The controversy over federal aid to education, particularly whether parochial schools ought to be included, promises to command special attention at approaching church conventions.
Most Protestants are strongly opposed to use of public monies by sectarian schools, and many fear federal educational financing of any kind. Thus convening churchmen can be expected to produce an abundance of resolutions calling upon the government to hold the line. And the resolutions will be issued in rapid succession, for spring is the favorite time of year for Protestant church conventions.
Ecumenical proposals are due for more debate this year, too. Much interest will focus on a four-way denominational merger plan advanced by Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, Stated Clerk of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. The plan is aimed at organizationally uniting his own church with the Protestant Episcopal, Methodist, and United (Congregational Christian—Evangelical and Reformed) churches.
Blake declared this month that some 27 presbyteries have adopted resolutions or overtures favoring his plan.
There has been considerable dissent as well, which probably spells a long debate at the United Presbyterian General Assembly in Buffalo, New York, May 17–24.
The Blake merger plan has drawn comment both from churchmen whom it would encompass and others.
Bishop Gerald Kennedy, President of the Council of Bishops of The Methodist Church, says U. S. pluralism may be “not our weakness but our strength.”
“It may be,” Kennedy said in an article in The Christian Century last month, “that some will claim that organic union is an end in itself without any reference to the problems it raises or to the question as to whether it would produce more results. That position I repudiate, for winning people to Christ will always be more important to me than the method we use.” Kennedy made no direct reference to Blake’s plan.
Observed General Secretary Edwin H. Tuller of the American Baptist Convention: “American Baptists were not included in the list of four denominations which would merge.… The omission was deliberate, since no emphasis was given … to the necessity for believers’ baptism and the establishment of a personal and vital relationship to God through Christ as a prerequisite to church membership.”
Three overtures have been reported for discussing the Blake plan on the floor of the centennial General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (Southern), to be held in the Highland Park Presbyterian Church of Dallas, the denomination’s largest, April 27-May 2. Another report due for presentation calls for a new approach to predestination, proposing a variation without rewriting the confession of faith.
The controversial film, “Operation Abolition,” probably will prompt considerable debate. Last month the 112-year-old First Baptist Church of San Francisco withdrew support from the National Council of Churches and severed all ties with local councils; Pastor Curtis Nims cited the film and added that “too many statements and actions” have been adopted by the NCC without the knowledge of whether even a majority of its member church bodies were in agreement.
A denomination organizational program will be reviewed at annual sessions of the American Baptist Convention to be held in Portland, Oregon, June 14–18.
A Southern Baptist spokesman said his own convention, scheduled for St. Louis May 23–26, “promises to be peaceful as far as the agenda is concerned,” but emphasized that any delegate could bring up a highly controversial topic with no advance notice.
Theme for the National Association of Evangelicals meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan, April 10–14, is “Thy Word Is Truth.” It is understood that there may be some discussion as to what posture the NAE should take toward the ecumenical movement.
Other forthcoming church conventions: General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, April 3–6; National Holiness Association, Chicago, April 4–6; Independent Fundamental Churches of America, Chicago, April 20–25; American Council of Christian Churches, Phoenix, April 26–28; Christian and Missionary Alliance, Columbus, Ohio, May 17–22; Conservative Baptist, Portland, Oregon, May 25–30.
The Catholic Lobby
The U. S. Roman Catholic hierarchy demonstrated this month, as perhaps never before, the lobby power of its National Catholic Welfare Conference, which has headquarters along Washington’s fashionable Massachusetts Avenue. Unprecedented determination marked the hierarchy’s bid to have parochial schools included in federal aid-to-education measures. Priests regularly marched up to Capitol Hill to be heard at House and Senate committee hearings.
Caught in the middle was America’s first Roman Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, whose stand against federal grants to parochial schools put him at odds with the hierarchy. Some observers thought it a bad omen that the first big issue in the Kennedy administration was a Church-State conflict.
Kennedy himself indicated that he could not understand why current educational measures have raised “this major public encounter” in 1961 inasmuch as educational measures have been sent to Congress in previous years without such intense debates.
Administration bills in the House and Senate provide federal grants and loans to public schools only. Kennedy, who questions the constitutionality of federal loans to parochial schools, wants separate legislation for such loans. He says grants to parochial schools would be unconstitutional. He does not want to jeopardize a public-school grants bill by tacking on provisions for loans or grants to parochial schools.
Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt, director of the education department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, insists on keeping all provisions in the same bill. He says that some Catholics have fears about federal aid to education. He also declares, however, that if any aid is to be given, Catholic schools should share it.
Hochwalt was asked at a committee hearing how the nearly 100 Roman Catholic Congressmen would be expected to vote. He replied that “no one will try to persuade them against their own conscience.” He made it clear, however, that Romanist leaders will continue pressure for their stand.
A National Council of Churches spokesman testified in support of federal aid to public schools, but against such aid to private schools. He said NCC had formulated no position on loans.
Protestants and Other Americans United gave no position on federal aid to public schools, but registered strong opposition to grants and loans to parochials.
A spokesman for the National Association of Evangelicals indicated compromised constituency opposition to federal aid to public education as a principle. He joined in opposing loans and grants to parochial schools.
The Citizens for Educational Freedom organization is campaigning for federal funds to be given parents of children to be used for tuition in either public or non-public schools, ostensibly avoiding direct grants for sectarian use. Support of this was attributed also to the National Union of Christian Schools.
A compromise plan would allow parents to make their children’s tuition an income tax deduction.
The controversy had many overtones. Some observers say the parochial-school aspect serves as a smokescreen for federal aid to public education, which itself has never been universally recognized as desirable, but is more and more accepted as an inevitable political phenomenon. Others fear that parochial school aid would result in every little congregation in the country sporting its own little schoolhouse. Archbishop William O. Brady of St. Paul, Minnesota, said that since public funds are denied their schools, Roman Catholics should consider whether it is time “for another Tea Party,” apparently a reference to early American history when colonists, crying “no taxation without representation,” dumped British tea into the Boston harbor. The Rev. O. James Remington, pastor of the Lincoln Park Baptist Church in Newton, Massachusetts, said he would refuse to pay his federal income tax if Congress grants aid to parochial schools.
Peace Corps
President Kennedy’s Peace Corps is being likened by many to the Christian foreign missions enterprise.
It is “the governmental equivalent of the Southern Baptist Convention’s foreign mission program,” said Assistant State Secretary Brooks Hays, former SBC president.
“It’s virtually the same thing we have been doing for 12 years,” said Dr. James W. Sells, Methodist official in Atlanta.
Some churchmen are concerned over the image the Peace Corps volunteers will take to their foreign posts.
“These young people must have a moral and spiritual philosophy undergirding their efforts or it will be one of the most miserable flops in history,” said Evangelist Billy Graham.
“Unless these young people are deeply dedicated to Christianity, the Communists will make mincemeat of them. They could possibly do more harm than good.”
President Kennedy has named to the leadership of the Peace Corps a recent graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, the Rev. William D. Moyers. When organization of Peace Corps headquarters is completed, Moyers, 26, will be Associate Director for Public Affairs. He had been serving as a special assistant to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Moyers was asked whether young ministers might be accepted for Peace Corps service. He said that the opportunities would be open to all, but that selection would depend on the need.
He emphasized that the Peace Corps will not be a channel for religious service, but added that it “will give us a chance to take the work of the church to the world.”
The New English Bible: What The Critics Say
The long awaited New Testament portion of The New English Bible was reported to have become a best seller almost immediately upon release in some areas.
Here are comments from critics and reviewers:
“The New English Bible has done what it set out to do,” says Dr. Frank E. Gaebelein in Christian Herald. “With clarity and simplicity it has put the Greek of the New Testament into plain English. And it has done this with distinguished avoidance of the trivial.”
Cecil Northcott says in The Christian Century, “What the New English Bible asserts without saying is that the Bible is born in every generation, to every age, to every man. It is universal yet personal, timeless yet contemporary, and on these grounds the New English Bible takes its place as a treasure to be discovered and loved.”
In The New York Times Book Review, Martin E. Marty says that the New Testament “is an achievement of first quality.” “This translation,” he declares, “is likely to be greeted with nearly unanimous enthusiasm within religious circles, just as it is likely to meet with the usual resistance from museum keepers.”
Day Thorpe, book critic of the Washington Star, calls the archaisms of the King James Version “only theoretical” (“it no longer sounds archaic in the cultivated ear”). “Furthermore,” says Thorpe, “how fatuous it is to think that one can extract the ‘meaning’ of the Bible from the coat of many colors of its language, and by presenting it in the prose of journalism make it available to anybody with five minutes to spare to it! The meaning and the language are inseparable, and the Bible is a difficult book. But if nobody has ever been able to pluck out the heart of its mystery, few have thought the effort to do so not worthwhile.”
Another Unity Group?
A new form of church association, halfway between organic unity and a church council, was proposed this month by Dr. Henry P. Van Dusen, president of Union Theological Seminary, New York.
Van Dusen made public his proposal in a Washington address at the installation of the Rev. Virgil E. Lowder as executive secretary of the Council of Churches, National Capital Area.
The seminary president advanced the idea of a “confederation,” an organization resulting from the “pooling of resources” of member churches and “conscription of the ablest leadership out of every church.”
“Here,” he said, “is Christ’s imperative for his churches in this generation.”
The proposal bears a resemblance to Dr. E. Stanley Jones’ long-advocated “Federal Plan” for church union.
Autonomy Affirmed
Local churches affiliated with the new United Church of Christ have autonomy in the ownership and control of their properties, according to a ruling handed down last month by the Dade County Circuit Court in Miami, Florida.
Judge Ray Pearson’s interpretation of the denomination’s “Basis of Union” sees the document as granting “rights of immunity and freedom in congregational ownership and control” of a local church’s property.
The judge ruled for the Miami First Hungarian United Church of Christ whose property was sought by the Magyar Synod of the Evangelical and Reformed Church. His decision was believed to be the first of its kind involving the merger of the Evangelical and Reformed Church with the Congregational Christian General Council. The two merged in 1957 to form the United Church of Christ, but legal consolidation is yet to be realized. Separate litigation is pending in New York City.
The Florida judge ruled that the “Basis of Union,” under which the merged denomination has been operating pending formal adoption of a constitution, clearly shows that the United Church is congregational in government and form.
Foes of the merger have pointed to the document to argue that Congregational churches would sacrifice their traditional local church autonomy in blending with the E & R denomination, which has a modified presbyterial form of government.
The First Hungarian church was formed in 1948 and became a member of the E & R Magyar Synod. In 1959 the congregation broke away from the denomination in a dispute over finances and property ownership. Then the E & R Church filed suit claiming the Miami congregation’s property now worth about $125,000.
Bible Anniversary
Democratic Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota is sponsoring a joint congressional resolution to authorize and request President Kennedy to proclaim 1961 as “Bible Anniversary Year.”
The resolution introduced by Humphrey points out that the Rheims-Douay version of the Bible, used by Roman Catholics, was issued in 1610 and the King James Version, used by Protestants, appeared early in 1611.
He said the 350th anniversary of these English Bibles should be an occasion for rededication to Bible reading.
A proclamation which the Minnesota senator proposes would “urge all Americans to join in rereading the great spiritual truths contained in both the Old and New Testaments.” It would also “invite the churches of every denomination, as well as the agencies of communication, to cooperate and assist in carrying out appropriate observances and ceremonies during such year.”
The proposal for a Bible Anniversary Year was initially advanced by William I. Nichols, editor and publisher of This Week magazine, in an open letter to Kennedy last Christmas. A spokesman for the magazine said this month, “So far we have received no official reply”; he added, however, that the proposal has “awakened interest among both laymen and the clergy.”
Television Crusade
An hour-long film of Billy Graham’s crusade in Miami may become the most widely-seen religious telecast in history.
Some 140 stations with a potential viewing audience of 165 million persons scheduled a Palm Sunday showing. The scheduling coincides with the climax of a three-week evangelistic series in Miami Beach Convention Hall.
This week the evangelist was slated for a rally at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida. Hundreds of technicians from the nearby missile launching site at Cape Canaveral were expected to be on hand.
Church versus State
Climaxing a four-year battle against organized vice, the Ministerial Association of Newport, Kentucky, asked this month for ouster proceedings against eight public officials.
In a 31-page affidavit delivered to Governor Bert Combs, the association accused the following of failing to do their sworn duty in suppressing gambling, prostitution, and illegal liquor sales:
Mayor Ralph Mussman, Police Chief George Gugel and Chief of Detectives Leroy Fredericks of Newport, Circuit Judge Ray L. Murphy, Campbell County Judge A. J. Holly, County Police Chief Harry Stuart, Sheriff Norbert Roll, and District Detective Gardner Reed.
Freud in Social Work
The increasing disposition of American religious bodies to venture into “partnership” with government in the social welfare field is prompting church bodies to step up their recruitment of social workers for health and welfare activities.
Simultaneously, the prevalent concept of professional social work in both public and private agencies is being challenged. Raymond R. Herje of Minneapolis, a juvenile probation officer for Hennepin County, Minnesota, has scored the link to psychoanalysis that characterizes professional social work in America. He warns of the “threatening implications” of the fact that, in the next decade, more than 20,000 professionally trained workers—the great majority indoctrinated in a naturalistic outlook—will go from the nation’s 60 graduate schools of social work into key positions in welfare agencies.
Herje, a Congregationalist who has completed course work for his M.A. degree in the graduate School of Theology in Oberlin College, insists that the time has obviously come for a close look at the policies and practices of American public and private welfare agencies.
“The philosophico-metaphysical principle of contemporary social work,” he writes, “is … a form of naturalism. For the naturalist the real is only that which can be experienced by the senses, and this reality is totally describable in terms of spacial-temporal entities and their causal interrelations.… This naturalistic metaphysical principle is operative both in terms of thought and temper throughout social work literature.” Since naturalism denies the existence of “mindistic or supernatural entities,” the consequences of social work conducted on this premise for the inherited religious outlook are apparent. Indeed, “it negates in terms of its beliefs and attitude those views which are held by the majority of people in American society.”
Protestant Panorama
• The Judicial Council, U. S. Methodism’s “Supreme Court,” ruled last month that Jurisdictional Conferences alone have the right to choose their representatives on the general boards of The Methodist Church. The ruling upsets 1960 General Conference legislation in connection with the Board of Pensions providing that “the required number of members from each Jurisdiction shall be elected quad-rennially by the General Conference on nomination of the College of Bishops of that Jurisdiction.”
• St. Petersburg will become the first locality in Florida to have an American Baptist Convention church. A congregation is now being organized, according to William B. Hill, church extension pastor for American Baptist mission societies.
• A merger plan for four New Zealand denominations took a step forward this month with appointment of a special commission by the Anglican church’s triennial General Synod. The six clergymen who make up the new commission were instructed to “continue conversations” with the Joint Standing Committee on Church Union, a group representing the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregational churches as well as the Associated Churches of Christ.
• The Methodist Council of Bishops is calling on its 40,000 U.S. churches to take a special offering for Africa on Sunday, April 30.
• Biola College of La Mirada, California, was admitted to membership in the Western College Association last month. The recognition carries full academic accreditation.
• Dr. Ermanno Rostan, moderator of the Waldensian Church of Italy, said to be the world’s oldest Protestant body dating back to the twelfth century, is touring the United States.
• Evangelist Merv Rosell saw nearly 1,000 decisions made for Christ at a youth banquet in Seattle last month.
• Members of the Suomi Synod favor a proposed merger with three other Lutheran churches by a margin of more than three to one, according to the results of a congregational referendum announced last month.
• The Cumberland Presbyterian Church plans to develop a 160-acre site near Lake Maumelle, Arkansas, for national conference grounds.
• World Radio Missionary Fellowship, which operates radio station HCJB in Quito, Ecuador, plans to begin broadcasting from a newly-acquired long-wave station in Montevideo, Uruguay, early in 1962.
• Danish and Malayalam editions are being added by The Upper Room, daily devotional guide published by the Methodist Board of Evangelism. With the additions, it will be appearing in 32 languages (total circulation: 3,250,000).
• The Southern California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists will sponsor a program of public low-cost polio and tetanus clinics at many of its churches, denominational schools and other institutions in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.
• The University of Chicago is initiating two graduate-level courses in theology by mail. “Introduction to Religious Existentialism” and “Tragedy, Comedy, and Human Existence.”
• A $7,500,000 Presbyterian Hospital will be built in North Dallas, Texas, in 1962. A public fund drive is planned to raise $4,000,000.
• The Christian Reformed Church is recruiting 100 youth for its 1961 Summer Workshop in Missions, which will take them to scattered parts of the country for evangelistic work. A pilot project last year saw 10 Iowa young people spend five weeks in Salt Lake City, conducting street meetings and personal work, visiting the aged and infirm, and even holding services in prisons.
• A tornado struck the Friendship Baptist Church of West Plains, Missouri, during a service Sunday, March 12. One woman was killed and 11 other persons were injured. The building was destroyed.
In a critical analysis of theoretical foundations of contemporary professional work, projected for publication, Herje contends not only that the psychoanalytic tradition tremendously influences social work, but also that “the objectives of professional education are designed to indoctrinate this viewpoint concerning human nature and behavior.” In recent years, he asserts, “psychoanalytic thought has penetrated every area of case work thought, from child guidance to the problem of the aged; from adoption and foster home placement to family counseling.”
Herje contends that the entire social work curriculum has been systematically permeated by the educational conception of “a carefully planned behavior-changing process” heavily indebted to the Freudian tradition. The objectives and methods of social work education are designed, he holds, “not only to enable the student to understand the Freudian outlook, but also to enable him to accept it and apply it.” In addition, “unanimity in outlook” is secured, he contends, through a discriminatory selection of pre-professional candidates by social work educators who “counsel out” those inclined toward alternate views. Social work journals are largely closed to critical essays.
Some observers think that the time is ripe for a “first class intellectual attack” on “psychoanalytical inspired social work,” and sense mounting opposition. University of Wisconsin is reportedly one center where a multiple approach to human behavior problems is gradually taking form, largely through the influence of Arthur Miles, recent chairman of the School of Social Work.
The negation of the Hebrew-Christian view of man by the prevalent social work theory is prodding some church leaders to scrutinize the training and presuppositions of church-related welfare activity. The Freudian tradition treats the knowledge claims of evangelical Protestant religion “as irrelevant or as nonsense,” writes Herje. “Theology becomes nothing but a projective system of the immature man.” Since Protestant liberalism tends to be agnostic in metaphysics, this tension does not exist. “The more liberal Protestants feel there is no inherent conflict,” he writes, whereas “the conservatives are clear that there is a conflict, and that basis of conflict is philosophical in nature.”
C.F.H.H.
Church Day
The presidium of the German Evangelical Church Day (Kirchentag or DEKT) organization announced this month that its 1961 congress would be held in Berlin as originally scheduled.
The presidium said its decision was made after failure of prolonged negotiations with the Soviet Zone government on the possibility of holding an all-German congress in Leipzig. The negotiations were undertaken after the East German regime banned all DEKT celebrations in East Berlin on the ground that they had a “political character” and menaced the “internal order” of the Soviet Zone.
The East German government, said the presidium, failed to give sufficient guarantees that all West German church leaders would be granted entry permits for the DEKT events, which will take place July 19–23.
Church officials pointed out that, in view of the East German ban, all public meetings in connection with the DEKT congress will have to be held in West Berlin. They said that the only events in East Berlin will be observances in churches and church-owned buildings.
Norwegian Debate
Should arguments against association with the World Council of Churches also apply to the Lutheran World Federation?
Norwegian mission authorities are debating the question while trying to decide whether to have a consultative tie with the WCC after it is integrated with the International Missionary Council.
Norwegian opponents of ties with the WCC have charged that it:
—fails to limit itself to a biblical basis, but opens its doors to liberal theology on the one side and Orthodox and Coptic churches on the other;
—tends to become a powerful super-church;
—short-circuits the mission lines by which older Western churches and their “daughter” churches have traditionally been related.
Some leading churchmen have charged that to take up such arguments would be to commit them to a similar position regarding the LWF or be inconsistent.
Danish Design
The Danish Ministry of Church Affairs is conducting a world-wide contest for architects, sculptors, and painters. Their assignment: to design a Lutheran church in the industrial quarter of a modern metropolis. The final design should be the result of the combined efforts of architect, sculptor, and artist with particular emphasis on an artistic general impression.
First prize will amount to “at least 50,000” crowns (about $7,250). Other prizes will total an additional 50,000 crowns.
The jury will be appointed by the Ministry of Church affairs in conjunction with international organizations of artists, architects, and sculptors. Entries must be submitted by September 1.
Eutychus Extra
Eutychus, whose irresistible urge to write a letter to the editor is well-known toCHRISTIANITY TODAYreaders, greets Easter with an unusually intricate piece (page 13), its eye on the modern myth-makers for whom the Resurrection is simply the up-beat of devout music. But Eutychus also has a word for the masses, for whom the Easter theme is a concern of rabbits and ribbons more than Resurrection. His stanzas on “Dreaming,” sent primarily for the editor’s enjoyment, are herewith shared with you, the reader, as a “Eutychus Extra”:
Dreaming
I dreamed that I was preaching
With homiletical perfection
To pews of chocolate rabbits,
A congregational confection.
They sat in solid silence,
Their ears erect in my direction,
To show that Easter bunnies,
Of course, endorse the Resurrection.
Their heads were gay with ribbons;
The slender wore metallic sheath,
And those that were not hollow
Were filled with coconut beneath.
A curious reaction
Came over me; I never felt
So thrilled on Easter morning—
To think my audience might melt!
EUTYCHUS
Exclusive Rights
The Dead Sea Scrolls housed at the Palestine Museum in Jerusalem will be turned over to an unnamed Dutch scientific institution for the exclusive right to study and publish, according to a proposal said to have been accepted in principle by Jordan Education Minister Sheikh Shankeeti.
Old City sources say the plan involves a payment of $56,000 and is conditioned on the scrolls remaining in the country as the property of Jordan.
It is believed that the proposal came from the Vitus Testamentum (Old Testament Institute) of Leyden University in Holland, which recently intensified its archaeological activities in Jordan.
After 40 Years
After 40 years of wandering in a “modern” wilderness, 48 refugee families who still speak Christ’s native language of Aramaic will be given new, permanent homes this summer by the World Council of Churches.
The building project, to begin next month, will cost $50,000, to be provided by funds raised mainly in Britain from World Refugee Year efforts.
The community that will be benefited numbers about 195 men, women, and children. They are a group of refugees from Armenia whose wanderings have taken them through Iraq, Syria, and now Lebanon, where the homes are to be built.
Terror in the Congo
A new reign of terror affecting missionaries was reported in the Congo in mid-March.
U. S. missions executives, many of them anxious since last summer for the safety of their personnel, were hoping that the newly-organized federation of Congo states would bring stability to the political situation.
An unidentified American woman missionary was raped and beaten by Congolese soldiers. Roman Catholic priests were clubbed and nuns stripped and abused by Congolese troops in Kivu province. Two Protestant missionary families belonging to the Worldwide Grace Testimony Church were reported unable to leave the Kivu region.
Executive Director J. Raymond Knighton of the Christian Medical Society, just returned from a five-week tour of Africa, reported a dire need for doctors throughout the continent. He said whereas at the time of independence there were 750 medical doctors in the Congo, now there are approximately 200, only about 50 of whom are working in rural areas. Knighton’s tour covered 11 countries; he was accompanied by Dr. C. Everett Koop, professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania, and Dr. G. A. Hemwall, a Chicago surgeon.
Egyptian Protest
Strong protests by leaders of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt followed reports last month that the Jordan government had seized the Dayr-as-Saltan Egyptian Coptic monastery in the Old City of Jerusalem and handed it over to Ethiopian Coptic monks.
When news of the seizure reached Cairo, the Holy Synod was immediately convened under the chairmanship of Patriarch Kyrillos VI of Alexandria, head of the Egyptian Coptic Church, with 18 archbishops and bishops present.
The synod unanimously voted to ban Coptic pilgrims in Egypt from visiting Jerusalem this year as a gesture of protest. Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia was asked to return the Jerusalem monastery to its Egyptian owners.
Anglicans and Apartheid
Dr. Richard Ambrose Reeves resigned as Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg this month. He had been deported from South Africa last September for protesting government apartheid policy.
His resignation, according to Religious News Service, moreover reveals differences with the outspoken Anglican Archbishop of Capetown, Dr. Joost de Blank, on what should be the church’s attitude toward retaining segregationist South Africa in the British Commonwealth.
(South African Prime Minister Hendrik F. Verwoerd subsequently withdrew his country’s application for readmission to the commonwealth after she becomes a republic May 31.)
De Blank now feels that the vast majority of the colored and black peoples of South Africa wish to stay within the commonwealth. He spelled out his view in a letter to The Times of London.
The day following the announcement of Reeves’ resignation, The Times published his rebuttal to de Blank’s remarks.
“The crux of the issue,” wrote Reeves, “is found in the archbishop’s belief that a day will come when the evils of apartheid will end, because it is on this ground that he chiefly pleads for the retention of South Africa.
“His Grace does not indicate the way in which this will happen. Unless sufficient pressure can be brought to bear on the South Africa government to change its present racial policies, chances are that this new day will only come after a titanic clash between the government and the non-whites.”
He added that “to retain South Africa within the commonwealth may well help to precipitate such a conflict and be the first step, incidentally, in the dissolution of the commonwealth itself.”
Buddhism For Burma
Prime Minister U Nu reaffirmed last month his determination to see Buddhism become the state religion of Burma, but he added that constitutional protection will be given minority religious groups.
The prime minister told 13 bishops of the Anglican Council of Southeast Asia:
“It is the intention of the government to ensure that the protection now afforded by our constitution to all our religious groups will in no way be affected by the formal adoption of Buddhism as the state religion of Burma.”
“Indeed,” he said, “it is our determination that the harmonious relationship existing between the Buddhists and the followers of other religions will be perpetuated for all time, and that neither persecution nor discrimination on religious grounds will ever be permitted to blacken our history.”
He called upon all to “work together for the common good” of Burma.
People: Words And Events
Deaths: The Right Rev. Richard Bland Mitchell, 73, Protestant Episcopal bishop of Arkansas from 1938 to 1956; in Sewanee, Tennessee.… Dr. Alexander MacMillan, 96, noted minister of the United Church of Canada; in Toronto.… Dr. A. C. Snead, 76, for 35 years the foreign secretary of the Christian and Missionary Alliance; in Orlando, Florida.… Miss S. Ruth Barrett, 62, noted for her work in the American Bible Society in making the Bible available to the blind; in Englewood, New Jersey.
Citation: As Religious Heritage of America’s Clergy Churchman of the Year, Dr. C. Oscar Johnson; as Lay Churchman of the Year, Dr. Robert Gerald Storey.
Elections: As president of the Protestant Church-owned Publishers’ Association, Walter L. Seaman … as Anglican archbishop of Wellington and primate of New Zealand, Dr. Norman Alfred Lesser.
Appointments: As executive director of the Augustana Lutheran Church’s Board of World Missions, the Rev. Rudolph C. Burke … as professor of homiletics at Southern California School of Theology, Dr. K. Morgan Edwards … as dean of students and associate professor of practical theology at Union Theological Seminary, New York, the Rev. James Mase Ault … as minister of New York’s Broadway Presbyterian Church, Dr. Stuart H. Merriam.
Nehru’s Faith
India is buzzing with speculation that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru now believes in God, according to Religious News Service.
Long known as one of the world’s most articulate agnostics, Nehru has repeatedly attacked religion in general and Hinduism in particular, declaring in his book, The Discovery of India, that “India must … lessen her religiosity and turn to science.”
But in The Mind of Mr. Nehru, a new book on the Indian market, Nehru is quoted in an entirely different vein. The book, published by George Allen and Unwin, London, contains the transcript of tape-recorded conversations between the Prime Minister and R. K. Karanjia, editor of Blitz, a Bombay weekly.
In it Nehru refers to the need for spiritual solutions of some problems and Mr. Karanjia asks him: “Isn’t it unlike the Jawaharlal of yesterday to talk in terms of ethical solutions? What you say raises visions of Mr. Nehru in search of God in the evening of his life.”
Nehru replies: “Yes, I have changed. The emphasis on ethical and spiritual solutions is not unconscious; it is deliberate.… I believe the human mind is hungry for something deeper in terms of moral and spiritual development without which all the material advance may not be worthwhile.… The old Hindu idea that there is a divine essence in the world, and that every individual possesses something of it and can develop it, appeals to me.”
