Religious Makeup of the 87th Congress

No major realignments are evident in a comparison of religious affiliations of members of the 86th Congress with the 87th Congress, which convenes January 3.

Roman Catholics again are the most numerous in some two dozen religious affiliations represented in the Senate and House, but not by much. In both houses, Protestants as a group still outnumber those of other faiths.

In the 86th Congress, there was an initial total of 103 Roman Catholics, 91 in the House and 12 in the Senate.

In the 87th Congress, there are 98 Roman Catholics, including 86 in the House and 12 in the Senate. Here is the makeup of the House according to religious affiliation (for similar details on the Senate, see CHRISTIANITY TODAY, December 5, 1960 issue):

ROMAN CATHOLIC

Addabbo (D.-N.Y.)

Addonizio (D.-N.J.)

Anfuso (D-N.Y.)

Barrett (D.-Pa.)

Bates (R.-Mass.)

Becker (R.-N.Y.)

Bennett (R.-Mich.)

Blatnik (D.-Minn.)

Boggs (D.-La.)

Boland (D.-Mass.)

Buckley (D.-N.Y.)

Burke (D.-Ky.)

Burke (D.-Mass.)

Byrne (D.-Pa.)

Byrnes (R.-Wisc.)

Cahill (R.-N.J.)

Carey (D.-N.Y.)

Clancy (R.-O.)

Conte (R.-Mass.)

Cook (D.-O.)

Daddario (D.-Conn.)

Daniels (D.-N.J.)

Delaney (D.-N.Y.)

Dent (D.-Pa.)

Derwinski (R.-Ill.)

Dingell (D.-Mich.)

Donohue (D.-Mass.)

Dooley (R.-N.Y.)

Dulski (D.-N.Y.)

Fallon (D.-Md.)

Feighan (D.-O.)

Finnegan (D.-Ill.)

Fino (R.-N.Y.)

Flood (D.-Pa.)

Fogarty (D.-R.I.)

Gallagher (D.-N.J.)

Giaimo (D.-Conn.)

Mrs. Granahan (D.-Pa.)

Green (D.-Pa.)

Healey (D.-N.Y.)

Hebert (D.-La.)

Hoffman (R.-Ill.)

Holland (D.-Pa.)

Mrs. Kelly (D.-N.Y.)

Keogh (D.-N.Y.)

Kilday (D.-Tex.)

King (R.-N.Y.)

Kirwan (D.-O.)

Kluczynski (D.-Ill.)

Kowalski (D.-Conn.)

Lane (D.-Mass.)

Lesinski (D.-Mich.)

Libonati (D.-Ill.)

McCormack (D.-Mass.)

McDonough (R.-Calif.)

Macdonald (D.-Mass.)

Machrowicz (D.-Mich.)

Mack (D.-Ill.)

Madden (D.-Ind.)

G. P. Miller (R.-Calif.)

Monagan (D.-Conn.)

Montoya (D-N. Mex.)

Murphy (D.-Ill.)

O’Brien (D.-N.Y.)

O’Brien (D.-Ill.)

O’Hara (D.-Ill.)

O’Hara (D.-Mich.)

O’Konski (R.-Wisc.)

O’Neill (D.-Mass.)

Philbin (D.-Mass.)

Price (D.-Ill.)

Pucinski (D.-Ill)

Rabaut (D.-Mich.)

Rodino (D.-N.J.)

Rooney (D.-N.Y.)

Rostenkowski (D.-Ill.)

St. Germain (D.-R.I.)

Santangelo (D.-N.Y.)

Shelley (D.-Calif.)

Mrs. Sullivan (D.-Mo.)

Thompson (D.-N.J.)

Thompson (D.-La.)

Vanik (D.-O.)

Willis (D.-La.)

Young (D.-Tex.)

Zablocki (D.-Wisc.)

METHODIST

Abemethy (D.-Miss.)

Adair (R.-Ind.)

Albert (D.-Okla.)

Arends (R.-Ill.)

Aspinall (D.-Colo.)

Avery (R.-Kan.)

Ayres (R.-O.)

Bass (D.-Tenn.)

Belcher (R.-Okla.)

Mrs. Blitch (D.-Ga.)

Boykin (D.-Ala.)

Brademas (D.-Ind.)

Brooks (D.-Tex.)

Broomfield (R.-Mich.)

Brown (R.-O.)

Mrs. Church (R.-Ill.)

Collier (R.-Ill.)

Colmer (D.-Miss.)

Corman (D.-Calif.)

Cramer (R.-Fla.)

J. C. Davis (D.-Ga.)

Denton (D.-Ind.)

Devine (R.-O.)

Dole (R.-Kan.)

Dowdy (D.-Tex.)

Elliott (D.-Ala.)

Flynt (D.-Ga.)

Frazier (D.-Tenn.)

Grant (D.-Ala.)

Haley (D.-Fla.)

Halleck (R.-Ind.)

Hardy (D.-Va.)

Herlong (D.-Fla.)

Inouye (D.-Hawaii)

Jennings (D.-Va.)

Jonas (R.-N.C.)

Jones (D.-Ala.)

Kilbum (R.-N.Y.)

Kilgore (D.-Tex.)

Komegay (D.-N.C.)

McSween (D.-La.)

McVey (R.-Kan.)

D. Magnuson (D.-Wash.)

Mahon (D.-Tex.)

Meader (R.-Mich.)

Merrow (R.-N.H.)

Mills (D.-Ark.)

Moore (R.-W.Va.)

Morgan (D.-Pa.)

Murray (D.-Tenn.)

Olsen (D.-Mont.)

Mrs. Pfost (D.-Ida.)

Pilcher (D.-Ga.)

Randall (D.-Mo.)

Rhodes (R.-Ariz.)

Riley (D.-S.C.)

Robison (R.-N.Y.)

Rogers (D.-Fla.)

Schenck (R.-O.)

Sheppard (D.-Calif.)

Shriver (R.-Ken.)

Sikes (D.-Fla.)

Smith (D.-Miss.)

Smith (R.-Calif.)

Smith (D.-Ia.)

Staggers (D.-W.Va.)

Steed (D.-Okla.)

Stubblefield (D.-Ky.)

Thomas (D.-Tex.)

Thornberry (D.-Tex.)

Trimble (D.-Ark.)

Tupper (R.-Me.)

Vinson (D.-Ga.)

Wallhauser (R.-N.J.)

Wharton (R.-N.Y.)

Whitener (D.-N.C.)

PRESBYTERIAN

Alexander (D.-N.C.)

Auchincloss (R.-N.J.)

Baker (R.-Tenn.)

Baldwin (R.-Calif.)

Barry (R.-N.Y.)

Bell (R.-Calif.)

Mrs. Bolton (R.-O.)

Bow (R.-O.)

Bromwell (R.-Ia.)

Chelf (D.-Ky.)

Clark (D.-Pa.)

Corbett (R.-Pa.)

Dague (R.-Pa.)

J. W. Davis (D.-Ga.)

Derounian (R.-N.Y.)

Edmondson (D.-Okla.)

Fountain (D.-N.C.)

Fulton (R.-Pa.)

Glenn (R.-N.J.)

Gross (R.-Ia.)

Gubser (R.-Calif.)

Harsha (R.-O.)

Harvey (R.-Mich.)

Hays (D.-O.)

Hemphill (D.-S.C.)

Henderson (D.-N.C.)

Hoeven (R.-Ia.)

Horan (R.-Wash.)

Jarman (D.-Okla.)

Johnson (D.-Calif.)

Karth (D.-Minn.)

Knox (R.-Mich.)

Kyl (R.-Ia.)

Laird (R.-Wis.)

Lindsay (R.-N.Y.)

MacGregor (R.-Minn.)

McCulloch (R.-O.)

McDowell (D.-Del.)

Martin (R.-Neb.)

Matthews (D.-Fla.)

C. W. Miller (D.-Calif.)

Milliken (R.-Pa.)

Moorehead (R.-O.)

Morris (D.-N.Mex.)

Norblad (R.-Ore.)

Pillion (R.-N.Y.)

Poff (R.-Va.)

Scott (D.-N.C.)

Scranton (R.-Pa.)

Slack (D.-W.Va.)

Springer (R.-Ill.)

Stephens (D.-Ga.)

Stratton (D.-N.Y.)

Thomson (R.-Wis.)

Ullman (D.-Ore.)

Utt (R.-Calif.)

Weaver (R.-Neb.)

Westland (R.-Wash.)

Whaley (R.-Pa.)

Whitten (D.-Miss.)

Wright (D.-Tex.)

BAPTIST

Abbitt (D.-Va.)

Andrews (D.-Ala.)

Ashbrook (R.-O.)

Ashmore (D.-S.C.)

Bailey (D.-W.Va.)

Beckworth (D.-Tex.)

Cannon (D.-Mo.)

Chenoweth (R.-Colo.)

Cooley (D.-N.C.)

Davis (D.-Tenn.)

Diggs (D.-Mich.)

Dorn (D.-S.C.)

Forrester (D.-Ga.)

Gary (D.-Va.)

Gathings (D.-Ark.)

Gray (D.-Ill.)

Hagan (D.-Ga.)

Hall (R.-Mo.)

Harris (D.-Ark.)

Ichord (D.-Mo.)

Kitchin (D.-N.C.)

Landrum (D.-Ga.)

Lennon (D.-N.C.)

Lipscomb (R.-Calif.)

Loser (D.-Tenn.)

McIntire (R.-Me.)

McMillan (D.-S.C.)

Natcher (D.-Ky.)

Nix (D.-Pa.)

Norrell (D.-Ark.)

Passman (D.-La.)

Patman (D.-Tex.)

Perkins (D.-Ky.)

Powell (D.-N.Y.)

Rains (D.-Ala.)

Rayburn (D.-Tex.)

Reece (R.-Tenn.)

Riehlman (R.-N.Y.)

Roberts (D.-Ala.)

Rogers (D.-Colo.)

Rutherford (D.-Tex.)

Ryan (D.-N.Y.)

Schwengel (R.-Ia.)

Shipley (D.-Ill.)

Siler (R.-Ky.)

Taylor (D.-N.C.)

Teague (D.-Tex.)

Tuck (D.-Va.)

Williams (D.-Miss.)

Wilson (R.-Calif.)

Wilson (R.-Ind.)

Winstead (D.-Miss.)

EPISCOPAL

Alford (D.-Ark.)

Ashley (D.-O.)

Bass (R.-N.H.)

Betts (R.-O.)

Bolling (D.-Mo.)

Bonner (D.-N.C.)

Brewster (D.-Md.)

Brooks (D.-La.)

Cohelan (D.-Calif.)

Cunningham (R.-Nebr.)

Curtin (R.-Pa.)

Curtis (R.-Mass.)

Dominick (R.-Col.)

Downing (D.-Va.)

Ellsworth (R.-Kan.)

Ford (R.-Mich.)

Frelinghuysen (R.-N.J.)

Garland (R.-Me.)

Gavin (R.-Pa.)

Goodell (R.-N.Y.)

Harrison (D.-Va.)

Hechler (D.-W.Va.)

Hosmer (R.-Calif.)

Huddleston (D.-Ala.)

Ikard (D.-Tex.)

Johnson (D.-Md.)

Karsten (D.-Mo.)

Mrs. Kee (D.-W.Va.)

King (D.-Calif.)

Lankford (D.-Md.)

McFall (D.-Calif.)

Mathias (R.-Md.)

Mailliard (R.-Calif.)

Mrs. May (R.-Wash.)

Moorehead (D.-Pa.)

Morrison (D.-La.)

Pelly (R.-Wash.)

Reifel (R.-S.Dak.)

Reuss (D.-Wis.)

Rivers (D.-S.C.)

Rogers (D.-Tex.)

Roosevelt (D.-Calif.)

Mrs. St. George (R.-N.Y.)

Schneebeli (R.-Pa.)

Seely-Brown (R.-Conn.)

Selden (D.-Ala.)

Short (R.-N.D.)

Smith (D.-Va.)

Spence (D.-Ky.)

Taber (R.-N.Y.)

Thompson (D.-Tex.)

Mrs. Weis (R.-N.Y.)

Widnall (R.-N.Y.)

CONGREGATIONAL CHRISTIAN

Battin (R.-Mont.)

Berry (R.-S.D.)

Chiperfield (R.-Ill.)

Doyle (D.-Calif.)

Fenton (R.-Pa.)

Findley (R.-Ill.)

Griffin (R.-Mich.)

Hiestand (R.-Calif.)

Johansen (R.-Mich.)

Judd (R.-Minn.)

Keith (R.-Mass.)

Morse (R.-Mass.)

Mosher (R.-Ohio)

Osmers (R.-N.J.)

Pike (D.-N.Y.)

Schadeberg (R.-Wis.)

Sibal (R.-Conn.)

Stafford (R.-Vt.)

Younger (R.-Calif.)

“PROTESTANT”

Baring (D.-Nev.)

Breeding (D.-Kans.)

Casey (D.-Tex.)

Chamberlin (R.-Mich.)

Durno (R.-Ore.)

Mrs. Dwyer (R.-N.J.)

Fascell (D.-Fla.)

Mrs. Griffiths (D.-Mich.)

Hagen (D.-Calif.)

Latta (R.-O.)

Mason (R.-Ill.)

Marshall (D.-Minn.)

Minshall (R.-O.)

Moss (D.-Calif.)

Ostertag (R.-N.Y.)

Pirnie (R.-N.Y.)

Rivers (D.-Alaska)

Teague (R.-Calif.)

Van Pelt (R.-Wis.)

LUTHERAN

Andersen (R.-Minn.)

Beerman (R.-Neb.)

Broyhill (R.-Va.)

Bruce (R.-Ind.)

Hoffman (R.-Mich.)

Jensen (R.-Ia.)

Johnson (D.-Wis.)

Kearns (R.-Pa.)

Langen (R.-Minn.)

Moeller (D.-O.)

Mumma (R.-Pa.)

Nelsen (R.-Minn.)

Nygaard (R.-N.D.)

Quie (R.-Minn.)

Rhodes (D.-Pa.)

Tollefson (R.-Wash.)

Van Zandt (R.-Pa.)

Walter (D.-Pa.)

DISCIPLES OF CHRIST

Alger (R.-Tex.)

Bennett (D.-Fla.)

Coad (D.-Ia.)

Mrs. Green (D.-Ore.)

Harvey (R.-Ind.)

Holifield (D.-Calif.)

Hull (D.-Mo.)

Jones (D.-Mo.)

Roundebush (R.-Ind.)

Watts (D.-Ky.)

Wickersham (D.-Okla.)

JEWISH

Celler (D.-N.Y.)

Farbstein (D.-N.Y.)

Friedel (D.-Md.)

Gilbert (D.-N.Y.)

Halpern (R.-N.Y.)

Holtzman (D.-N.Y.)

Joelson (D.-N.J.)

Multer (D.-N.Y.)

Toll (D.-Pa.)

Yates (D.-Ill.)

Zelenko (D.-N.Y.)

LATTER DAY SAINTS (Mormon)

Harding (D.-Id.)

King (D.-Utah)

Peterson (D.-Utah)

Udall (D.-Ariz.)

CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST

Dawson (D.-Ill.)

Hansen (D.-Wash.)

Rousselot (R.-Calif.)

Scherer (R.-O.)

CHURCHES OF CHRIST

Burleson (D.-Tex.)

Evins (D.-Tenn.)

Fisher (D.-Tex.)

Sisk (D.-Calif.)

UNITARIAN

Curtis (R.-Mo.)

Harrison (R.-Wyo.)

EVANGELICAL AND REFORMED

Garmatz (D.-Md.)

Saylor (R.-Pa.)

EVANGELICAL FREE CHURCH

Anderson (R.-Ill.)

Cederberg (R.-Mich.)

UNIVERSALIST

Poage (D.-Tex.)

Ray (R.-N.Y.)

APOSTOLIC CHRISTIAN

Michel (R.-Ill.)

BRETHREN IN CHRIST

Roush (D.-Ind.)

Contested race, outcome uncertain.

CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN

Everett (D.-Tenn.)

EVANGELICAL UNITED BRETHREN

Goodling (R.-Pa.)

SCHWENKFELDER

Schweiker (R.-Pa.)

SIKH

Saund (D.-Calif.)

SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

Bray (R.-Ind.)

“NOT LISTED”

Kastenmeier (D.-Wis.)

Martin (R.-Mass.)

Moulder (D.-Mo.)

Wholesale Resignations

Resignations by the general secretary and the entire office staff of the National Council of Churches in Korea last month left the country’s only agency of Protestant church cooperation with an unprecedented emergency.

No known candidates for the secretary-ship were in sight as delegates to a council session accepted the resignation of the Rev. Simeon Kang, former pastor of Seoul’s oldest Protestant church, Seimoonan Presbyterian, known as the Mother Church of Protestantism south of the 38th parallel. Apparently “irresistible pressures” from the church led him to return to the pastorate, according to observers.

Mr. Kang had served as council secretary since last April when former secretary Ho Joon Yun was ousted.

Churches and Apartheid

The World Council of Churches held a week-long conference on the race question in South Africa last month. It had been called following heated exchanges and a building-up of tensions between Anglican and Dutch Reformed churchmen. The outcome made it evident that sharp differences of opinion still exist in the churches toward the government’s apartheid policies.

A lengthy anti-apartheid statement was issued following the conference, held in Johannesburg and attended by 87 delegates, 24 of whom were Negroes. All eight WCC member churches in South Africa were represented. Deliberations were held behind closed doors; the press was barred.

WCC spokesmen said that 80 per cent of the delegates voted in favor of a series of resolutions condemning apartheid. Dutch Reformed churches which participated in the conference subsequently issued dissenting statements.

The majority statement was divided into three parts, the first of which rejected “all unjust discrimination on racial grounds.” The second part listed 17 resolutions on specific aspects of the race question, and the third gave views on recent incidents.

One resolution took sharp issue with the South African ban on Negroes worshipping in white churches. Another asserted that there are no Scriptural grounds for prohibiting racially-mixed marriages, but added that the well-being of the community and pastoral responsibility require that due consideration be given to certain factors which may make such marriages undesirable. Still other resolutions contended that the present system of job reservation in South Africa must give way to a more equitable system and that non-whites’ wages must be raised by concerted action.

The dissent from the Dutch Reformed Church stated that integration was unjust and that apartheid was the “only just solution to our racial problems.”

Some observers felt that despite the dissenting statements a major concession by Dutch Reformed elements was apparent. While supporting the idea of “differentiation” in the races, the Dutch Reformed Churches of Cape and Transvaal voted for a resolution which said:

“It is our conviction that the right to own land wherever he is domiciled and to participate in the government of his country is part of the dignity of adult man, and for this reason a policy which permanently denies to non-white people the right of collaboration in the government of the country of which they are citizens cannot be justified.”

Disaster Damage

The 500-seat Pillar of Fire Church in Brooklyn was among 10 buildings set on fire last month by the crash of a falling jetliner which had collided with another aircraft over New York City.

The church belongs to the Pillar of Fire society which has an inclusive membership of about 5100 in the United States. It is a holiness, Methodistic group initially organized by Mrs. Alma White as the Pentecostal Union in 1917.

Religious Respectability

The president of the University of Minnesota, Dr. Owen M. Wilson, is studying a proposal to establish a school of religion at the Minneapolis campus.

A committee from the university’s Council of Religious Advisers and a faculty committee of the College of Science, Literature and Arts are preparing a statement of definition and purpose for such a school.

Mrs. Keith Heller, council president, has proposed that the university finance the administrative costs of a school of religion and that religious bodies endow chairs of learning.

Mrs. Heller, a Presbyterian, says a school of religion would help make “religious knowledge academically respectable.”

Decalogue For Church News Pages

Hiley H. Ward, religion writer for the Detroit Free Press, has come up with a “Decalogue for Church News Pages” aimed at ministers:

1. Thou shalt have no other newspapers before me—that is, newspapers like to have the same release date, and, too, a date that favors that particular paper.

2. Thou shalt not make unto you any images as to how you think your story should look in the paper. Then you won’t be disappointed if it doesn’t come out the way you expected.

3. Do not take God’s name in vain. Do not expect every club meeting and social tea in God’s name to get on the religion page.

4. Remember your deadlines, and keep them holy.

5. Honor your father and mother, your senior pastors and retired deaconesses and missionaries, but remember, too, the children and the young adults whose faith in action makes very fresh reading.

6. Thou shalt not kill anything. Send us a calendar—let us know what you are doing—briefly, of course, and leave the slaughter to the religion editor and the copy desk.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. This could mean for the minister with news ambitions to stay with his own business of the Gospel and he will be much better off newswise. It can mean literally, too, don’t run away with the choir director.

8. Thou shalt not steal or borrow the ideas of somebody else and expect good coverage.

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Be positive. Don’t try to expose other religions.

10. Thou shalt not covet your fellow ministers’ publicity. If one man is getting all of the publicity, maybe he deserves it, maybe he doesn’t.

Cardinal Appointments

Four more Roman Catholic prelates—an American, an Italian, and two Latin Americans—will be elevated to the Sacred College of Cardinals by Pope John XXIII in Rome this month.

The American cardinal-designate is Archbishop Joseph E. Ritter of St. Louis, 68, whose appointment raises the U. S. membership in the college to six.

The new Italian member is 61-year-old titular Archbishop Giuseppe Ferretto, a prominent prelate of the Roman Curia, who was in the United States last September on his way to a Roman Catholic congress being held in Ottawa.

The Latin American appointees are titular Archbishop Jose Humberto Quintero of Caracas, Venezuela, who is 58; and Archbishop Luis Concha Cordoba of Bogotá, Colombia, 69.

This marks the third series of cardinal appointments by Pope John in little more than two years. In all, excluding the cardinals “in pectore,” he has created 42 new cardinals.

As now constituted, the college has 31 Italian and 51 non-Italian members.

Offending A State

An Italian weekly newspaper editor was given a five-month suspended sentence by a Rome court last month for asserting in an article that the Vatican had interfered in Italian civil politics.

Arrigo Benedetti, editor of the weekly Expresso, was convicted under Article 297 of the Italian Penal Code which provides sentences of up to three years for “whoever on Italian territory offends the honor and prestige of the head of a foreign state.”

Benedetti made the assertions May 22 while commenting on the widely-discussed statement in the Vatican daily, L’Osservatore Romano of four days earlier which upheld the right of the church to “guide the faithful.”

The editor charged that the Pope and the Roman Catholic hierarchy were limiting the freedom of the Italian citizen and were behaving unconstitutionally by interfering in Italian civil affairs and demanding the obedience of Catholic citizens to ecclesiastical directives in political decisions.

Reversal at Yonsei

Dr. Bung-kan Koh, former president of Kyungbuk National University in Taegu, Korea, last month was elected president of Yonsei University, an interdenominational, mission-supported institution in Seoul that has been rocked by insurrection of students and professors.

A Presbyterian elder, Koh takes over the Yonsei helm from Professor Horace Underwood, who was named acting president after Dr. George L. Paik, former head, resigned last July to run successfully for Korea’s House of Councillors (Senate).

Koh, 60, was nominated for the presidency by the same striking faculty members who blocked his election by the university board six months before.

A native of North Korea, Koh has spent many years in educational and administrative work south of the 38th parallel and is considered one of the outstanding Christian educators in the Republic of Korea. He served as dean of the medical faculty of the second largest government medical school in Korea (Kyungbuk) before becoming president of the Kyungbuk university proper. Unseated from the post in the wave of nationwide faculty turnover following Korea’s April Revolution, Koh has been living quietly as a private citizen.

Meanwhile, the Yonsei campus is still under well-organized influence by dissident faculty and student body leaders, whose current program allows no student to attend class or to study except in shirtsleeves, despite winter cold, out of sympathy for 10 student rioters still held by police as the “hard core” of the mob which ransacked the homes of Professor Underwood and Dr. Charles A. Sauer, acting board chairman. Both men are veteran U. S. missionaries, Presbyterian and Methodist, respectively.

A Christian Testimony

The Christian testimony of Eastern Nigeria’s first African governor appeared in the Daily Times, the nation’s largest daily newspaper, last month.

Sir Francis A. Ibiam is a dedicated Christian believer who makes no secret of his faith in predominantly Muslim Nigeria. His confession of faith was reprinted from the African Challenge, a Christian monthly, on the occasion of his installation December 15.

Splashed across three columns by the Daily Times’ Muslim editor were these words: “I accept as the absolute truth that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God, and that for my sake he died … so that if I believed in Him—I do believe in Him—I should not go to damnation but live with Him for evermore.”

Contributing Editor

Dr. A. Skevington Wood, minister of Southlands Methodist Church in York, England, has been named a Contributing Editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Wood succeeds Dr. W. E. Sangster, who died recently.

L. F. E. Wilkinson

The Rev. Leslie Francis Edward Wilkinson, principal of Oak Hill Theological College, London, England, died last month at the age of 55.

Wilkinson was a highly-respected evangelical leader in the Church of England. He became principal at Oak Hill in 1945.

Ncc Picks A Layman President

The new president of the National Council of Churches is a wealthy 51-year-old banker-industrialist from Columbus, Indiana, who has long been active in ecumenical activities. J. Irwin Miller, first layman president in NCC history, moves up from the council’s Division of Christian Life and Work, for which he has been vice chairman during the past three years.

Miller is board chairman of the Cummins Engine Company and the Irwin Bank and Trust Company in Columbus, and the Union Starch and Refining Company of Granite City, Illinois. He also serves on the boards of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the Indiana National Bank of Indianapolis, and of Purity Stores, a 105-store chain of supermarkets in California.

Time magazine characterized Miller as “sole angel” of The Christian Century for years. He “still meets most of the magazine’s deficit,” the report said.

Miller is active in the Disciples denomination and comes from a distinguished line of Christian Church leaders and philanthropists. He recently gave the campus site for the relocation of the Christian Theological Seminary adjacent to Butler University.

A few years ago Miller led some 200 members of the 2000-member First Christian Church, Columbus, in a revolt against its long-standing conservative theological and strongly independent congregational policy. Overwhelmingly defeated in his move, he effected the organization of the North Christian Church in Columbus, where he now holds his membership.