More than 10,000 Disciples of Christ trekked to Louisville, Kentucky, for the 1960 assembly of the International Convention of Christian Churches, October 21–26. It was the largest assembly in many years and one of the most significant in Disciples’ history. Actions taken may hate wide repercussions in the life of the nation’s largest religious body with distinctively American origins.
The convention theme, “His Mission—Our Decision,” was relevant to its “Decade of Decision” program, adopted by the 1959 convention. At the opening session in Kentucky’s mammoth Exposition Center, Convention President Loren E. Lair stated that the program’s purpose was to implement the mission of Christ in the world. Among specific advances which Lair proposed in the ten-year period were the establishment of 1,500 new churches and the raising of $400,000,000 for the work of the brotherhood at home and overseas.
The varied program of the convention also included major addresses by A. Dale Fiers, president of the United Christian Missionary Society; Albert Edward Day, noted Methodist divine: Marion Royce of Ontario’s Department of Labor; James H. Robinson, director of the Morningside Community Center in New York City; and Henry G. Harmon, president of Drake University. Missionaries and nationals from Disciple mission fields in Africa, Asia, Japan, Southeast Asia and North America were among the speakers.
The 40th anniversary of the United Christian Missionary Society was observed in several addresses, a pageant, and a luncheon at which 5.000 were served. The society, one of the largest mission corporations in American Protestantism, began in a merger of several boards in Cincinnati in 1919 in the midst of one of the most devastating doctrinal controversies in the history of the Disciples. It has weathered many storms and stands today with a net worth of over $10,000,000, 227 foreign missionaries, a membership of 245,000 in its women’s organizations, and a vast service organization employing hundreds of staff and field workers.
Spiritual highlight of the assembly was the traditional convention observance of the Lord’s Supper on Sunday afternoon when an estimated 13,400 partook of the sacred emblems of Christ’s death and suffering. An effective biblical liturgy centered the thought of the convention on Christ as in no other session.
Christian aesthetics were given unusual prominence at Louisville. Impressive dramas, such as “This Burning Hour” by Kermit Hunter of Hollins College and “The Circle Beyond Fear” by Darius Leander Swann of Christian Theological Seminary, were well received. A panoramic view of the “Decade of Decision” in Scripture, music, message and commitment and a music festival presented by mass choirs of four major Disciple colleges filled most of the closing day. The proceedings represented a strange contrast with the deeply evangelistic stance of Disciples’ national gatherings for more than 100 years.
Business sessions were largely concerned with resolutions, which: urged effective means of cleansing mass communications without invoking a deadening censorship; commended the code of decency in motion picture production; condemned “apostles of discord” and the controversial Air Force manual; pledged renewed loyalty to the National and World Councils of Churches; and endorsed proposed integration of the International Missionary Council and the World Council of Churches.
Overshadowing all other resolutions were those dealing with interracial issues. Highly controversial and causing deep rifts in certain sectors of brotherhood life, these pronouncements put teeth into the church’s traditional stand on racial discrimination. They call for integrated church life at all levels. The National (Negro) Christian Missionary Convention has been temporarily incorporated into the UCMS orbit and will later be completely integrated with the International Convention. The National City Christian Church, on the edge of a large Negro area in Washington, will eventually face serious problems as a result of one action. Early in the convention. Kring Allen, integrationist agitator, precipitated an embarrassing situation for conferees. Because Congolese delegates had been refused service in certain Louisville hotels and restaurants, Allen proposed a special resolution which charged that some leaders of the church had, in the interests of “expediency,” “compromised” the convention in agreements with Louisville hostelries. Convention authorities were called upon to strictly observe a resolution passed seven years ago providing that the convention meet only in cities which would accommodate delegates without racial discrimination.
Most revolutionary action taken by the convention was in the adoption of a report “concerning brotherhood restructure.” It commits the convention to a “decade” program which may change the whole polity and program of its constituency. The report proposes that an intensive study be undertaken in the nature and mission of the church. It calls for an overall master plan for “responsible action” affecting local churches, city unions, district and state conventions, boards and agencies, colleges and seminaries, benovolent homes, the International Convention and relationships with ecumenical bodies. It proposes that the newly organized denomination be put in a legal position to negotiate with other religious bodies looking toward eventual union. Traditional congregational autonomy and self-government could be sacrificed for “independence and responsibility” within a centralized ecclesiastical framework.
The method of implementation involves so-called “listening conferences” in all sections of the nation, speakers in conventions and institutes, lectures in colleges and seminaries, articles in the religious press, books and brochures, consultations and various propaganda gadgets. A Commission on Restructure composed of from 120 to 130 representative leaders and meeting annually will make final decisions subject to convention approval. From this body a Central Committee of from 15 to 18 members will be selected which together with a paid staff will do most of the planning and handle detailed action.
Report No. 31 involving “Cooperative Policy and Practice” provides a committee for dealing with current developments in this revolutionary program. It is to provide “cooperative strategy” and new “brotherhood solidarity.” It proposes to “strengthen cooperative life” regardless of “independent claims.” The committee will give guidance and counsel to local congregations facing internal problems arising out of expected opposition to the new program. Close cooperation is to be maintained with the Year Book Committee (which lists approved ministers and churches), the Home and State Missions Planning Council, the State Societies and related agencies.
Some observers predict that these decisions at Louisville will have wide repercussions in this intensely congregational body and could well result in the loss of hundreds of churches and ministers from presently tenuous relationships with the convention.
Dr. Perry E. Gresham, president of Bethany (West Virginia) College, was elected convention president for the ensuing year. Bethany was the first Disciples’ college.
Rival Assemblies
A last-ditch reconciliation attempt by the Reunited Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Korea failed to prevent a final schism as rival assemblies met in Seoul this fall.
The 45th General Assembly, meeting in Seoul’s Yung Nak Presbyterian Church, made a last attempt to woo back die-hard dissidents who had rejected a partial reunion effected last February. Postponing its first order of business, the assembly dispatched a reconciliation team to the opening session of the assembly organized by the dissidents and pleaded for reunion before election of opposing slates of officers would make division irrevocable.
The splinter (Seung Dong) Assembly, however, meeting behind locked gates, refused even to admit the peacemakers to a committee hearing.
The Seung Dong assembly, in turbulent session, postponed for a year consideration of the explosive issue of membership in the International Council of Christian Churches. It turned instead to open negotiations for union with the Koryu Presbyterian Church, a smaller Presbyterian body in Korea related to the Orthodox and Bible Presbyterian Churches of America.
Publishing Plan
Delegates to the 77th annual conference of the Bible Fellowship Church, formerly known as Mennonite Brethren in Christ, approved plans for a denominational paper to serve its 4,000 members. The conference, held last month in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, appointed the Rev. David Thomann editor.
Rampant Immorality
Australia’s top-ranking Anglican leader says the spread of immorality is “a cancer eating at the nation’s heart.” He blames the condition largely on the distribution of indecent literature and urges concerted efforts to arouse public and governmental concern.
In his presidential address to the 32nd Synod of the Sydney Diocese last month, Dr. Hugh R. Gough, Archbishop of Sydney and Primate of Australia, declared that immorality is rampant not only among married and unmarried grown-ups but among young people and even children.
Charging also that many young people in the country are amoral, he said “immorality is bad enough, but to be amoral is infinitely worse.”
Gough said that probably no new laws of censorship are necessary, but only a “full and literal implementation of the existing laws,” and a “refusal to give way to the pressure of a few loud voices which are clamoring for a relaxation of those laws.”
Mormon Headquarters
Plans for a 38-story denominational office building to be built in Salt Lake City by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) were announced by President David O. McKay at the church’s 130th semi-annual conference last month.
The project, described by church architects as the “greatest in the Intermountain Region,” also includes construction of a 17-story addition to the Hotel Utah, also owned by the church.
A four-level underground “self-parking” area will accommodate 2,000 automobiles, and a new church gymnasium will be provided. Working plans for the project are now under way, it was reported.
The office building—to be one of the tallest of such structures between Chicago and the West Coast—will house administrative offices of the church, the missionary department, and branch departments of the 1,600,000-member denomination.
Thorpe B. Isaacson, first counselor in the church’s presiding bishopric, told the conference that the church plans to double its 8,000-member missionary force now serving in the United States, Europe, Latin America, and the Pacific.
‘Gas-House Gang’
A space problem in your Sunday School?
If there is a service station nearby, you might want to follow the example of the young married couples’ class of Atlanta’s Peachtree Baptist Church (Sunday School enrollment: 1,157).
Every Sunday morning the class gathers at a gas station across the street from the church, with the women meeting in the office and the men in the auto wash rack.
The station was offered by its owner, Jack Mauldin, a member of the church, when he learned that the class had to give up its facilities to another adult Sunday school group.
Appropriately enough, the men’s group meeting in the service station calls itself the “Gas-house Gang.”
Exit Federation
The University of Chicago’s Federation of Theological Schools was officially dissolved as of September 30. Following dissolution, the schools which had been linked announced establishment of separate agreements, as follows:
—Disciples Divinity House will enroll all its students in The Divinity Schol of The University of Chicago and they will receive University of Chicago degrees.
—Under an arrangement between Meadville Theological School and The University of Chicago, university courses will comprise at least 50 per cent of the academic requirements for a degree from Meadville Theological School.
—Under a contract between The Chicago Theological Seminary and The University of Chicago, students of The Chicago Theological Seminary will take at least one-fourth of their course work from The Divinity School of The University of Chicago, but The Chicago Theological Seminary will have its own faculty and degree program.
—The Divinity School of The University of Chicago with its 29-member faculty will conduct The University of Chicago’s graduate theological degree programs.
Debt-free Dedication
The Methodist Theological School in Ohio, the 12th U. S. seminary supported by The Methodist Church, officially opened its doors at dedication services last month.
The five buildings on the 69-acre campus in Delaware, Ohio, cost $2,700,000, all of which has already been paid, thanks to a successful campaign headed by Dr. John W. Dickhaut, former Methodist district superintendent who was inaugurated as the school’s president a few hours before its dedication.
Classes at the new seminary began in September with an enrollment of 72 students from 13 states.
Alaskan Education
In the shadow of famed Mt. McKinley on the outskirts of Anchorage lies the campus of Alaska Methodist University which opened this fall with an enrollment of 150 students. About $3,500,000 has already been expended since planning got under way 10 years ago.
Two large buildings have already been erected on the 505-acre hilltop campus. More are to come.
The faculty includes 14 full-time and 11 part-time members. Dr. Fred P. McGinnis is president.
