A Fortnightly report of developments in religion
The Southern Baptists had come to San Francisco. Of this there can be no doubt. As this reporter registered at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, he heard someone asking for Professor Ralph Elliott, a name currently denoting theological controversy. Emerging later into the bright sunlight of Powell Street, the first site greeting the eye was that of two former presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention clanging down Nob Hill in a cable car. J. D. Grey shouted gaily to the conductor. A frown momentarily creased Ramsey Pollard’s face. He could have been wondering about a loose cable. Or his mind may have turned to a convention battle looming ahead, undesired but seemingly as irresistible as the chilling fog of San Francisco.
Prior to this gathering of the Southern Baptist Convention (June 5–8), there had even been talk of possible schism. Southern Baptists in general were becoming increasingly aware of what even outsiders in academic circles had known for several years—that many professors in Southern Baptist seminaries no longer teach the high doctrine of biblical inspiration commonly held by ministers and laymen of the denomination. The foremost immediate trigger of controversy was a book: The Message of Genesis by Dr. Elliott, professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City. The book, published in 1961 by Broadman Press—the general book identification of the convention’s Sunday School Board, reportedly denies the historicity of the first 11 chapters of Genesis and has been the subject of many controversial columns in state Baptist papers. The pastor of Houston’s First Baptist Church, K. Owen White, had charged the book with liberalism stemming from “the rationalistic theology of Wellhausen and his school.”
The Sunday School Board defended publication of the book, contending it to be “representative of a segment of Southern Baptist life and thought.” Midwestern Seminary’s trustees in special session late in 1961 reaffirmed their confidence in Elliott—reportedly by a 14 to 7 vote—as “a loyal servant of Southern Baptists.” The possibility was later raised that a substitute slate of trustees would be submitted to the national convention, inasmuch as its Executive Committee ruled such matters to be the responsibility of the trustees.
This is not the only seminary feeling the winds of controversy. The trustees of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, North Carolina, have said certain faculty members would be “required to re-examine” their doctrine in the perspective of the seminary’s Abstract of Principles. Reportedly at issue were pronounced Bultmannian views in the New Testament department.
An Expansion Into Canada?
San Francisco symbolized the westward and northward thrust of the Southern Baptist Convention, which has stretched to Hawaii and Alaska in including all 50 states. The more than 10,000 official messengers present, as against 6,400 in 1951 in the only other meeting in San Francisco, reflected the booming growth of California’s Southern Baptists in that period from 40,000 to 165,544 members. In 1951 a now famous resolution removed all geographical barriers to U. S. expansion.
In recent years there have been pressures to enter Canada by seating messengers from churches in Western Canada. This year’s convention site, centered among expansionist-minded western Southern Baptists, seemed ideal for the climactic effort in face of denominational leadership which was generally opposed on grounds of the potential harm to relationships with Canadian Baptists. The convention voted to continue its encouragement of indigenous Baptist work in Canada. Later came a debate on amending the constitution to permit Southern Baptist entry into Canada. Proponents of the amendment pointed to the Great Commission and to the comparatively small number of Baptists in Canada—less than one per cent of the population. Opponents stressed the strength of Canadian nationalist feelings and potential harm to the Baptist World Alliance. A messenger who opposed the amendment moved it be referred to the Executive Committee for study. The motion carried by a vote of 2,696 to 2,042.
And at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, Professor Dale Moody has been under fire for his views, among others, on ecumenism and on the perseverence of the saints.
With these various agitations becoming pronounced in late winter and spring, San Francisco began to assume the dimensions of a showdown site. And it favored the conservatives, who are strongest in the Southwest and West. The tone of the gathering was indicated before the convention opened. The volume and placement of “Amens” at the Pastors’ Conference just prior to the convention indicated the conservative bent of the “messengers” (not delegates, for under autonomous Baptist polity nothing is delegated). A standing ovation followed an address by British Baptist J. Sidlow Baxter, who correlated the historicity of the early chapters of Genesis with the Lordship of Christ, and said: “We Baptists always have been champions of the duty of private judgment, but liberty to interpret the Bible never meant liberty to discredit the Bible.”
Just over an hour later, famed preacher R. G. Lee, a former three-term convention president, departed from his text long enough to throw his great prestige behind an “inerrant Bible.”
Once the convention proper got under way, the weight of responsibility for the impending trial fell upon the broad shoulders of Herschel H. Hobbs, who was re-elected by acclamation to a second one-year term as convention president. He is pastor of Oklahoma City’s First Baptist Church and radio preacher on “The Baptist Hour.” More than once he was referred to as the “man of the hour for the convention,” and he seemed to fit the designation. His fairness and folksy humor as chairman helped to ease tension. In his presidential address he sketched the development of theological liberalism and neo-orthodoxy along with their shortcomings. He also indicated opposition to extreme forms of fundamentalism. Noting that Southern Baptists were scarcely touched in the modernist-fundamentalist controversy of the twenties, he indicated that some Southern Baptist theologians have sought to “adjust Southern Baptist faith” to the neo-orthodox position. He said Southern Baptists had a right to be concerned about their educational institutions, though he went on to defend the majority of seminary professors. Hobbs indicated the need for a “delicate balance between academic freedom and academic responsibility.” In a move commonly interpreted as an attempt to avoid a hot theological clash on the floor, the convention’s Executive Committee recommended creation of a special committee to study the possibility of rewriting or adding to a statement of faith and purpose adopted by the convention in 1925. The committee would be composed of presidents of the state conventions who would present a statement a year hence to serve as “guidelines” to the various convention agencies. The recommendation was unanimously adopted.
But not all were yet satisfied. The convention later unanimously reaffirmed “their faith in the entire Bible as the authoritative, authentic, infallible Word of God.” Then after spirited debate, the following statement was overwhelmingly adopted: “That we express our abiding and unchanging objection to the dissemination of theological views in any of our seminaries which would undermine such faith in the historical accuracy and doctrinal integrity of the Bible, and that we courteously request the trustees and administrative officers of our institutions and other agencies to take such steps as shall be necessary to remedy at once those situations where such view’s now threaten our historic position.”
Dr. Clyde Francisco, professor of Old Testament interpretation at Southern Baptist Seminary, was quoted in the course of debate as fearing Elliott had opened the door of Pandora’s box. A motion to instruct the Sunday School Board to cease printing Elliott’s book was defeated.
The Southern Baptist Convention had averted a crisis, at least for the time being, had maintained its large and effective Cooperate Program for home and foreign missions (among other areas), and had made some striking affirmations for this day and age.
Graham’S Greatest?
Soon after the opening of the Greater Chicago Crusade in McCormick Place exhibition hall, it was apparent that this was a campaign worthy of a special chapter in the life story of evangelist Billy Graham. The estimated 33,500 who turned out for the initial service on Memorial Day represented the largest opening day crowd of any of his crusades. Subsequent turn-outs ran as high as 50,000. As many as 42,000 got into the hall, with the remainder being turned away.
The 19-day crusade was one of the the shortest he has ever held in a major metropolitan area. But some observers also felt that it was perhaps the most intensive. The crusade was scheduled to be climaxed with a June 17 rally at Soldier Field, which seats more than 100,000.
One of the highlights of Graham’s stay in Chicago was a Sunday morning service at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Some 5,000 were on hand, and more than 1,000 of these raised hands at the close of the service as a sign of their willingness to receive Christ.
Jungle Raid
In the jungle highlands 150 miles northeast of Saigon lies an American missionary leprosarium which fell victim to a night raid by a band of Vietnamese communist guerillas last month. The Vietcong raiders scooped up food and medical supplies, ordered the 250 leper patients to return to their villages, then fled with three American missionaries.
Those seized were:
Dr. Eleanor A. Vietti, 35, medical director of the leprosarium, of Houston, Texas.
The Rev. Archie Mitchell, 44, of Ellensburg, Washington, whose wife and four children fled to safety along with four American nurses who were stationed at the leprosarium.
Daniel Gerber, 21, of Dalton, Ohio, a Mennonite who worked as a maintenance man at the leprosarium.
Mitchell had been in the news before. He was the only survivor of a Japanese fire bomb explosion that killed six picnickers in southern Oregon during World War II. The six were apparently the only victims of direct enemy attack on the continental United States during the war. Mitchell’s first wife was one of the victims of the explosion.
The Vietnamese leprosarium had been operated by the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Dr. Vietti and Mitchell are CMA missionaries. Gerber was a conscientious objector who was serving at the leprosarium to fulfill his obligation under the U. S. military draft law.
Graham’s schedule calls for a July 8 appearance at the Century 21 Exposition in Seattle and a crusade in Fresno, California, July 15–22. In the fall he will go to South America for the second time this year for meetings in Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay.
Portions of the Chicago crusade have been recorded on film and video tape and will be presented in a series of hour-long television programs from coast to coast. More than 150 stations will carry the telecasts for five successive nights. Here is a partial list of the stations:
Of the stations listed above, most will begin the series June 25. Washington, Minneapolis, and Tampa will begin July 6.
Television stations in many other cities will begin the series July 2. Graham spokesmen said time and station particulars will be announced in local newspapers and TV guides.
Publishing Agreement
Eternity magazine announced this month that an agreement had been reached whereby it will be associated with The Sunday School Times under a common board of directors.
Dr. Russell T. Hitt will assume the role of publisher of both periodicals while retaining the post of editor of Eternity. The Rev. James W. Reapsome will continue as editor of the Times. William J. Petersen, formerly managing editor of Eternity, has been named executive editor.
Dr. C. Stacey Woods has resigned as president of the Times and will devote his full time to serving as general secretary of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students.
Woods will continue to serve as a contributing editor to both magazines. Dr. Philip E. Howard, Jr., former president and editor of the Times, will continue to serve as a consulting editor for that publication.
A Baptist Milestone
Freedom and liberty! These were the key words in a high hour for the American Baptist Convention, assembled in Philadelphia, May 23–27, to mark a milestone in its history: dedication of a new $8 million administrative headquarters building in nearby Valley Forge. More than the usual number of delegates and visitors, some 10,000 from churches in 42 states (total membership: more than 1,500,000), saw the meetings reach their climax on the next to the last day. In the morning they gathered at Independence Square to hear Baptists Harold Stassen and Nelson Rockefeller. Stassen, now a Philadelphia attorney, read a proclamation of freedom which was a summons to renewal of the fight for man’s right to enjoy “his God-given freedoms.” The fight was traced back to ‘76 and projected ahead to an impending atomic Armageddon which threatens freedom by threatening man’s existence. New York’s Governor Rockefeller pointed back to an American heritage of “fundamental beliefs in the brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God,” and pointed ahead to the goal of its universal fulfillment.
The celebration of freedom, which for Baptists of this continent extends back to the Rhode Island of Roger Williams, then took the form of a twenty-mile “Cavalcade of Freedom” along the Schuylkill River (once used by early Baptists for immersion of converts) to Valley Forge by means of a fleet of city buses. There, within sight of the heights where Washington’s Continental Army encamped through its agonizing winter of 1777–78, the delegates were dazzled by a white concrete three-story building in circular form which has been acclaimed for its ethereal, floating quality. This was the new office center which was bringing together for the first time 800 staff workers who had previously been scattered in offices in New York and Philadelphia.
President Kennedy’s telegram of “warm greetings” was read, and Dr. Edwin H. Tuller, who had been re-elected to a three-year term as convention general secretary, described the circular structure as a symbol of unity and eternity. “Baptists were in the forefront,” he recalled, “of those who lived and died to establish a land in which freedom and liberty, under God, were to be cherished and maintained as sacred trusts from one generation to the next.”
Prior to Valley Forge celebrations, the delegates had conducted business in mammoth Convention Hall, and among their actions were these:
• Election as convention president of Dr. Benjamin P. Browne, who last year became president of Chicago’s Northern Baptist Theological Seminary.
• Advocacy of “legislation providing for medical care to the aged through a financially and actuarilly sound Federal system which will enable people to set aside funds during their productive years to take care of need in unproductive years.”
• Call for restriction of “use of beverage alcohol in our national capital buildings, thus preserving our governmental center as an example of the highest influence of American tradition.”
Day before the convention assembled, its policy-making General Council had admitted to convention membership the church of which Martin Luther King is copastor with his father: Ebenezer Baptist Church of Atlanta, Georgia, which also retains its membership in the National Baptist Convention in the U.S.A., Inc. Before giving one of the major convention addresses, King told the press that President Kennedy “has not lived up to his campaign promises about integration,” and that he hoped Kennedy would learn that “the high cost of prejudice is as injurious as the high cost of steel.”
The General Council also admitted into the American Baptist Convention as an affiliated body the 7,139-member Baptist Convention of Puerto Rico.
Amid the bright sunlight of celebration and ceremony, some heard a distant thunderclap in a report on theological education which was presented to delegates in digest form for study prior to expected action on it at next year’s convention in Detroit. The report, prepared by a “Committee of Seventeen,” declares that the denomination’s eight seminaries, “from the point of view of convenient access and available resources, … are not well-placed,” and indicates that relocation and merger are in order. Some seminary and faculty members have detected in the report a bias against the seminaries founded to serve churches which would not accept the liberal products of the older seminaries. The warning was voiced that immediate action along the report’s recommended lines could prove dangerous and divisive.
On the last day, the convention sermon found itself dressed in the vivid prose of Dr. Lee V. Shane, pastor of National Baptist Memorial Church, Washington, D. C., who issued a call for the freedom found in “unreserved commitment to Jesus Christ.” His hope and plea: “that here an entire denomination girded itself with new ardor and became orchestrated with the power of the Holy Spirit.”
F. F.
The Good Word For 1962 (Jargon-Wise)
Editor A. C. Forrest expresses his impatience with ecclesiastical jargon in the current issue of the United Church (of Canada) Observer. He confesses a bewilderment at the “goo of mid-twentieth-century ecclesiastical jargon.”
Forrest wrote the criticism upon returning to his Toronto office after a session with public relations and communications experts in the United States. He learned, he said, that the church’s prime concern now is for “person-centered communication.”
“We found it a fuddy-duddy language coined by enthusiastic religionists and adopted thoughtlessly by eager, sincere persons,” the editor declared. “They are tempted to substitute slogans for thoughts and change the slogans every time their listeners suspect their confusion, or their employers grow weary of poor results.”
After “fellowshipping with the togetherness boys,” he added, he came to understand why ministers and workers fill their wastebaskets with unread letters and pamphlets “that flow unedited from the Dictaphone-filled rooms of denominational headquarters.”
“The good word for 1962 is this,” said Forrest:
“Church HQ personnel are not going to fragment their confrontation any more: their re-coordinated effort has been dynamized to unleash the impulse that will give impetus to their impact. We have been sensitized by the feed-back from the field that there has been a fractionating of the Gospel at the ground level. So an interdenominational and interboard committee will be set up to seek representation from coast to coast, in order to structure a total curriculum in depth, designed to unfractionate the message so that all Gospel-motivated and theologically oriented persons of all sociological strata, may experience the wholeness of the Church.”
Identification Problem
A motion to change the name of the Unitarian Universalist Association to “The Liberal Church of America” was defeated by a resounding voice vote last month at the newly-merged body’s first annual convention in Washington, D. C.
The proposal was submitted by First Unitarian Church of Medfield, Massachusetts, which complained that the present name of the association “does not indicate our liberal religious approach.”
Speakers opposing the move expressed fear that the term would become mixed in people’s minds with politics.
The Rev. Charles Eddis of Quebec said that, with the Liberal Party under fire for its conservatism in Canadian politics, “the name would go over about as well in Canada as ‘the Democratic Church of the South’ would in Maine.”
A Christmas Stamp
U. S. Postmaster General J. Edward Day says a special postage stamp will be issued this year that will be “especially appropriate for Christmas cards.” The United States has never issued a stamp for Christmas mail, although many other countries do.
The Christmas-theme stamp was termed “bad news” by Dr. Glenn L. Archer, executive director of Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State: “We have long held that religious enterprise does not need government promotion, and would do better without it.”
Church-State Offices
The National Council of Churches opened a United Nations office last month “to help create a working center and symbol of Protestant and Eastern Orthodox churches’ concern for peace.” Said the Rev. Kenneth L. Maxwell, executive director of the NCC Department of International Affairs:
“We must seek more effectively to represent the work of the churches at the U. N. and interpret the work of the U. N. to the churches.”
Last January the NCC also set up a special Peace Corps office, which conducted this month a one-day conference for 75 denominational leaders with Peace Corps Director R. Sargent Shriver, Jr.
Protestant Panorama
• The Presbytery of New York appointed a special nine-member judicial commission this month to try Dr. Stuart H. Merriam, ousted minister of Broadway Presbyterian Church, on charges of “untruthfulness” and “tale bearing.” The presbytery also voted to rescind its approval of the congregation’s call to the clergyman.
• Pentecostal church now under construction in São Paulo, Brazil, will be the largest in the world, according to its builders. The sanctuary will seat 25,000. A pinnacle will rise some 400 feet and will be topped by an open concrete Bible 50 feet wide and 45 feet high.
• Princeton Theological Seminary plans to establish a School for Advanced Theological Studies. President James I. McCord said the school must be provided “at an early date” if the seminary has as a “principal assignment” the duty of becoming the “intellectual center of the Church.”
• A Fundamental Baptist Congress will be held in Detroit, September 30-October 3, 1963. It is being billed as “one of the most widely representative gatherings that has ever been held among Baptists in North America.” Speakers are said to represent Regular Baptists, Conservative Baptists, the Baptist Bible Fellowship, and the Trans-Canada Fellowship of Evangelical Baptists.
• Bishop Lajos Ordass, ousted head of the Lutheran Church in Hungary, is “recuperating slowly” following a serious heart attack last April in Budapest, according to Ecumenical Press Service.
• The principal weekly journal of the Church of God is changing its name from Gospel Trumpet to Vital Christianity.
• The Peoples Church of Toronto reported a “faith-promise offering” for missions totaling $325,000 following the close of the church’s annual missionary convention last month.
• The Christian Medical Society reported last month that during the past year it had distributed some $2,300,000 in drugs and medical supplies to 440 doctors, serving under 84 mission boards in 70 countries.
Charismatic Revival
Anglican officials estimate that some 7,200 persons attended five services of a divine healing mission conducted a few weeks ago at St. Paul’s Church in Toronto.
The response supports a theory of certain religious observers that a charismatic revival is beginning to sweep across North America. A number of churches in large denominations have reported new interest in divine healing and speaking in tongues.
The mission at St. Paul’s, regarded by many as the most fashionable Anglican church in Canada, was conducted by Dr. Alfred Price, rector of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Philadelphia and warden of the International Order of St. Luke the Physician, an interdenominational organization stressing Christian healing.
More than 2,000 flocked to the altar for the laying on of hands by Price and a team of priests, including Canon R. P. Dann, rector.
Among those who came to the altar were crippled children in wheelchairs, a group of Salvation Army women, beatniks, and fashionably dressed persons.
In his sermons, Price listed several methods of avoiding illnesses, according to Religious News Service. He warned against an excess of alcohol and against social diseases and told the congregations to keep physically fit.
The Challenge Of Liberty
The verbal storm occasioned by American aid to Roman Catholic-dominated education in Colombia subsided this month. Upshot of the ruckus is that no strings are attached to the 40 million U. S. tax dollars earmarked for the Colombian school program under the Alliance for Progress.
A flurry of press reports first affirmed—then denied—that U. S. officials had secured guarantees in the aid agreement protecting educational rights of non-Catholics. As it stands now, the protection lies with assurances by the Colombian Minister of Education that guarantees of the constitution of Colombia will be in force. The constitution declares:
“The Government guarantees freedom of conscience.… No one shall be molested because of his religious opinions, nor compelled to profess beliefs or to observe practices contrary to his conscience.
“Freedom is guaranteed to all cults which are not contrary to Christian morals or to law. Acts contrary to Christian morals or subversive to the public order and which are executed in connection with or under the pretext of religious worship shall be subject to common law.
“The Government may make agreements with the Holy See, subject to the subsequent approval of Congress, for the regulation of, on the basis of reciprocal deference and mutual respect, relations between the State and the Catholic Church.”
U.S. aid officials apparently feel that discriminatory practices can be kept to a minimum through enforcement of the Colombian constitution. Roman Catholic leaders in Colombia, on the other hand, resort to the Concordat and Mission Agreement of 1953 (the work of a dictatorial regime and never ratified by the Colombian Congress).
Upon hearing an erroneous report that Colombia had agreed to write non-discriminatory religious clauses into all future Alliance for Progress loan agreements for education, the Presidential Palace in Bogotá issued a statement denying there had been such an agreement and adding that Colombia would accept no money under that condition.
The Colombian government’s stand won applause from the Catholic Worker, official organ of the Archdiocese of Medellin, which declared that “the Colombian government as the representative of a Catholic public and the guardian of the Constitution which considers the Catholic religion as the official religion of Colombia … has the obligation to venerate, to protect and to respect the Concordat with the Holy See and protect Colombian education from any efforts to free it from the church’s direction and control.”
The program for more educational facilities in Colombia provides that its government supply about half the necessary funds with the United States supplying the other half. The U. S. funds are not to be used in the so-called mission territory, where Protestant schools are prohibited. Some observers see this as a mere bookkeeping distinction, inasmuch as American aid frees Colombian funds for the mission territory, which embraces 75 per cent of the country.
Currently there are some 325 Protestant missionaries working in Colombia, most of them evangelicals. Their interests are represented by the Evangelical Confederation of Colombia, which has approved in principle the Alliance for Progress aid to Colombia schools. The confederation’s statement of assent was accompanied by appeals for anti-discriminatory guarantees in behalf of Protestants.
Most sources close to the situation acknowledge that there are serious church-state problems inherent in U. S. aid to Colombian education. Perhaps the most obvious is that it could conceivably set a precedent for domestic policy. Many observers see a strange inconsistency in the fact that U. S. tax money will help to build 22,000 classrooms for children in Colombia, whereas the U. S. Congress has thus far withheld direct federal aid to American public schools.
Another apparent paradox is that although Colombia’s educational needs are desperate, the government there has shown no signs of attempting to re-open some 200 Protestant schools which have been closed down by authorities in the last 15 years.
One explanation lies with the difficulty the central government in Colombia has in carrying through its policy to the local level. This distinction between central and local governments is emphasized by Dr. C. Emanuel Carlson, whose eight-page study of U. S. aid to Colombian education is the best available.
Carlson, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, also says:
“Probably there can be no easy solution to the problems of a culture and society that have travailed for freedom as Colombia has, but the present situation does present a clear challenge to practice the constitutional protection of religious liberty with greater care.”
Guatemala For Christ
“Guatemala shall be for Christ, if united we witness for Him.”
With this as their theme song, Christians in Guatemala are joining in an “evangelism-in-depth” campaign coordinated by Latin America Mission.
Some 4,345 daily weekly or prayer groups are said to have been organized in homes since the year-long campaign began in February.
On June 10 a house-to-house visitation program and local church evangelistic campaigns got under way.
Among other summer activities are week-long campaigns in the nation’s 20 penitentiaries, hundreds of children’s Bible clubs, open-air meetings with sound trucks and moving pictures, youth rallies, and special efforts to reach professions, students, and industrial workers. Extensive use of radio and television is expected to build up until a united national evangelistic campaign is held in Guatemala City in November.
Scots Debate The Sabbath
The moderator announced a paraphrase, the precentor struck up the tune “Irish,” and some 1,800 voices unimpeded by any instrumental accompaniment made Edinburgh Assembly Hall resound with “How glorious Sion’s courts appear.” The annual general assembly of the Church of Scotland was in session. From the border town of Annan to the island county of Shetland, and from outposts of the Kirk in such places as Buenos Aires, Bermuda, Gibraltar, Bombay and Nyasaland came the 1,400 ministers and elders entitled this year to participate in what is often regarded as the Parliament of Scotland.
At the opening service earlier in the day in St. Giles’, Edinburgh, Dr. A. C. Craig, the retiring moderator, cited his Vatican visit and approvingly quoted the words, “Remember, you can’t either speak the truth or speak it in love unless you begin to speak.” This was later underlined by the Lord High Commissioner (the Queen’s representative), the Earl of Mansfield, when the assembly was formerly constituted and Dr. Nevile Davidson of Glasgow Cathedral elected moderator. To those who felt uneasy about the Rome meeting Lord Mansfield pointed out that their faith could scarcely be undermined by a mere exchange of courtesies. But it was the Queen’s letter, read to the assembly, which really went to the heart of the matter. “Surely,” it said, “the Church of Scotland has here a great treasure to offer; the vigour to serve and the faith to grasp the truth that only by drawing near to God can we draw nearer to each other.”
Later in opening day an attempt to see in the proposed moderatorial emblem (John Knox’s hat with two tassels) a hierarchical doctrine of the ministry was rejected by a large majority. The assembly agreed to send a message of congratulation to “our sister communion south of the Border” on the occasion of the consecration of the new cathedral at Coventry. Among those listening to the debates on the opening day were the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Archbishop of York, and the Archbishop of Uppsala, Primate of the Lutheran Church of Sweden, with which the Church of Scotland is in communion.
Features of the assembly included disclosure that only 45 ordinands finish their course this year (the Kirk needs 120 annually); rejection of a petition by the Duchess of Hamilton, who argued persuasively that a report on Africa was apparently deficient in its Christian doctrine of man (the report also asserted that the Central African Federation could scarcely survive in its present form); disclosure of an unhappy state of tension between the missions of the Dutch Reformed Churches and the Church of Scotland in Tiberias; and a recommendation to all courts and committees of the Kirk who hold shares in tobacco companies to dispose of their holdings and reinvest the proceeds elsewhere.
An official proposal to dissolve the Presbytery of Jerusalem was unexpectedly rejected after a former moderator of that presbytery had pointed out that here was an ecumenical opportunity. “As the moderator,” he claimed, “I was treated as if I were a beatitude.”
After a three-hour debate on baptism the assembly adopted an overture designed “to prevent ministers being a law unto themselves” and to eliminate indiscriminate administration. This will now go to presbyteries for consideration.
Public interest was especially evident in three of the assembly’s sessions: those dealing with Sabbatarianism, Rome, and nuclear weapons. The first of these proved to be most far-reaching, for it involved official sponsorship of a less rigid adherence to the traditional Scottish Sunday. The significance in this is clearly seen in terms of an unsuccessful counter-motion that the assembly “uphold the statement of the Westminster Confession of Faith on the Lord’s Day as being in agreement with the Word of God, the Teaching and Example of Our Lord, and the practice of Calvin and his colleagues.” In replying, the convener of the Church and Nation Committee, the Rev. John R. Gray, said: “The Westminster Confession is not infallible. To hold that it is, is to take the position that tradition can become infallible, and that is not the position of the Reformed Church.” Mr. Gray said the Confession was a headland, marking the way by which our church had come, but that we should not be tied to it forever. “I am sorry to find myself in disagreement on this issue with some in the Church of Scotland and outside whose integrity I respect, but I would plead with them … to ask themselves if our Lord really wants from the city youth or girl a kind of sullen idleness throughout all the hours of Sunday, and from the city child an exasperated restlessness, ‘wearying for the end of this punishment’.”
The assembly agreed that the General Administration Committee should examine the situation arising from the acceptance of the report on “The Christian Use of Sunday” and, if so advised, prepare a draft act for submission to presbyteries. It is not at all clear whether the majority of commissioners realized that what was decided may well commit the church to a most radical departure from its historic regard for the Westminster Confession as its subordinate standard of faith.
Regarding relations with the Roman Catholic Church, one or two minor storms blew up, and only some adroit replies from officials of the Inter-Church Relations Committee saw this report through without more serious opposition. Even so, the assembly agreed to two addenda. One of these instructed the committee to consider also the question of Presbyterian re-union in Scotland (which still has four smaller Presbyterian churches); the other stated in the firmest terms that informal meetings between Church of Scotland and Roman Catholic representatives were to be regarded in no way as steps toward union. Even this did not seem to offset the disquiet felt by some speakers, one of whom referred ominously to those ministers who “felt moved to leave the Church in 1843” (i.e., at the Disruption) on less provocation than was afforded by Dr. Craig’s visit to the Pope. Dr. Craig himself had earlier admitted that during his moderatorial year he had found throughout the country profound disquiet in connection with that visit.
Before a “Ban the Bomb” debate, about 100 members of the Edinburgh branch of the Council for Nuclear Disarmament stood silently with bowed heads as commissioners entered the Assembly Hall. This “greatest moral issue of our time” has recently led in Britain to mass demonstrations on a scale unknown in the United States, and to the fining or imprisonment of thousands, including aristocrats, professors and clergy. In the course of a two-hour debate a typical impassioned speech by the pacifist Dr. George MacLeod brought overwhelming applause from the house—and typical rejection of his proposals. The assembly refused to set up a separate committee on the subject, evidently considering that the two conflicting viewpoints could never be reconciled. It did urge, however, that Britain, in consultation with NATO, should abandon its nuclear deterrent, take all possible steps toward the abolishment of weapons of mass destruction, and accept nuclear inspection.
Meanwhile, the much smaller Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, meeting across the street, and the Synod of the Free Presbyterian Church, meeting in Glasgow, each in its way showed itself in variance with the Establishment. Said a motion at the former: “The greatest obstacle to Christian unity and to the progress of the Gospel in the world is Romanism, because it tragically misrepresents the Christian faith both in the letter and in the spirit.” To this assembly the Church of Scotland significantly sent a delegate for the first time in a number of years. When he spoke, however, a number of elders quietly left. They returned after he had finished.
The Free Presbyterians, anticipating Church of Scotland proposals that sections of the Westminster Confession might be revised, stated their objection in typical forthright fashion. “My message to Dr. Davidson and his contemporaries is—keep your modernistic hands off the Confession of Faith,” said the Rev. R. R. Sinclair, clerk of synod. “If they want a new Confession of Faith, they should not revise the present Confession of 1643, but draw up a separate confession that will satisfy themselves.”
J. D. D.
Out Of The Ruins
On the night of November 14–15, 1940, more than a year before Pearl Harbor, Nazi bombers destroyed the cathedral at Coventry, an industrial town 92 miles inland from London. On May 25, 1962, the Queen and Princess Margaret walked through the ruins to the new cathedral for the service of consecration, the climax of 11 years’ work.
After a fanfare of trumpets the Bishop of Coventry, Dr. Cuthbert Bardsley, greeted the 2,000 worshipers, “In God’s name welcome to you all.” The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Arthur M. Ramsey, preached the dedicatory sermon. Within 48 hours some 50,000 people had visited the cathedral.
While much praise has been extended the new cathedral as a work of art, some adverse criticism also has been expressed. The structure has even been derided as a “pink power station” or glorified bus depot.
Architect Basil Spence has said, “I wanted to be traditional, and tradition has always been to build in a contemporary way.”
A sad note was struck a few days before the consecration in the death of Dr. Mervyn Haigh, who had been the local bishop when the former cathedral was destroyed.
Eichmann At The End
In death Adolf Eichmann proved to be an enigma.
The 56-year-old former Nazi officer, who was convicted of playing “a central and decisive part” in the killing of six million Jews, was the first man to be hanged in the 14-year-old state of Israel.
To a small group who witnessed the execution at Ramleh Prison near Tel Aviv, he said, “Long live Germany, long live, Argentina, long live Austria.… I had to obey the laws of war and my flag.”
For a number of weeks before his death, Eichmann had been counseled by the Rev. William Hull of Winnepeg, pastor of an evangelical congregation in Jerusalem.
Just before he dropped through the gallows trapdoor, Eichmann told the witnesses in German, “After a short while, gentlemen, we shall all meet again. So is the fate of all men. I have lived believing in God and I die believing in God.” In reaffirming belief, Eichmann used a term employed by Nazis who had left the church but still professed a belief in God.
Here is an account of Eichmann’s last moments as recalled by Hull:
The last meeting was an anticlimax, for we had been with him in the morning, Thursday, May 31, from 10 to 11 a.m. and found that now he had changed from his former cooperation and we no longer entertained any hope for his salvation unless it would be at the very final moment. We did not know at the morning visit that he would be executed that night. In fact, it had not been decided definitely at that time. In the morning we left him with the usual Auf Widersehen, and a promise that we would see him tomorrow.
At 8 p.m. that night we received word in Jerusalem from the Minister of Justice that we must be in Tel Aviv within one hour in order to attend Eichmann prior to the execution. Full arrangements had previously been made as to where we were to meet with newsmen (only four were pennitted to attend) and police and then to go to the execution. They had promised me that I would have about half an hour with him. In the event we had only about 20 or 25 minutes. The following is our conversation. It was not confidential, for it was listened to as usual by four police guards. H is Hull, E is Eichmann, and SPO is a special police officer.
We enter cell, 11:15 p.m.
H: Guten abend.
E: Guten abend. You look very sad. Why are you sad?
H: We are sad, because we know that your end is at hand. We kept warning you that it was near, now it has come. But if you will repent we will not be sad. Have you changed any in your attitude since this morning? Are you sorry for what you have done? Are you ready to repent?
E: No, I have not changed my mind. I am quite settled in my mind.
H: When were you told that the end is at hand?
E: Just a short time ago, about two hours. I was very astonished that they rushed things as they did in the appeal and now. But I have peace in my heart. In fact, I am astonished that I have such peace. When I consider the peace I have I say to myself how wonderful is my belief that it should give me such peace. Death frightens most people but not me for I know that I am right in believing as I told you in our discussions that death is but the release of the soul. In our discussions I mentioned how natural birth is parallel with the soul’s release at death. There is a design in nature which shows a plan with everything in order. It can’t be anything else. (He continued to talk on his God in nature as many times before. We did not take notes for it was merely repetition.) You are so sad and concerned about death but you see that I am not. (His face lit up with a big smile).
SPO: I have to limit your time. You have another five minutes.
H to SPO: Thank you.
H: We are sad because of your spiritual condition.
Mrs. H: You are blind and you won’t let God show you. I am here in place of your wife and you are so full of pride to make a good showing at the end that you do not even consider your wife and children, your little Haasi, and what they will have to try and live down because of the life you have led. You know how much they will suffer. If you would repent and let the world see that you are sorry for what you have done and accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour people would have more compassion for your family. You are a very selfish and proud man.
E: (Very excitedly) Nein, nein. I am not proud. That is one thing I am not. I am not proud.
SPO to us: Don’t get him too excited.
Mrs. H: Our time is very short so listen very carefully. This is the last we have to say, we have to leave you. Remember the thief on the cross. At the last minute he repented on the cross and asked Jesus to remember him when He would come into his Kingdom. At the last minute, maybe you will change your mind and want to get into the Kingdom too, instead of going to Hell.
H: Call on the name of Jesus.
Mrs. H: Call on the name of Jesus. All power in heaven and earth is in that name.
E: Is the Reverend going with me to the end?
Mrs. H: Yes, to the very end.
H: Do you have any special message you wish us to give your family?
E: I wrote my brother and my wife this afternoon but tell my wife that I took it calmly and that I had peace in my heart which guarantees to me that I am right.
H: Would you like us to send the German Bible that we gave you to your wife?
E: No, she has her own.
Mrs. H: But maybe she would like the one you used for the last few weeks of your life.
E: Yes, that would be nice, please send it to her.
We left then at 11:40 p.m. Mrs. Hull went down to the SPO’s office. I remained in SPO’s office in the death cell apartment while Eichmann was being prepared for the execution. He had denied Jesus Christ as Son of God; he claimed he did not need a mediator between him and God. He said that the Bible was written by men, that it was but Jewish stories and fables and that he did not believe it was the Word of God.
Eichmann strongly maintained he was ready to die with peace in his heart. He persisted in his belief to the end of our discussions. He gave every appearance of being happy, even cheerful and with no sign of fear. He appeared to welcome the end. As I sat in the office the police guard came in for a cupful of brandy. Eichmann had the appearance of a drunken man yet when the SPO came to tie his wrists and put on the handcuffs he asked for one minute in which to pray. This was granted him and he stood in the corner and prayed. Then he turned to the SPO and said, “I am ready.” He was hanged shortly before midnight.
After leaving the death cell in the morning the SPO said, “I wish that I may have the same opportunity before I die that you have given this man.”
