Religious radio appears to be in for even harder times.
New curtailments on paid religious broadcasts go into effect this fall, forcing more programs off the air. Hundreds of big stations now refuse to sell time for religious programs.
Latest to announce a cutback is the American Broadcasting Company radio network, which has the nation’s second largest chain of station affiliates. ABC has dropped four of its eight paid religious programs, including the Oral Roberts broadcast.
Network spokesmen say that failure of local stations to air the programs is responsible for the move, which follows a creeping trend toward general elimination of paid religious broadcasting. The trend runs in accord with National Council of Churches policy favoring bloc allocations of free time to major religious groups instead of individual sales to religious broadcasters. Evangelicals generally oppose such an either-or arrangement, but radio stations have asserted a right to refuse to sell time. Even though the broadcasting industry is federally-regulated, no religious broadcaster has thus far been able to prove his legal right to radio time.
A strong argument against paid religious broadcasting revolves on the poor quality of some programs which have been aired under such an arrangement. Once the time is sold, stations have no control over amateur producers who may alienate an audience.
Paying broadcasters will counter with the assertion that the free time concept does not guarantee quality programming inasmuch as there is no agreement on what constitutes good religious radio.
Another consideration: size of audience is not in itself a fair measure of religious program effectiveness.
Faced with the loss of radio time on commercial stations, some Christian groups are looking to stations all their own. A number of these have been springing up around the country, eight of them having already announced plans for an “inspirational network.”
Some evangelical groups are even launching into television. A non-profit Christian organization headed by radio evangelist Percy Crawford purchased the facilities of an ultra high frequency station in the Philadelphia area and began daily telecasts this summer.
Two Analyses Of Religious Broadcasting
Protestant broadcasting suffers from the lack of a master strategy, according to Charles Brackbill, Jr., executive director of radio and television for the New Jersey Council of Churches.
“It is a picture of confusion, waste, out-dated and incredibly dull programming,” he says, charging that individual producers follow patterns that seem right in their own eyes and fail to cooperate with other broadcasters.
Brackbill asserts that the Protestant ministry has failed to keep pace with developments in radio.
“Preachers could always preach,” he declares, “and they have been doing it on radio since the first religious broadcast. All during radio’s heyday of great variety productions, they preached. And now that radio has its strength back, religious broadcasters still preach. They haven’t moved backward, they just have not moved.”
Brackbill suggests that Protestant broadcasters should cooperate if only because they have in common so many problems, such as: (1) ineffective programming, (2) schedule extremities (“And it’s our own fault … The ‘public interest, convenience and necessity’ clause of the Communications Act will not protect our poor programming forever”), (3) mercenary motives, (“If a Congressional committee ever investigates the deceit and chicanery of some religious broadcasting, there will be a bigger scandal than that of the recent payola exposures”), and (4) denominational pride (“We ought to decide whether we are selling individual automobile brands or transportation”).
“Too much money is being spent to ‘save the lost’ by programs which the ‘lost’ never listen too,” according to Brackbill. “Often the whole program is pitched to the ‘beloved in Christ’ and then to ‘O sinners’ in the last 30 seconds. The ‘dear Christian friends’ must never stop praying for God to bless the program in its soul winning, or to send in the money on the chance that a ‘lost one’ will tune in.”
He charges that many Protestant broadcasters gear their programs to Christian supporters, fearful of abandoning “successful” formats.
“Radio today has changed drastically since its pre-television days.… Today on radio you move goods, sell services, and create good will, not by ‘programs’ as such but by short capsule messages repeated over and over to reach as many kinds of people as possible. With few exceptions, the only sponsors of 15-minute or longer programs these days are religious groups. So long as they are willing to pay, many radio station operators just smile and take the money.”
Brackbill suggests that Protestant broadcasting groups (1) call a “summit conference” of highest-echelon churchmen to coordinate broadcasting aims on an interdenominational scale, (2) establish an experimental study center to eliminate guess work, (3) set up, after study, local production priorities, and (4) seek to discover what could be the function and structure of an inclusive Protestant broadcasting agency.
The need of the hour is for more “programs dedicated to the moral and spiritual upbuilding of America,” says Dr. Eugene R. Bertermann, executive director of the Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod) Foundation and for 24 years the director of the famous “Lutheran Hour.”
How does Protestant broadcasting measure up?
“Sometimes the caliber of the program content leaves much to be desired,” Bertermann declares. “As a result, the audience level drops drastically, and station managers conclude that religious broadcasts must be relegated to marginal hours and minimal schedules. Regrettable, too, is the fact that some broadcasters have employed the vehicle of a religious program for personal profit. At the same time, however, it must be asserted that the vast majority of Protestant broadcasters are dedicated servants of Christ, earnestly determined to utilize effectively the twentieth-century miracles of radio and television for the proclamation of the Gospel.”
Program quality must ever be stressed, he says, for “the religious broadcast is not ‘good radio’ or ‘good television’ simply because it has as its purpose the salvation of human souls.”
“The radio and television industry has, on the basis of sound experience, developed proven principles of broadcasting which help to insure an effective presentation and, through the Holy Spirit’s power, help to attain blessed results in the lives of listeners,” Bertermann declares. He adds: “In preparing his radio or television program, the religious broadcaster has often been pictured as confronted by a two-fold dilemma: he will obtain either a maximum audience for a minimum message, or a minimum audience for a maximum message.
Actually he desires neither alternative; he wants maximums all down the line!”
As a means of silencing critics who picture the religious broadcaster as a “huckster,” Bertermann proposes issuance of periodic public financial statements. He urges evangelical Christians, moreover, to support continued access to the broadcasting media by Gospel broadcasters. “We heartily commend the granting of sustaining time, but we assert the basic freedom of a station to sell religious broadcasting time and the basic right of anyone to buy it.”
Does Bertermann suggest means specific of raising religious standards?
Yes, he says, by seeking and applying principles drawn from surveys and studies and by utilizing capably-conducted radio and television workshops and seminars throughout the country.
Finally, according to Bertermann, “a master strategy for Protestant broadcasting must have as its very cornerstone the positive proclamation of Bible truth, the preaching of the historic Protestant faith, and the fundamental biblical doctrines.
“An abundant measure of the Holy Spirit’s power accompanying the broadcasting of the Word will prove it to be ‘the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.’ ”
Protestant Panorama
• Special services this month commemorated the restoration of Trinity Church—said to be America’s oldest with an active congregation—near Church Creek, Maryland. The church, now Protestant Episcopal-affiliated, dates back to about 1675.
• The Protestant Chapel Choir of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (Ohio) is the winner of the U. S. Air Force’s 1960 chapel choir contest.
• A Georgia pastor is demanding the ouster of any member of his church who has signed a petition for a local referendum on beer sales. Dr. E. B. Shivers of the Central Baptist Church, largest in the city of Gainesville, says he is acting in accordance with the church covenant.
• Ground was broken this month for a $3,000,000 Assemblies of God administration building in Springfield, Missouri. Occupancy is scheduled for December of 1961.
• Consolidated Presbyterian College, to be opened next year by the North Carolina Synod of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S., will require all students to take a “Christianity and Culture” course during each of their four years.
• Theological schools in Africa and Asia will get the bulk of current grants totalling more than $1,000,000 under the International Missionary Council’s Theological Education Fund program. The grants are the latest of a series under the program established in 1958 by the Sealantic Fund and eight Protestant mission boards.
• A gigantic retirement center is planned in St. Paul, Minnesota, to be sponsored jointly by the Lyngblomsten Society and a group of Evangelical Lutheran Church congregations. Some 1,000 residents are expected in a decade. The cost of building may run as high as $10,000,000.
• The Navigators, Protestant lay organization which stresses Bible study and personal witness, will send representatives to 10 new areas this fall, including Beirut, Karachi, The Hague, Frankfort, Kenya, and Toronto.
• A key tourist attraction in Nashville, Tennessee, this summer is the Upper Room Chapel. The chapel features a giant woodcarving replica of Da Vinci’s “Last Supper” plus a striking stained-glass window symbolizing Pentecost.
• A merger of four church groups gives South African Lutherans a 160,000-member association known as the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Zulu-Xhosa-Swazi Region. Lutheran statistics, which show a slight loss this year because of a reported membership drop in East Germany, now credit the world’s largest Protestant confession with a constituency of 71,101,780.
• Protestants travelling through Brussels may hereafter avail themselves of the services of the “International Christian Fellowship Center,” which has been opened with funds derived from the sale of the Protestant Pavilion of the Brussels World’s Fair to the American Church at The Hague, The Netherlands.
• The Jungle Aviation and Radio Service, technical arm of Wycliffe Bible Translators, is establishing its international headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. Larry Montgomery, veteran missionary pilot and mechanic, is director.
• The Church of the Nazarene is sponsoring four regional missionary conferences in September: in Indianapolis, September 5–6; in Charleston, West Virginia, September 8–9; in Dallas, September 12–13; and in Phoenix, Arizona, September 15–16.
• A number of Protestant groups are represented at this year’s Canadian National Exhibition, being held in Toronto. In all there are 12 religious groups on the grounds of the world’s biggest annual exhibition: the Oriental Missionary Society, the Salvation Army, the Upper Canada Bible Society, the Lutheran Laymen’s League, the Baha’is of Canada, Gideons International of Canada, World Vision of Canada, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Christian Businessmen’s Association, and three Roman Catholic organizations.
Enter ‘Kneel-ins’
“Kneel-in” demonstrations will spread across the South in coming weeks, according to a spokesman for a group which initiated the campaign August 7 when Negro college students attended Sunday services at six white Protestant churches in Atlanta.
Agenda: Doctrine
Delegates to the 46th convention of the Lutheran Synodical Conference in Milwaukee this month voted to call a special adjourned session for next Spring. The agenda: doctrinal differences which have threatened to disrupt the 88-year-old conference.
Such a recessed meeting had been suggested by the presidents of the four synods comprising the conference (the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, with 2,400,000 members; the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod with 350,000 members, the Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Church [Slovak] with 20,000 members, and the Evangelical Lutheran Synod [Norwegian] with 15,000 members).
The doctrinal dispute centers on accusations by the Wisconsin and Norwegian synods that the Missouri group pursues unscriptural cooperation with other church bodies.
Moments before the recess was requested, the convention approved a compromise proposal aimed at relieving tension by calling for a study of the dispute by foreign theologians representing conservative Lutheran churches in doctrinal harmony with the synodical conference. A preliminary report from the study committee is scheduled to be made in November.
Also approved was a resolution asking the four synods to express their desires regarding possible creation of an international federation of confessional Lutheran groups.
The Rev. John Daniel was elected conference president, succeeding Dr. John S. Bradac, whose health forbade him to run for re-election.
There were approximately 300 voting delegates and 100 advisory members on hand for the Milwaukee meeting. Among other actions they voted to close Immanuel Lutheran College in Greensboro, North Carolina, and to build a $1,000,000 campus at Selma, Alabama. This project will be a four-year high school and a two-year junior college. The new school will be primarily for Negroes, as is the present Immanuel Lutheran College.
Re-entering Congo
As of the middle of August, Protestant missionaries who had evacuated the strife-tom Congo were slowly returning, urged on by appeals such as one received by Dr. C. Darby Fulton, executive secretary of the Presbyterian U. S. Board of World Missions. The letter to Fulton from Congolese Christians cited, in halting English, the “necessity” of having the missionaries return.
“We ask you to get them back in Congo immediately,” the letter said.
During his visit to North America this summer, Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba said that missionaries had done much for the “moral and intellectual upbringing” of his people.
“We want the missionaries to remain,” he said. “For years it was only the missions who looked after the Congolese. We ask them to continue their help.”
The Swiss Catholic press agency KIPA said, however, that it had secured a copy of a “secret instructions” document issued to militants of the Congolese National Movement singling out Christian missionaries as the “greatest enemy” of the people. The document apparently was issued before the proclamation of independence. Lumumba was head of the Congolese National Movement.
Mission Medicine
Sixteen U. S. medical students are gaining clinical experience by working at Protestant mission hospitals this year.
They are spending an average of 12 weeks at their remote posts, having won financing fellowships under a program made possible by the Smith Kline and French Laboratories of Philadelphia. A total of 29 U. S. medical students are going to various foreign hospitals and dispensaries under the program for 1960. Others will compete for similar fellowships in 1961 and 1962, all of which are to be paid from a $180,000 Smith Kline and French grant being administered by the Association of American Medical Colleges.
These are the Protestant institutions where the students are being assigned: the Bangkok, Thailand, Christian Hospital (Presbyterian); the McCormick Mission Hospital in Chiengmai, Thailand (also Presbyterian); the Mari Baptist Hospital in the Philippines; several Southern Baptist hospitals in Nigeria and Southern Rhodesia; several Methodist clinics in Bolivia; the Methodist Ganta Mission Hospital in Liberia; the Methodist Washburn Memorial Hospital in Southern Rhodesia; St. Theodore’s Episcopalian Hospital in the Philippines; the Takum Christian Hospital in Nigeria; and the Seventh-day Adventist Hospital at Bandung, Java.
Bethel Expedition
Archaeologist James L. Kelso says his expedition at the site of ancient Bethel this summer turned up the “altar” where early Canaanites sacrificed their animals. Kelso, a professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, directed the expedition conducted jointly by the seminary and the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem.
The high place (altar) was located atop a hill at what is now Beitin, Jordan.
“At many points along an area of 50 feet, we noticed what appeared to be blood stains,” says Kelso. “We applied an FBI test at 10 points for identification of blood and secured a positive reaction each time.”
He describes a small temple built nearby whose proportions are similar to that of a tabernacle, the length being about three times the width.
“The earliest use of the high place which we were able to double check with pottery was about the twenty-second century B.C., although some shards dated back even further,” Kelso reports. “The temple was definitely still in use in Abraham’s time. The old Canaanite god El was worshipped here, and since it was a major sanctuary dedicated to his honor, the city was called Bethel (Beth-El).
This was Kelso’s fourth season at Bethel. He was assisted by Professor Theol M. Taylor.
Court Acquits Vocal Worshipper
Dave Van Ness shouted “praise the Lord” so often during an Apostolic church service at Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan, that other members took the case to court. He was acquitted last month of a charge of disturbing a religious gathering.
While agreeing that Van Ness could be a nuisance to others in the church, Magistrate Robert Macara ruled that the ejaculative member had not violated civil law.
Pastor Maurice Fuller said Van Ness had the habit of declaiming at great length during the time in the church service given over to testimonies. The congregation’s ruling body had decreed that the man could not speak in church or take part in church activities.
At a July 15 service the accused repeatedly shouted: “Praise the Lord. Amen.” Eventually, the pastor had to abandon the service. Fuller said Van Ness shouted the words even when they did not apply and disturbed the spirit of worship.
Van Ness, producing receipts to show he had made substantial contributions to the church during the last year, said his only purpose was to pray and sing.
In testimony prefaced by a prayer in which he led the court, he tried to quote lengthy passages from the Bible but was restrained by the magistrate.
“This is a most peculiar situation,” the magistrate said. He suggested that church authorities consult their legal advisers to seek some way to promote harmony.
J.N.
Correcting Mistakes
The American Friends Service Committee, world-wide Quaker welfare agency, reportedly plans to study and correct “mistakes,” following allegations that the AFSC has been infiltrated by “very pink” admirers of communism.
The Indiana Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends, headed by Dr. D. Elton Trueblood, noted professor of philosophy at Earlham College, said it was pleased that the AFSC will undertake the self-examination.
Dr. Trueblood, clerk of the meeting, earlier had called for a “house-cleaning” of alleged un-American elements from the committee. Sharing in an effort to arrive at a “creative decision” on the problem, he said, were Dr. Landrum Bolling, president of Earlham; and Dr. William Cullen Dennis, president emeritus.
“The AFSC has done an outstanding humanitarian work,” Dr. Trueblood told the Indiana Meeting. “But persons who believe in peace at any price and are strong admirers of the Communistic system have been able to work their way into the committee.”
Dr. Trueblood said the Friends had received many complaints about a youth camp near Richmond, Indiana, sponsored by the committee this summer. He said the complaints alleged that high school youths were told that the Russian system was better than the democratic way of life and that the United States was responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor that started World War II.
‘I Am a Protestant’
Wallet-size cards identifying the carrier as a Protestant are being distributed by The Protestant Council of the City of New York.
Some 80,000 have already been sent out in the New York area.
Birmingham Crusade
English evangelist Eric Hutchings is on a three-month tour of North America following a five-week crusade in Birmingham which drew an aggregate attendance of more than 120,000.
Hutchings and his “Hour of Revival” team never disclose the exact number of inquirers, but the figure is said to have been about 3,500 for the Birmingham meetings, held in famous Bingley Hall.
The evangelistic crusade was the largest in England since Billy Graham’s meetings at Harringay. Support came from all major denominations.
Hutchings, 50, has been conducting crusades since 1952. He left the business world to become an evangelist and now conducts a religious radio broadcast as well. He is married but has no children. His next crusade is scheduled for Brussels, beginning October 15.
To the East?
If evangelist Billy Graham enters the Communist sector of Berlin to hold a meeting he will be arrested, says Waldemar Schmidt, Red deputy mayor.
“Hysterical mass psychosis is not desired in socialist countries,” Schmidt declared.
Graham plans a week of services in West Berlin beginning in late September. The arrest threat came when the local committee sought permission to hold a single service in East Berlin.
The evangelist’s crusades in Switzerland are already under way. Here is a schedule of his European meetings:
Studying Liberalism
A permanent “Commission on the Study of Theological Liberalism” was created by delegates to last month’s annual meeting of the National Association of Free Will Baptists in Fresno, California.
The commission was made a permanent unit of the 200,000-member association following adoption of a commission report which warned against the infiltration of theological liberals.
“It is not enough to be relatively free from the peril now,” said the report. “Safeguards should be taken against future encroachments.”
The Rev. Ralph Staton of Belmont, North Carolina, was elected moderator.
The Five Years Meeting
Delegates to the quinquennial sessions of the Five Years Meeting of Friends, held last month in Richmond, Indiana, urged the United States to continue its moratorium on nuclear weapons testing.
Race prejudice and hatred were condemned as “spiritual and moral diseases,” the traditional Quaker stand on peace was reaffirmed, and opposition was expressed to capital punishment as violating “the Gospel we proclaim.”
The Five Years Meeting is the largest Quaker group in the world with 79,000 members in North America and more than 30,000 overseas. This constituency includes more than half of the world’s Quakers.
In other action, the delegates voted that hereafter they will meet triennially. They also decided to combine the meeting’s two publications, the American Friend and Quaker Action, into one magazine to be called Quaker Life.
Executive Secretary Colin Bell of the American Friends Service Committee reported that his group was involved in a “re-examination” of its role and relationship. The committee traditionally has been known as a world-wide quaker welfare agency.
Some 120 official delegates were on hand for the business sessions, while a worship service with Dr. Elton Trueblood drew more than 2,000 persons.
“Our trouble is having too low a goal,” Trueblood said. “We have an easy complacency and are satisfied with too little.”
The noted philosopher, a professor at Earlham College, challenged his fellow Quakers to rekindle the “blazing fire” of the 1660’s when Quakerism first came to America.
CONSERVATIVE DISCIPLES HOLD LARGEST CONVENTION
Burgeoning growth of the evangelical wing of the Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ) was dramatically demonstrated in the North American Christian Convention, Columbus, Ohio, July 12–15. More than 5,000 ministers and lay leaders made up the largest convention turnout in the NACC’s 34-year history.
Disciples, since their beginnings in 1809, have been strongly congregational in polity. Their national agencies have been voluntary in character and there was nothing unusual when evangelicals launched a national gathering in 1927 which had as its sole avowed purpose to exalt Christ and his Gospel and declare the cardinal doctrines of the apostolic church. The NACC seeks in no way to duplicate the ministry of the International Convention of Christian Churches.
The Columbus gathering did no politicking, passed no resolutions, promoted no agency programs and transacted no business except that necessary to provide a 1961 convention at Wichita, Kansas. There was, however, a gripping sense of evangelical commitment and purpose in all the proceedings. Program planners covered every phase of the functioning church in sermons, addresses, panel discussions, forums, and workshops—a veritable seminar of immense practical value in building the Kingdom.
“Jesus Christ is Lord of All” was the convention theme—Lord of Creation, Lord of Life, Lord of the Church. Edwin G. Crouch, well-known Indiana attorney and first lay president of the convention, keynoted this idea on the opening night. He asserted that “all the doctrinal difficulties in the church may be traced to the ignorance or indifference of laymen.… If the people in the churches knew their Bibles and respected the authority of Christ they could never be blown astray by popular winds of doctrine that blight and destroy the true faith.” University of Tennessee atomic scientist George Schweitzer stirred the convention with appeal for the Church to “get into orbit around Christ the center of all creation.” He characterized Christ as earth’s first visitor from outer space, who must eventually subdue all the earth to the glory of God. Ard Hoven, Lexington (Kentucky) pastor and “Christian Hour” radio preacher, gave the closing message on “Christ the Lord of the Church” in which he asserted that the only valid ecumenicity is to be found “in the pattern of the New Testament Church which was founded by Christ, grew and prospered under the personal direction of the Holy Spirit and the Apostles.”
NACC attendance was augmented this year by joint sessions with the National Christian Education Convention, concerned chiefly with Bible school work. There was much sentiment for a continuation of this arrangement.
Over 80 exhibits at Columbus reminded delegates and visitors that evangelical Disciples support more than 500 missionaries at home and abroad, more than 30 Bible colleges and seminaries, an immense publishing program and many other cooperative enterprises.
In effort to avoid the pitfalls of centralized authority over local congregations, the NACC has failed to give strong leadership to the million or more numbers in evangelical constituency. Growing problems confront the “brotherhood” such as responsibility in missionary activity, higher education, ministerial training standards, legal rights of local churches, inter-church cooperation, church extension, ministerial pensions, chaplaincy appointments, adequate national radio and television broadcasting media. Whenever these and other practical issues arise conservative Disciples have a big “blind spot” in their otherwise growing vision. The convention could well provide a forum whereby these problems might be resolved, and some consensus discovered for their solution, but reactionary forces have thus far blocked progress.
A “bull session” on internal unity packed out one of the conference rooms of the Deshler-Hilton Hotel. A series of consultations were proposed looking toward better understanding and unity.
Sentiment at the Columbus confab favored establishment of communication between these two groups in an effort to promote a more effective Gospel witness and to forestall the divisive tactics of left-wing Disciples bent on centralization of authority in state and national conventions and eventual merger with the United Church of Christ.
J.D.M.
A New Campus?
Plans are under way for a multi-million-dollar expansion of Bethel College and Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, under authority granted by delegates to the 81st annual meeting of the Baptist General Conference in Long Beach, California, this summer.
The delegates authorized the conference’s board of education to map plans for presentation at next year’s convention in St. Paul. The campus may be moved to a new 100-acre site.
People: Words And Events
Deaths:Dr. Ralph S. Cushman, 80, retired Methodist bishop and former head of the Anti-Saloon League; in Herkimer, New York … the Rev. Peter Kwei Dagadu, 52, Methodist leader in Ghana and member of the world Council of Churches Central Committee; in Accra … Dr. Fred F. Brown, 78, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention; in Knoxville, Tennessee … the Rt. Rev. Vedder Van Dyck, 71, Episcopal bishop; in Burlington, Vermont … Dr. A. E. J. Rawlinson, 76, Anglican bishop of Derby from 1936 to 1959 … Commissioner J. Allister Smith, 96, retired Salvation Army missionary to the Zulus; in Capetown, South Africa … Dr. Frank Benjamin Fagerburg, pastor for more than 20 years of the First Baptist Church of Los Angeles; in Redlands, California … Miss Evangeline French, 91, veteran missionary in the Gobi Desert under the China Inland Mission.
Resignation: As executive secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, Dr. Carl E. Lund-Quist.
Promotion: To the rank of Rear Admiral, Navy Chaplain Joseph F. Dreith (Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod), first Lutheran chaplain in naval history to be promoted to flag rank.
Elections: As bishops of The Methodist Church, Dr. Everett W. Palmer, pastor of the First Methodist Church in Glendale, California (Western Jurisdiction); Dr. Charles Golden, staff member of the Division of National Missions; Dr. Noah W. Moore, Jr., pastor of Tindley Temple in Philadelphia; and Dr. M. Lafayette Harris, president of Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas (Central Jurisdiction—all-Negro); Dr. James W. Henley, pastor of the West End Methodist Church in Nashville, Tennessee; Dr. Walter C. Gum, chairman of the jurisdictional committee on missions; Dr. Paul Hardin, Jr., pastor of the First Methodist Church in Birmingham, Alabama; and Dr. John Owen Smith, pastor of Bethel Methodist Church in Charleston, South Carolina (Southeastern Jurisdiction) … as president of the North American Christian Convention (Disciples of Christ), Robert O. Weaver … as moderator of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, David E. Niland … as president of the National Association of Church Business Administrators, Leif R. Larson.
Appointments: As president of Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Dr. F. Eppling Reinartz … as director of the University of Hamburg, Germany, Professor Helmut Thielicke, first Protestant theologian ever to hold the post … as president of Pasadena College, Dr. O. J. Finch … as president of London (Ontario) Bible Institute, Dr. Joseph C. Macaulay … as visiting professor of ecumenics at Princeton Theological Seminary, Dr. J. Robert Nelson … as chairman of the Department of Religion at (West Virginia) Bethany College, Dr. Lester G. McAllister.
