orthodox Church in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, in Tbilisi … Professor Max Huber, 85, known in ecumenical circles for his role as Church-State chairman at the 1937 Oxford Conference of the Life and Work Movement, in Zurich … the Rev. August M. Berg, 64, American Baptist missionary to India, in Malden, Massachusetts … Dr. Thomas Moseley, 73, retired president of Nyack Missionary College, in Glendale, California … Charles Manuel “Daddy” Grace, founder of the “House of God” following, in Los Angeles.
Retirement: As president of Blue Mountain College of the Mississippi Baptist Convention, Dr. Lawrence T. Lowery, effective May 31.
Resignation: As chairman of the board of directors and the corporation of the American Friends Service Committee, Dr. Henry J. Cadbury.
Recommendation: To be next general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, Dr. Josef Nordenhaug, president of the Baptist Theological Seminary at Ruschlikon-Zürich, Switzerland (the recommendation will be made by the BWA executive committee to a special nominating committee of the Baptist World Congress).
Appointments: As president of the National Association of Schools and Colleges of The Methodist Church, Dr. Willis M. Tate, president of Southern Methodist University … as co-pastor (with his father) of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who became a noted champion of integration while pastoring the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama … as president of Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, Dr. W. Earl Strickland … as president of Baptist Mid-Missions, the Rev. Allan E. Lewis … as the first holder of the Lilly Endowment Visiting Professorship of Christian Ethics at the International Christian University near Tokyo, Dr. Charles Wheeler Iglehart … as professor of New Testament at Pacific Bible Seminary, Dr. T. Ralph Applebury … as African radio director for the Lutheran World Federation, Dr. Sigurd Aske … as educational secretary and citizenship director of the International Society of Christian Endeavor, Delno W. Brown.
