From the standpoint of Christians and Jews alike, the most serious deficiency of the U. S. public school system has been its lack of emphasis on spiritual and moral truths.
Roman Catholics, plus an increasing number of Lutherans, Episcopalians, Baptists, Methodists, and others have sought to correct the deficiency by sponsoring competing parochial school systems.
But in recent months a bold, new plan has been winning serious consideration from some leading churchmen as well as public school officials. It is the “shared time” concept for educating children at the elementary and secondary levels. Very few influential leaders have endorsed the plan, but most have been quietly exploring it in detail and, on the other hand, very few have rejected it flatly.
Stated simply, the shared time plan would provide that children divide their time between public schools and church instruction. The unofficial leader of the shared time movement is Dr. Harry L. Stearns, superintendent of schools in Englewood, New Jersey.
Some evangelical leaders have joined in the discussion over shared time. Among the first to make a public statement was Dr. Frank E. Gaebelein, headmaster of The Stony Brook School, who said that the Stearns plan “has some great strengths and some crucial weaknesses.”
“Perhaps the strongest point in favor of Mr. Stearns’ proposal is the fact that it tends to restore control of the child’s time to the parents to whom God has entrusted the child,” he declared.
In his statement, which appeared in Religious Education, Gaebelein added that “this is an important correction of the erroneous position to which the present situation almost inevitably leads—namely, that the state has the major claim upon the time of the child.”
Gaebelein warned, however, that “the proposal is open to serious philosophical objection.” He cited the compartmentalization of subject areas into “sacred” and “secular” as a violation of “the continuity of truth.”
On the other hand, he added, “it may well be that a compromise proposal such as shared time is the most that may be done to resolve the dilemma of public education in America today.”
The shared time compromise also may be the answer to the quandary of many Christian parents over whether they ought to send their children to Christian day schools or to public schools. Some feel that the value of the Christian orientation of the day school is offset by the effects of a withdrawal from realities of life.
What Is “Shared Time”?
The term “shared time” refers to a revolutionary new plan for educating children.
Basically the plan is that religious groups and the public schools “share” the time of students. Churches or other religious groups would take the responsibility of teaching those subjects where they felt that a religious perspective was necessary.
Presumably, religious groups would be willing to turn over to public schools, at the very least, such subjects as physical education, home economics, and manual training. The shift in responsibility would relieve religious schools of very heavy financial burdens for these are the subjects which require the most expenditures for facilities. The plan, moreover, would probably encourage establishment of many more Christian day schools, inasmuch as initial costs would not involve such things as gymnasiums, machine shops, and laboratories.
The plan is most closely identified with Dr. Harry L. Stearns, superintendent of schools in Englewood, New Jersey. Stearns, a layman, is a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Englewood and serves on the United Presbyterian Board of Christian Education. He has a son who is a Presbyterian minister and a daughter who is a director of Christian education in a Presbyterian church.
Shared time is not to be confused with “released time,” which currently allows public school students an hour or so each week to receive religious instruction from the church of their choice.
Dr. George L. Ford, executive director of the National Association of Evangelicals, says the shared time plan offers “certain possibilities but also some very real problems.”
Some observers are concerned about assigning to churches the responsibility for such subjects as the social sciences and American history. Shared time would give parochial schools the opportunity to indoctrinate many more youngsters in church-state viewpoints which are not shared by the majority of the American citizenry.
Proponents of shared time, however, say they are willing to let churches teach as many subjects as they wish—as long as they pay for the instruction.
The shared time plan has been advanced as a means of settling the dispute over whether the state should grant financial aid to parochial schools.
Roman Catholics stand to gain more from the shared time plan than any other religious group in the United States for the simple reason that they have more parochial schools than any other.
A big question is whether the Roman Catholic hierarchy would accept shared time as a compromise and thereby withdraw its insistence upon public funds for parochial schools.
A highly-placed Roman Catholic spokesman in Washington said this month that he doubted whether the American bishops would take a flat stand on shared time in the foreseeable future. At the same time, he pointed out that there is nothing to stop local church and school officials from going ahead with a shared time plan and that some have already taken steps in this direction.
The plan has been tried to a limited degree in Hartford, Connecticut, for a number of years. There is some talk of adopting it on a similar basis in Chicago and in Providence, Rhode Island.
Backers of the plan say it represents the only expression of genuine initiative, the lone creative idea, to be offered in the religion-in-the-public-schools questions. To critics who insist that it poses a dichotomy they cite (irrelevantly, some reply) Christ’s explicit injunction to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.
Mandatory Baptisms
The perennial problem of baptism cropped up again at the February meeting of the Church of England’s House of Laity, when Mr. G. E. Duffield attacked the practice of indiscriminate baptism. It meant, he alleged, that the church was building on a foundation of nominal membership. (The Church of England reported in 1958 27,005,000 baptized persons, but only 2,877,080 on the electoral rolls.) Mr. Duffield added that baptism was a sacrament, not a magic charm, and suggested that there ought to be for the parents “an objective test” to ensure that they were really Christians.
Disagreeing, Mr. Ivor Bulmer-Thomas said that what was of paramount importance was the interest of the child, not the slackness of the parents, and that what really mattered about baptism was its supernatural grace. Dr. Barbara Cawthorne urged the House to reject Mr. Duffield’s views, pleaded that no child should be “lost before he started,” and startled the House by quoting the words of a pop song:
“Mother’s playing bingo,
Grandpa’s in the Boozer,
Sister’s smooching on the sofa,
Nobody cares about me.”
The House weighed the arguments and by a large majority confirmed the canon which makes it mandatory for Anglican parish clergy to baptize all who come.
J. D. D.
The Border Problem
In Berlin last month, eight prominent members of the Evangelical Church in Germany created a minor sensation by making public a statement in which they called upon the Bonn government to renounce the eastern German territories annexed by Poland in World War II. They demanded that the German people be brought to realize that the reunification of Germany cannot be achieved in the forseeable future and that the present German-Polish Oder-Neisse River border must be recognized as permanent.
Signers of the document included Professor Ludwig Raiser, chairman of the German Economic Council and a member of the Synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKID); Dr. Joachim Beckmann, president of the Evangelical Church of the Rhineland and chairman of the Evangelical Union Church; and Dr. Klaus von Bismarck, director of the West German Radio, largest network in the country, and one of West Germany’s outstanding lay leaders.
The signers urged recognition of the Oder-Neisse border because this “would improve German relations with Poland and make it easier for the Western powers to stand up for all other German interests.”
Although the Protestant leaders made no allusion to the fact, the German-Polish border issue is one of acute religious as well as political significance. It has long been a major bone of contention between the Vatican and the Communist government in Warsaw.
Taking place almost simultaneously with the issuance of the German Protesttants’ statement was a lengthy talk at the Vatican Palace between Pope John XXIII and Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, Primate of Poland, at which—according to unconfirmed Rome reports—the possibility of Vatican recognition of the disputed Polish-German border was a topic of serious discussion.
Cardinal Wyszynski has often insisted that the disputed territories be recognized as belonging permanently to Poland. Roman Catholic observers say there is nothing for Pope John to do but to keep hands off a political situation in which the national feelings of German as well as Polish Catholics are concerned. All the Vatican can do is mark time until German’s definitive postwar borders are drawn at a peace conference.
Bourgeoisie Morality
Commenting sarcastically on statements made by U. S. religious leaders concerning use of force to keep neighbors out of private fallout shelters, Chinese Communist writer Yuan Hsein-lu, writing in the mainland publication Hung Ch’i (Red Flag) says:
“God’s precept concerning the manner in which one must treat one’s neighbors has now come into conflict with [the] wicked conduct of the American bourgeoisie … [American religious leaders] think they can resolve the contradiction by merely ‘reappraising’ God’s precept … and calling an act ‘moral’ which has been considered immoral in the past.”
The comment was reported by Far East News Service. The writer apparently felt that the controversy was significant and asserted that it “shows people to what a shocking state of depravity the American bourgeoisie has fallen, and how hypocritical the morality of the bourgeoisie is.”
Protestant Panorama
• In a six-page “Letter on Freedom of Pulpit and Pew” directed to all sessions this month, the United Presbyterian General Council called upon the denomination’s 3,200,000 members not to be duped by “a campaign of anti-communism based on a distrust of our free American institutions.” Attacks from extremist anti-Communist groups have “resulted in the intimidation of our pastors and the disruption of our churches,” the statement said.
• The Canadian School of Missions and the Canadian Council of Churches plan joint establishment of “The Canadian School of Missions and Ecumenical Institute” in 1963.
• In Reykjavik, Iceland, services are again being held in the little peat church of Nupstad after a lapse of 50 years. The 300-year-old chapel is believed to be the oldest building in Iceland.
• Canadian Lutheran College of Thousand Oaks, California, won accreditation last month as a senior liberal arts college from the Western College Association.
• Youth for Christ International plans to dedicate its new headquarters building in Wheaton, Illinois, April 9.
• The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod assumed control last month of Great Lakes College of Detroit, giving the city its first Protestant church-related college. The school was founded in 1937 by the late Dr. Clayton J. Ettinger, a Lutheran, who died last January and bequeathed the school to the church district. A change of name is expected.
• Dedication ceremonies are scheduled April 15 in Coventry, England, for the House of Encounter, a social center constructed by West German Christian volunteers as atonement for Nazi atrocities. The dedication will precede by only a few weeks the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, which has been under construction since 1956 at a cost of $3,000,000.
Transfer From England
A professor at Princeton Theological Seminary was barred last month from membership in the Presbytery of New Brunswick because of his refusal to affirm belief in the Virgin Birth.
Dr. John Hardwood Hick, who is seeking transfer from the Presbyterian Church of England (Presbytery of Berwick), had previously been accepted into the Presbytery of New Brunswick. However, the Judicial Commission of the Synod of New Jersey reversed the presbytery’s decision by sustaining complaints from a group of eight ministers and ten ruling elders led by the Rev. J. Clyde Henry of Lambertville, New Jersey, formerly an assistant to the late, renowned Dr. Clarence Edward Macartney of Pittsburgh.
The action could affect Hick’s position at Princeton, inasmuch as all professors at the seminary must be members of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. There are indications that the case will be appealed to the General Assembly, which meets May 17 in Denver, Colorado.
Dr. James I. McCord, seminary president, observed that it was a matter which “would seem to involve the question of the presbytery’s integrity to receive its own members.”
Hick expressed confidence that the General Assembly will rule in his favor.
“The theological question at issue,” he said, “is whether every Presbyterian minister must affirm a biological miracle in connection with the birth of Christ, or whether this is a secondary matter about which it is possible for some of us to be uncertain.”
As a basis for its ruling, the Judicial Commission of the Synod of New Jersey cited the church constitution and previous decisions of the General Assembly upholding the doctrine of the Virgin Birth.
“The General Assembly has repeatedly passed upon the importance of clear and positive views regarding this doctrine,” the commission said. “It is the established law of the Church. The Church has not seen clear to alter it, and your Judicial Commission sees no reason for amending the Constitution by judicial interpretation.”
The case recalls doubts about the Virgin Birth expressed by Dr. Theodore A. Gill prior to his appointment to the presidency of San Francisco Theological Seminary. Gill’s appointment caused much controversy before it was confirmed by the 1959 General Assembly.
Hick’s appointment in 1960 as Stuart Professor of Christian Philosophy at Princeton was also approved by the General Assembly. The doctrinal issue did not come up at that time.
The objection to Hick raised by the 18 complainants was his refusal to affirm belief in the Virgin Birth, although he did not deny it.
The doctrinal issue came to a head virtually on the eve of a sesquicentennial lecture series at Princeton by Dr. Karl Barth, famed Swiss theologian, who is scheduled to make his first visit to the United States in April (he will also be lecturing at the University of Chicago).
Barth, although criticized by evangelicals for the incipient universalism of his theology, has championed the doctrine of the Virgin Birth and has even rebuked fellow theologian Emil Brunner on the point:
“Brunner’s denial of the Virgin birth is a bad business. As is also the case with Althaus, it throws an ambiguous light over the whole of his Christology.”
Barth has asserted that the doctrines of the Resurrection and the Virgin Birth “belong together.… The Virgin Birth at the opening and the empty tomb at the close of Jesus’ life bear witness that this life is a fact marked off from the rest of human life.… Marked off in regard to its origin: it is free from the arbitrariness which underlies all our existences.”
A Call On The Pope
Mrs. John F. Kennedy, America’s first lady, was received in private audience by Pope John XXIII on Sunday morning, March 12. They spent 32 minutes conversing in French, a language in which both are fluent. It was one of the longest private audiences the Pope has ever granted.
From Vatican sources it was learned that when the pontiff spoke of the Kennedys’ four-year-old daughter, Caroline, he commented, “A beautiful name.” He remarked that he was devoted to St. Charles Borromeo, sixteenth-century archbishop of Milan—an allusion to the fact that the Latin for Charles is Carolus.
Mrs. Kennedy presented the Pope with an autographed, red-leather bound copy of President Kennedy’s book, To Turn the Tide. The pontiff, in turn, presented her with medals of his pontificate and rosaries for herself, her husband, and her children. Amleto Giovanni Cardinal Cicognani, Vatican Secretary of State, gave her a doll—the replica of a Vatican Swiss guard—as a gift for Caroline, as well as a Bible.
Dealing With Delinquents
A gang of rowdy, beer-drinking teenagers made trouble this month for Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn and his minister, the Rev. Frank A. Erwin.
The incident occurred on a Saturday evening less than three weeks after Glenn’s three-orbit flight around the earth had made him a hero.
Glenn and his family had driven to a neighbor’s house to pick up his daughter, Lyn, from a party. Milling outside the house were some party-crashing youths who had been ejected from the home. Glenn heard one of them suggest that they go to the nearby Little Falls United Presbyterian Church. Glenn proceeded to the church and found a group of youths—apparently a different group—around Erwin, the minister. Inside the church a senior a high school “canteen” was being held.
The youths, who had been drinking beer, were challenged by Erwin as they made abusive comments about the church. There was an exchange of words and one youth lunged at Erwin.
Meanwhile, Glenn joined the minister and together they asked the youths to leave. When they refused, Glenn walked over to the youths’ car to take down the license number. One boy stepped in front of him and Glenn pushed him aside. The boy, unaware of Glenn’s identity, swung at him.
Glenn ducked the blow and pinned the youth’s arms against the car, noted the license number, and called police. The boys drove off, but were subsequently picked up by police. Glenn indicated he would file a formal complaint only if local authorities insisted.
‘Kidnap’ Charge
Mrs. Alice Ryan of Glen Head, Long Island, New York, is suing Roman Catholic authorities for $2,375,000. She claims the church had broken up her marriage to a priest by “kidnaping” him and forcing him into a monastery.
Walter A. Ryan, 57, said in San Francisco that his 41-year-old wife’s charges were “ridiculous.” Ryan said he left her “of my own accord, long after having told my superiors of my marriage.” The marriage took place secretly in 1950 while Ryan was assistant pastor at St. Patrick’s Church in Glen Cove.
Ryan said he had had “a drinking problem” which “I licked in San Francisco with the aid of friends.”
“My connections with the church had been cut long before I left New York,” he declared.
Evangelism At The World’S Fair
When the Seattle World’s Fair opens April 21, a pair of pavilions will beckon visitors to put aside thoughts of material achievement long enough to hear what God might have to say to them.
The pavilions hold the potential of a powerful Christian evangelistic thrust, inasmuch as 10,000,000 persons are expected to pass through the fairgrounds before the fair ends October 21. Both pavilions are products of cooperative Protestantism, and evangelicals are represented in the sponsorship of the Christian Witness Pavilion as well as the Sermons from Science Pavilion.
The Christian Witness Pavilion will include Sacred Design Associates’ son et lumiere (sound and light), a seven-minute presentation “thrusting you into the age-old Christian quest with new, dynamic methods of communication,” and a children’s center with two-hour sessions throughout the day similar to a vacation Bible school program. The idea for the pavilion was championed by a select group of Christian leaders who consider their territory a frontier for evangelism (only 30 per cent of the population of the Pacific Northwest are church members). They persevered for a Christian witness in the face of pressures by fair officials for an alternate exhibition which would have featured “the world’s great religions.”
The Sermons from Science Pavilion, which has an auditorium seating 300, will feature three live demonstrations daily plus seven film showings led by Dr. George Speake of the Moody Institute of Science.
Trained Christian counsellors will be on hand at both pavilions.
On Easter Sunday, a gigantic religious rally is planned on the fairgrounds and sponsors are hopeful of drawing some 100,000 persons. Featured will be an address by Dr. Louis Evans, minister-at-large for the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.
The event also will highlight a choir of several hundred voices from Seattle Protestant churches directed by Cliff Barrows, musical director of the Billy Graham evangelistic team.
Graham himself plans to attend the world’s fair and to address another rally there on Sunday, July 8.
The leaders of Christian Witness in Century 21, Inc., sponsors of the Christian Witness Pavilion, see their task this way: “Around will swirl the activities of the fair: the exciting forecasts of man’s discoveries … the sound of people from all over the world … the dazzling panorama of entertainment.… The Christian Pavilion, as a symbol of ultimate values, will help the fair to tell visitors and the world that America’s greatness is due not only to science and technology, but also to moral and spiritual principles. Above the embracing arches of the pavilion arises a cross, reaching up into the sky … the Christian thrust with trust.”
Sermons From Science
Unlike most middle-aged ministers, Dr. Irwin A. Moon can fry an egg on a cold stove. Moreover, he does it while preaching. And to prove a point he will casually allow a million volts to flash through his body, a miniature bolt of lightning streaking from each out-stretched fingertip. With the help of such pulpit antics, Moon has captured the fancy of millions for the cause of evangelical Christianity.
With the opening of the Seattle World’s Fair, Moon will probably get around to reminiscing about his Sermons from Science exhibit. For it was under similar circumstances more than 20 years ago that the idea was born for his Moody Institute of Science ministry. Since then, he has seen it develop into a gigantic documentary film program the most remarkable aspect of which is its mode of reaching the outsider with the Gospel. In a day when evangelicals have largely defaulted in art, literature, and music, Moody films have used science as a medium for teaching divine truth.
Moon first gained public attention during the San Francisco Golden Gate Exposition in 1941. A physicist and an ardent amateur movie-maker, he had been pastor of the Montecito Park Union Church in Los Angeles. He had used illustrations from science to point up his talks with the young people of his congregation and found them eager listeners. He finally resigned the pastorate to devote full time to presenting his “sermons from science.”
When the Golden Gate Exposition opened, Moon tried a daring experiment. He rented space and designed a special show to compete with the carnival attractions. More than two tons of equipment, most of it homemade, went into the production of a spectacle that covered various aspects of science.
The show drew great acclaim. Crowds came to look and to listen quietly to his insistent, thought-provoking refrain: “Can you believe these marvels are the result of chance of accident? Or are they part of a divine pattern? What do you think?”
One day a visitor to the exposition heard of the incongruous show on the midway and went to see for himself. He was Dr. Will H. Houghton, president of Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute, who immediately saw the evangelistic possibilities.
Moon told him how he had dreamed of a modern laboratory and of a movie-producing studio. The result was that in 1944 the Moody Institute of Science was born as a division of Moody Bible Institute. Headquarters for the new division were located in West Los Angeles. The film products found a ready demand, and soon they were being shown throughout the world—in churches, schools, industrial plants, civic clubs, and armed forces assemblies.
Among the best known of the films are “God of Creation,” “Dust or Destiny,” and “Red River of Life.” The institute has produced a number of full-length documentaries, as well as scores of television films and filmstrips with biblical-scientific themes. Thousands of prints with sound tracks in many languages are being used.
Among the most interesting of the film sequences is one dealing with the bat. A bat has its eyes covered with adhesive tape and is released to fly toward a line where vertical sticks are placed a few inches apart so that the passages are too narrow for its wing span. When the bat reaches this line of obstacles, however, it banks sharply and flies through one of the openings without touching a stick on either side.
In another sequence, the same bat has its jaws held shut with a thread. Then, with eyes open, it is released to fly through the upright sticks. This time it flutters helplessly against them.
Through sound amplification and photography, the MIS films explain why. Equipment made by the institute translates into a frequency audible to humans the sound that a bat makes when it flies. The picture shows several bats flying around the microphone, and as each comes near to it the loudspeaker records the humming sound. With eyes shut or open, and in darkness or light, the bat sends out this wave of sound as it flies. Whenever the sound wave hits an object ahead, it is transmitted back, enabling the bat to gauge the distance and direction of any obstruction in its path.
Actually, it is much like radar. The humming sound of the bat is a series of clicks which come from its throat, each lasting only about a hundredth of a second. When a bat is flying in the open and there are few impediments, the rate is only about five clicks per second, but as an object is approached or if there are close quarters, the rate increases to as many as sixty clicks per second.
Another creature featured in MIS films is the grunion, a silver fish about six inches long which is found along the shores of southern California. During the spring, thousands of them come up on the beaches to lay their eggs. The eggs must be laid at precisely the right hour each year in order for the fish to propagate, that is, during the highest tide in the spring and at night at the period of the new moon, or two weeks later during the full moon.
Not only must the grunion lay the eggs at this period, but at the peak of the tide, for these fish ride up onto the sand to highest point that the water reaches. Before the water attains that point, however, the female arches her back and buries her tail in the sand to a depth of several inches. She deposits her eggs while the male grunion emits milt around her. The female then wriggles herself free so that when the next wave comes she can be washed out into the water again, because from then on the tide will be receding.
As the film narrator points out, were the eggs to be buried an hour too soon, succeeding waves would wash the eggs out to sea, where they would be destroyed. If they were to be laid just an hour late, when the waves were receding and not reaching their fartherest point up on shore, the rising tide on succeeding nights would wash them out.
The narrator explains that the eggs develop in seven to ten days, but do not hatch unless the shell of the egg is dissolved by moisture. Consequently, the fish will not hatch unless a wave comes up over the sand in which it is developing.
Still another creature which the institute has put on film is the Pacific golden plover, a bird with a twelve-inch wing-spread which lives and mates off the coasts of Alaska and Siberia but which flies 2,000 miles in the wintertime to the Hawaiian Islands. If its navigation were but slightly off the tangent would widen so much in 2,000 miles that the birds would miss the small islands by a wide sweep. Yet thousands of the birds arrive at the destination each year.
Moreover, the infant birds hatched too late in the season to have the ability and strength to fly at the time the older birds leave stay behind a few weeks then fly to Hawaii by themselves. They set out for a destination where they have never been. They do not know where they are going or why. But they get there.
At the conclusion of a film, Moon briefly points out that the wonders just shown are evidences of a divine plan in the universe. He does this with restraint, however, and lets the viewer decide whether what is taking place is a grand coincidence or a divine plan.
The soft sell has enabled the films to remain free of a sectarian label and thereby to gain entry into unnumbered situations where religious films would be shunned. But the approach also has invited a measure of criticism from evangelicals who maintain that the films pound away at the obvious, that even the unchurched by and large will grant the existence of a divine order, and that an evangelistic appeal is incomplete unless it stresses the need for regeneration.
Other criticism points to the remarkable popularity of the films as having reshaped the Moody image, which for years was associated solely with the Bible Institute in Chicago. The identification which is now predominant emphasizes general revelation in nature rather than specific revelation in Scripture. Moreover, some observers say, the identification stops short of a definitive, theistic view of origins as over against naturalistic evolutionary theory.
Subtle Tyranny
“My resignation is a protest,” wrote the Rev. Max Morris. “A protest against the ‘mold’ into which the contemporary minister is expected to ‘fit.’ A protest against a concept of the ministry which forces the pastor to be an executive, an administrator, an organizational genius, a public-relations expert, a confessor to hundreds of people who have ‘stumped their toes’.…”
With these words Morris announced that he was leaving the South Miami Baptist Church this month to take up an itinerant evangelistic ministry. The statement was published in The Miami Herald. The 33-year-old Morris said his last act as pastor would be to break ground at the church for a million-dollar building program.
He said his resignation was also a “protest against denominational programs which require the whole week to be spent attending meetings, conferences, committees, etc., and leave Saturday night for sermon preparation. A protest against ecclesiastical machines which measure success by attendance records, larger budgets, and million-dollar building programs …
“A protest against a schedule which leaves no time for prayer, contemplation and scholarship. A protest against a system which makes out of the minister everything except what God expects him to be—a spiritual leader and preacher of the Word.”
Morris asserted that “modern churches are creating an ecclesiastical ‘Frankenstein’ that one day may turn on them and devour them. No man, forced by the prescribed program to spend all his time in meetings, can have a vital, relevant message from God. If our churches are filled with immature ‘pew warmers’ and spiritual ‘pygmies,’ it may be because they have been fed on a diet of sermons hastily prepared 30 minutes prior to their delivery …
“The layman, through a subtle brainwashing, has been led to believe that he can gauge his spirituality by the number of meetings attended, by faithfulness to a program of church activities. The more meetings attended, the greater the dedication is the standard of excellence.”
Morris recalled that “a comparable situation was developing in the first church at Jerusalem. The size of the congregation had increased to the point that the disciples, called to be spiritual leaders, found themselves engulfed in secondary matters. They were ‘serving tables’—arbiters, negotiating, seeking to establish good relations between the two factions in the church.
“Fortunately it was not long until these men realized the folly of giving priority to the secondary. Consequently they called the church into conference saying, ‘It is not right for us to forsake the Word of God and serve tables.’ This is a message desperately needed today.
“It is never right for any activity-even fine, noble activities—to take precedence over the study and proclamation of the Word. It is not that a pastor is above ‘waiting tables.’ Rather, to be continuously involved in ‘table waiting’ robs him of his primary task.
“In the face of this crisis the disciples requested that the Jerusalem congregation ‘set aside’ several men to settle disputes and attend to business matters. The disciples could then give themselves ‘continually to prayer, and the ministry of the Word.…”
“If a minister is to have God’s message he must recapture this concept of his calling.”
Later, Morris emphasized that “I am not opposed to taking care of the spiritual needs of my people. When one of my members has needed me, I have been right there … but what I was talking about was the piddling things which take up a man’s time when he should be studying.”
Morris says he will hold meetings as a Southern Baptist evangelist and that he already has more invitations than he can handle. He will do his own administrative work, but he said he will refer inquirers to the pastor of the church in which he is preaching. Morris had been an evangelist for 12 years prior to taking up the Miami pastorate two years ago. The church currently has a membership of about 1,600.
He said he is not opposed to organization as such, but to the “subtle tyranny” in organization “wherein you begin to give priority to other than God.”
The reaction? Observers said the reaction was divided quite sharply between clergy and laity. Clergymen tended to question the wisdom of his move, although sympathizing with the problem. Laymen by and large supported him.
Laurence W. Lange
Among victims of the March 1 crash of commercial jetliner near New York International Airport were Dr. and Mrs. Laurence W. Lange. Lange, who worked with the United Presbyterian Board of National Missions as a consultant to theological seminaries, was to have preached the sermon at Easter sunrise services in Jerusalem to be held by the Jerusalem Protestant Fellowship.
Lange and his wife were on the first leg of a two-month tour of missions in Asia and the Middle East. The 53-year-old clergyman had worked for a number of years as a personnel specialist. He was ordained in 1958 following study at Biblical, Union, and Princeton Theological Seminaries.
People: Words And Events
Deaths: Pastor Philippe Poincenot, 76, prominent French Lutheran leader; in Montbeliard, France … Clyde H. Dennis, 48, founder of Good News Publishers; in Los Angeles.
Resignations: As executive secretary of the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association, the Rev. J. O. Percy … as director of the American Baptist Division of Christian Social Concern, Dr. John W. Thomas.
Appointments: As director of U.N.-U.S. Interpretation of the National Council of Churches’ Department of International Affairs, Dr. Vernon L. Ferwerda … as dean of the graduate school Dallas Theological Seminary, Dr. Charles C. Ryrie, who since 1958 has been president of Philadelphia College of Bible … as pastor of Charlotte Chapel (Baptist) in Edinburgh, Scotland, Dr. Alan Redpath, who for nine years has been pastor of Moody Memorial Church in Chicago … as moderator-designate of the Irish Presbyterian General Assembly, Dr. John H. Davey.
Award: To Dr. James R. Mutchmor, secretary of the board of evangelism and social service of the United Church of Canada, the annual Upper Room Citation “for his contribution to world Christian fellowship.”
Elections: As president of the Protestant Council of the City of New York, Dr. Arthur L. Kinsolving … as bishop of Württemberg, Germany, Dr. Erich Eichele … as moderator of the Greek Evangelical Church, the Rev. Michael Kyriakakis.
