In a colorful but unspectacular service in New Delhi’s Vigynan Bhavan Hall, first erected by India for a UNESCO conference, the 13-year-old World Council of Churches absorbed the International Missionary Council in historic action on the opening day of the WCC’s third assembly.
Only the Norwegian Missionary Council disapproved merger with the ecumenical movement, whose “integrated” character was hailed as “a tremendous contribution to the mission of the church.”
So fully had the merger plan been publicized in advance that the program seemed routine, despite addresses laboring its significance by Dr. W. A. Visser’t Hooft and Bishop Lesslie Newbigin, who becomes director of the World Council’s new Division of World Mission and Evangelism. Hereafter this division incorporates the IMC membership of 38 national Christian councils and national missionary councils.
Russian Orthodox Church Voted Into Wcc Membership
During the long week preceding the opening sessions of the World Council of Churches’ third assembly, one topic dominated almost every discussion. But when Britain’s Ernest Payne gaveled the Monday morning business session into action, only 31 minutes were required to dispose of what may go down in history as the most significant action of the assembly.
Anticipations of the delegates for fiery rhetoric went completely unrealized when the application for admission to the World Council by the Orthodox Church of Russia was presented. Speeches of approbation by other Orthodox groups were greeted by enthusiastic applause. Two speeches of abstaining votes (Hungarian Reformed Church in America and Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in North America) brought only stony silence.
Ten minutes after the voting, an interim report stated that already far more than the necessary two-thirds majority had been received.
Final tabulation of the vote to admit the Russian church was announced as 142 for, 3 against, and 4 abstaining. Those voting against were not identified.
Delegates showed brisker opposition to the admission of Pentecostal churches in Chile than to the Russian Orthodox. Eight churches voted against Iglesia Pentecostal de Chile and against Mission Iglesia Pentecostal (Chile) with three abstaining in the former case and four in the latter.
Outside the fence surrounding the Vigynan Bhavan, two men paced back and forth with placards reading “AGENTS OF K—NOT SERVANTS OF GOD” and “RUSSIAN CLERGY—COMMUNIST AGENTS.”
One Ernest Zingers from Latvia declared, “The Russian Orthodox Church is controlled by the Kremlin and not by Jesus Christ.” He added, “The Soviet government is sending out spies and agents of their conspiracy under the cover of clergymen. No one is able to come out from Russia who is not going to follow the Communist line.”
The Russian application significantly enough was followed chronologically—not preceded by—the applications for admission from churches in other “Iron Curtain” countries. Questioned as to why the Russian application was admittedly delayed for some time, Dr. Franklin Clark Fry stated that the Russians found trends within the World Council that they did not like—those trends being according to Fry an overemphasis on social activity and an under-emphasis on things purely spiritual.
Fry commented wryly that these were the same objections raised by the ultra-conservative groups and that it was amazing how the extremes finally emerged so closely together.
The prospects for the Russian church in council activities are encouraging. Members are eligible for appointment to WCC commissions and to membership on the powerful Central Committee, the number to be determined in a numerical ratio to the membership of the church said to be about 50 million.
Some future WCC meetings will undoubtedly be held in Russia, but the Russian church has with the capitalistic colleagues the responsibility of contributing financially to WCC coffers. Strange commentary on the overwhelmingly favorable vote was the fact that privately few delegates seemed in favor of it.
One top representative of a major American denomination was shocked to learn that each church was entitled to only one vote. He was totally unfamiliar with the man voting his church bloc in favor of the action and began trying to determine when or where his church had caucused to emerge with a favorable vote on the Russian admission. When the interim report assured the admission of the Russian church, Zingers leaned his placard against the fence and gave up his pacing—at least for this assembly.
At a press conference following the vote, the Russian delegation’s leader, 32-year-old Archbishop Nikodim proved an agile dodger of questions. To repeated questions on the same theme he maintained that there is no interference in church affairs by the Soviet government, that priests are free to preach as they will and that the Gospel, not the government, determines church policy.
The limiting of questions mainly to representatives of wire services and secular newspapers virtually excluded the religious press from asking significant questions. Nobody asked Nikodim whether he agrees that a Christian cannot be a Communist in theory and practice. Questions were cut short after a half hour. Nikodim gave more candid answers privately than publicly.
Much of the world missionary task force, however, remains deliberately outside its orbit. Of American personnel serving abroad, only about 9,000 of the 28,000 missionaries, or some 31 per cent, are affiliated with the National Council of Churches in the U.S.A.
In the opening worship sermon on the day of the action, the secretary of the Burma Baptist Churches Union, the Rev. U Ba Hmyin, declared that spiritual realities are better understood through “feeling and will” than by “reason and intelligence.” He called for “a universal theology” utilizing a synthesis of oriental and occidental “structures, ways of thought and life.” As illustrations of oriental modes of apprehension of potential value in formulating Christian theology he pointed to the system of Yoga and the disciplined will. He said this would “enrich our Christian religious thinking based solely on the Bible.”
In a critical comment the Indian evangelist Akbar Haqq, an observer associated with Billy Graham’s evangelistic thrust in Southeast Asia, declared that “the New Testament gospel has the status of universal truth and has universal appeal,” and that “any rejection of reason which would make contradictories equally acceptable issues is a religion serviceable only to schizophrenics.”
The opening day was marked by noticeable deference to the Greek Orthodox church when the “filioque clause” was deleted in the use of the Nicene Creed.
Missionary merger was made during the afternoon business session by Greek Orthodox Archbishop Iakovos, one of the World Council’s five presidents, whose communion historically has not been distinguished by missionary zeal and has on occasion resisted evangelical missions in Greece. Evangelical leaders hoped the merger might spark a new missionary concern. They were perplexed by the confessional insensitivity to Protestant member churches in the World Council.
An Anglican bishop commented that deletion of any article of the creed in worship establishes a precedent which could suppress alternate articles objectionable to other influential ecumenical blocs. Deletion of the creedal connection of the Son and Holy Spirit also disappointed them because of the World Council’s growing Christological rather than merely theological emphasis. The IMC has in fact looked with favor upon the proposed trinitarian expansion of the ecumenical statement of basis.
Neither the flame nor wind of Pentecost stirred the merger ceremony, the only unusual aspect being the earphone translation to each of the participants in three languages.
Newbigin pronounced the placing in the context of the WCC the “organized missionary effort of the world” as a great decision and a natural development. He declared that unity cannot itself serve as an end and that integration adds the dimension of mission to that of ecumenical unity.
The merger, however, promoted a new network of ecumenical relations through the fact that IMC has been a council of councils, and its integration now promises closer World Council ties with the national councils which were in the IMC.
Pressures to widen the World Council’s incorporation process are considered inevitable, subject to the availability of necessary funds and staff.
The council already has a world program of theological education. Integration of ecumenically organized missionary activity into the World Council came 50 years after the first ecumenical expression of missionary activity (Edinburgh 1910). The almost wearying reiteration of these past roots left little doubt that the modern missionary effort is specially tied to nineteenth-century Anglo-Saxon Protestantism. But it failed to answer the question whether the present witness coincides adequately with the ecumenical vision of missionary pioneers.
Two main arguments against merger were that a strong concern for mission might deflect the World Council from its driving interest in church unity and, alternately, that missions might get only secondary attention from an integrated body.
Active missionaries in Delhi wondered what might have been William Carey’s reactions to merger proceedings, inasmuch as 1961 marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of the small town cobbler who is buried in tropical India. Carey was mainly interested in proclaiming the Gospel to lost souls. The Delhi decisions would be judged both by pragmatic results of merger in terms of new converts, churches and life, and by the fidelity with which the Gospel would be addressed to pagan lands.
In contrast to Carey’s arduous trip, delegates could reach Delhi from almost any spot on earth in little more than a day, and they came from all continents and races. But 98 per cent of India’s population remained outside Christ, and some younger independent churches were drifting from missionary motivations and methods which gave them birth.
At the same time the World Council’s study book asked: “How can this Assembly, meeting in India, proclaim Jesus Christ as the Light of the World in a country where ‘light’ is a religious symbol familiar to the non-Christian population?” The future alone would tell.
Ecumenical Roots
Evangelist Billy Graham declared upon arrival in New Delhi last month that “the ecumenical movement had its birth in the work of mass evangelism” and that its roots lie less in “organizational ties” than in a “simple, warm and living faith in Christ” and in forgetting denominational distinctions long enough to labor together “to reach those outside of Christ.” Graham was on hand for the opening of the New Delhi assembly as an observer at the invitation of WCC officials. He is a member of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is not affiliated with the World Council.
The evangelist had toured India six years ago. He says he remembers the people as “the most tolerant in the world.”
Here are excerpts of his statement in New Delhi:
The assembly should not overlook the fact that there already exists within the Church a true ecumenical movement which crosses all denominational, national, and social barriers—an ecumenicity which proceeds from a common faith in the Christ of the Scriptures, of history, and of personal experience.… This assembly should also not forget that the Church is essentially a great missionary society—that her primary task is to witness to the redemptive work of Christ.
While the influence of the great evangelists has waned in the World Council, I am hoping that some of that influence can be preserved. I am hopeful that during the next 10 days I will have the opportunity privately to exert influence in the direction that the early leaders hoped and prayed for.… I feel that the present world crisis makes it imperative that Christian leaders from every corner of the earth work together while there is still time to touch the world for Christ. I believe it is possible to evangelize the world in this generation.… Not in history has the Church had such a magnificent opportunity to challenge and appeal to the world … divided as it is by theological, national, and racial tensions, and trembling on the threshold of the nuclear extinction of the human race. There should be a world-wide evangelistic effort in which all Christians are urged to participate.
However, we must be certain of the Gospel we proclaim. If we go out with an uncertain sound we will add to the confusion in the world today.
This world assembly can be either a Babel or a Pentecost. Should this historic meeting return to the faith and message of the early Church, hopes for peace would immediately brighten.… The Church today stands sadly in the midst of the ever-increasing ruins of the civilization she helped to create, with little power to save it. This could all be transformed here at New Delhi. On the other hand, New Delhi could be so compromised by the influence of those who no longer hold to the apostolic message that the Church may find herself yet further weakened and her witness muted as a result.
While all of us lament the scandal and shame of the disunity of the Church, we are also obliged to confess that an even greater scandal and shame is the disloyalty of some areas of the Church to Jesus Christ and His Word. The person and work of Christ cannot be minimized. His exclusive concept of salvation cannot be dismissed. Therefore I am hopeful that the assembly will spell out in no uncertain terms its faith in the divine authority of the Scriptures, the deity and lordship of Christ, his atoning death for our sins, the lost condition of the world apart from saving faith in Christ, his bodily resurrection and his personal return.
I would like to see this assembly reaffirm the authority of the Scriptures.… Do not the Holy Scriptures declare Christ’s message for the world? The Scriptures are to be studied that Christ may be properly obeyed.
I would also like to see this assembly proclaim the prophetic truth that Jesus Christ is coming back to this world. The Church has often failed to keep divine objectives in view because she has neglected the prophetic message of the Scriptures. As a result … the human race has been left without a social program of authority and … men and nations have been experimenting with their own national and international goals, endeavoring to bring about unrealizable world utopias which are not of God. This results in periodic national collapse and world-wide calamity. We are in one of these collapses at the present hour.
This assembly should also recognize that the Church is not a political organization nor a social reform society. Individually and collectively Christians may work for political and social justice.… But Christ’s Church must keep on the main highway outlined in the Scriptures and witness before the nations concerning the truth of salvation in Christ and also concerning the program of God for the whole world, especially witnessing to the grand consummation of the age.
This assembly should also warn that world about antichrist.… Had the Church in Germany been faithful in preaching the Christ of Luther and warning of antichrist, there would have been no Nazism there. We should shout for all the world to hear from New Delhi that the future great ruler of the world will be the Lord Jesus Christ. The Church during the next few years must keep this message clearly, plainly, and consistently before the nations of the earth.
This assembly should call the Church back to her true message and true program. Dare this assembly allow the Church in the world to deviate from her proper spiritual orbit?
We should also reaffirm that every knee shall bow not to the Church but to Christ … The Church does not redeem; it only witnesses to the redemption that is in Jesus Christ.
The World Council should also listen carefully, prayerfully, humbly, and attentively to the large groups of Protestants in many parts of the world that are outside the ordinary councils. The World Council should ask: Why is 37 per cent of Protestantism in America outside the National Council of Churches?… Why are over 60 per cent of the missionaries from America from denominations outside the National Council? These masses of Christians have something to say to the World Council if the council is humble enough to listen.…
What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better organizations or novel methods, but men whom God can use. Everything … will depend on the spiritual character of the delegates. It is my prayer that out of this assembly will come heroic, stalwart, toilsome, soldierly, saintly, self-denying, self-crucifying men who are willing to die for the faith once delivered to the saints.…
Congo Beatings
The Board of World Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. says that two of its missionaries were beaten and arrested last month by Congolese troops in Luluabourg.
Injured were Dr. J. B. Jung of Alexandria, Louisiana, a dentist, and Dr. W. Grant McIntosh of Edinburgh, Scotland, a physician.
The board also reported that two other of its missionaries were ill-treated by the soldiers and arrested: Dr. Mark K. Poole and the Rev. William C. Washburn, both from Texas.
A fifth person, Miss Nolie McDonald, an X-ray technician in the mission hospital at Lubondai, was “slapped and insulted” but not taken to jail, the board statement said.
All four men arrested were later released. Washburn has since returned to the United States on regular furlough.
Jung and McIntosh reportedly were attacked by mutinying soldiers, tied to a tree and beaten with gun butts, then taken to prison.
Budding Buddhism?
Selection of U Thant as Secretary General of the United Nations is evidence of the growing influence of Buddhist thought in relation to world problems, according to Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia.
In an address last month at Phnom Penh to the sixth conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists, the Cambodian head of state called upon Buddhists everywhere to “lead the struggle for peace and truth.” He said Mr. Thant’s qualities “are essentially those of a faithful disciple of the Buddha.”
The acting U. N. Secretary General is known as a devout and practicing Buddhist. He is believed to have a private shrine in his upper East Side apartment. His 22-year-old daughter was married in a Buddhist ceremony last year.
Conciliatory Compromise
A resolution favoring “closer relationships with all other branches of the Church of Christ” was adopted at autumn sessions of the Church of England Assembly in London.
The resolution, which “warmly welcomes the conversations being undertaken with the Presbyterian and Methodist churches,” was a compromise between a suggested motion by Gervase E. Duffield of Oxford and an amendment to it by A. T. Macmillan of London, brother of the British Prime Minister.
The subject had been raised originally with an eye to the Church of Scotland, whose relations with the Anglicans since the ill-fated “Bishops’ Report” of 1957 have been marked by coolness and misunderstanding.
“It may be that the Church of Scotland are a little touchy,” said one speaker, “but let us look at our own faults and our own sins and not criticize them so readily.”
He went on to make severe criticism of an Anglican journal’s article on John Knox which, full of historical inaccuracies, had offended the Scots.
Apparent in the assembly’s discussion was a spirit of conciliation and friendliness which augurs well for future relations.
J. D. D
Christmas Pilgrimage
Some 15,000 Israeli Christians are requesting permission to cross the Jordanian border to participate in the traditional Christmas pilgrimage to Bethlehem.
This number represents about one-third of all Christians in Israel.
Last year, 10,000 applied for permits to attend the annual observance at the birthplace of Christ, but authorities in Israel and Jordan granted only 3,500 permits.
Tv Blackout
For the second consecutive year, the West German television network will dispense with its programming between 6 and 8 p. m. on Christmas Eve, the traditional family gathering time in German Christmas observances. (The high-point of the Christmas season in Germany is Christmas Eve, when families join under lighted Christmas trees, carols are sung and gifts exchanged.)
Last year there were some protests of the blackout which cited the fact that West Germany’s television audience would have to rely upon telecasts from the Soviet Zone.
A New Religious Issue?
Some Washington observers are saying that a religious controversy may develop in the selection of a successor to the late House Speaker Sam Rayburn.
Leading candidate for the post is Representative John W. McCormack of Massachusetts, a Roman Catholic who has been widely criticized for championing his church’s views on public policy.
A comment by Representative Albert Rains of Alabama, who said he was “considering” opposing McCormack for the office, added to reports circulating in the nation’s capital to the effect that a religious controversy might be involved in an intra-party scrap between House Democrats. Rains is a Baptist. Earlier it had been reported that Southern political leaders were favoring McCormack.
Dr. Glenn L. Archer, executive director of Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said there would be widespread Protestant concern over McCormack’s candidacy.
Archer said McCormack “has consistently demanded government support for sectarian schools; he was the leading advocate of the appointment of an ambassador to the Vatican; he denounced the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the separation of church and state in 1948; and he has been the sponsor of many bills in Congress conferring financial benefits upon his church.”
If elected, McCormack would become the first Roman Catholic ever to hold the Speaker’s post. A 1947 law made the Speaker second in line of succession to the President when death causes a presidential vacancy. He draws the same pay as the Vice President, $35,000 a year plus $10,000 for expenses, and has the use of a limousine and a chauffeur.
McCormack holds the highest papal decoration awarded to any Catholic layman, that of Knight Commander, Order of St. Gregory the Great, with star.
Rayburn’s successor probably will be nominated January 9 at a party caucus of House Democrats and elected by the House when it convenes the next day for the 1962 Congressional Session.
The Roman Catholic hierarchy itself provoked widespread criticism from Protestant leaders last month when it reaffirmed its stand on federal aid to education. The hierarchy’s statement opposed any program of such aid which failed to include parochial schools.
Sources close to the prelates maintain, however, that a new school of influence took over last month in the annual meeting of the U. S. Roman Catholic leadership. In terms of their stand on federal aid to education, there are said to be two opposing power blocs, one led by Cardinal Spellman and the other by Cardinal Cushing, and it is reported that the latter gained the upper hand. Archbishop Karl J. Alter of Cincinnati, who sides with Spellman and who as chairman of the administrative board of the National Catholic Welfare Conference has demanded parochial school provisions in any federal aid-to-education program, was dropped from the board altogether. The chairmanship was given to Archbishop Patrick A. O’Boyle of Washington, who has never issued any public statements on aid to education. O’Boyle and Archbishop John J. Krol of Philadelphia were named to the 16-member board for the first time. Both are comparatively liberal on social issues and O’Boyle is a strong advocate of Protestant-Catholic cooperation in the fight against communism who tries to avoid controversy which might undermine such effort.
Secular Or Religious?
The U. S. Supreme Court was asked last month to review legal decisions which have revoked the tax-exempt status of the Scripture Press Foundation, publisher of Sunday school materials and other religious literature.
The Internal Revenue Service ruled in 1953 that although Scripture Press products are of a religious nature, “the manufacture and supply [of such materials] does not constitute a religious activity in itself but is a business of a kind ordinarily carried on for profit.” Courts have upheld the 1953 ruling.
Lawyers for Scripture Press say the ruling could be applied to the Methodists and their Abingdon-Cokesbury Publishing House; the Baptists and Broadman Press; the Disciples of Christ and Bethany Press; the Church of God and Warner Press; and many others.
Scripture Press has no specific church affiliation, but its materials are evangelically oriented.
Washington Voice
The Union of American Hebrew Congregations reaffirmed last month a 1959 decision establishing a Reform Jewish center in Washington. The center, in effect a lobby, has been opposed by a number of Reform Jewish congregations. Its personnel will appear before Congressional committees and give views on pending legislation.
The reaffirmation came in a majority vote among 1,300 delegates to the union’s biennial assembly in Washington. Highlight of a four-hour debate was the reading of a telegram from Secretary of Labor Arthur J. Goldberg supporting the center. Goldberg is a newly-elected union trustee.
Interfaith Harmony
President Kennedy publicly praised the National Conference of Christians and Jews last month, suggesting that it has done more than perhaps “any other factor in our national life to provide for harmonious living among our different religious groups.” Kennedy spoke to some 100 leaders of the NCCJ who called on him at the White House at the close of the conference’s 33rd annual meeting in Washington.
Purpose of the visit, as explained to Kennedy by NCCJ President Lewis Webster Jones, was to inform the President of a new four-year “project in religious freedom and public affairs.” The project is designed to raise the general level of public discussion and understanding among religious groups differing on issues of public concern.
“It has always seemed to me,” said Kennedy, “that when we all—regardless of our particular religious conviction-draw our guidance and inspiration, and really in a sense moral direction from the same general area, the Bible … we have every reason to believe that our various religious denominations should live together in the closest harmony.”
Urging Expansion
Bishop Joseph A. Synon, general superintendent of the Pentecostal Holiness Church, told the 52,000-member denomination’s quadrennial General Conference in Richmond, Virginia, that Pentecostals must find more efficient means of getting their message across to the world.
He said the church needs to strengthen and stabilize its foreign missionary, evangelistic, and educational programs. In addition, he said, the denomination must expand its printing and publishing potential.
“We need also to take advantage of the favorable influence of our church, wherever it is known, to establish new congregations in expanding housing projects,” Synon declared. “We need to follow our people into new areas.”
The Progressive Convention
A group of Negro Baptists split off from the National Baptist Convention, U. S. A., Inc., last month and formed a new organization to be known as the Progressive Baptist Convention of America.
In organizing the new convention at a meeting in Cincinnati, delegates from 14 states stressed that new officers would observe their terms of office. Disagreement over this point was given as the reason for the break with the National Baptist Convention, U. S. A., Inc.
This was interpreted as a reference to the re-election of Dr. J. H. Jackson as head of the 5,000,000-member Baptist body. Jackson had been the center of a controversy which began in 1960 when Dr. Gardner Taylor claimed he and not Jackson had been elected president. At the 1961 convention in Kansas City the dispute led to a near riot which resulted in the death of one of the delegates. Jackson was finally elected to his ninth term as president.
The new Progressive Convention chose as president Dr. T. M. Chambers, Sr., pastor of the Zion Hill Baptist Church in Los Angeles.
No membership figures are available.
Church Giving
The annual report of the National Council of Churches’ Department of Stewardship and Benevolence shows an increase of 5.5 per cent in the giving of 39 bodies whose figures can be compared to those of the previous year.
Most principal denominations submitted a financial report for inclusion in the tabulation. The biggest exception is the Roman Catholic church, which never discloses its receipts or disbursements. Also holding out this year were Seventh-day Adventists, who are known to be among the leaders in per-capita giving (a spokesman said Seventh-day Adventist leaders have decided against release of figures for fear that they be interpreted as “boasting”).
Here are 1960 per-member contributions for all purposes as given in the report:
