A fortnightly report of developments in religion
It was like a summer romance which seemingly flourished during the vacation season only to break off abruptly. Gone, but not forgotten.
The parties to the short-lived affair were the U. S. foreign aid program and religious enterprise abroad, a pair of institutions traditionally kept apart by the American principle of separation of church and state.
The love letter which sparked the romance was a 2,000-word statement officially labeled “Policy Determination No. 10” issued by the Agency for International Development, successor organization to the International Cooperation Administration. AID is the government instrument of technical assistance to underdeveloped countries and it dispenses about three or four billion U. S. dollars abroad each year.
AID’s policy determination, drawn up as a guide for agency personnel, spelled out the means whereby the U. S. foreign aid program could enter into partnership with missionary endeavors. It declared that funds could be channeled to religious organizations abroad for missionary schools and other projects which are compatible with overall objectives of the country concerned and which meet the approval of its government.
Appropriate safeguards were to be required, however, to assure that religious agencies involved “will not proselytize or discriminate or otherwise take advantage of the relationships with A.I.D.”
The implications of the policy aroused the reaction of numerous church-state observers nonetheless.
A spokesman for the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs had predicted that it would “cause grave concern to Protestants who feel strongly about church-state separation.”
Dr. Glenn L. Archer, executive director of Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and States, had charged that the policy amounted to “a flagrant violation of our long-standing church-state tradition.” “The charge being constantly leveled against our missionaries and against church groups abroad is that they are tools of United States imperialism,” Archer observed. “We know that such charges are false, but substance is given to them if these groups now commence to receive support from the U. S. Government.”
He added that “already these aid programs for churches abroad have inspired the complaint that we are discriminating agains our own churches here because we do not give them the same aid.”
Perhaps the most pointed reaction came from Editor E. S. James of the Baptist Standard of Texas. Within an hour after he had learned of AID’s policy statement, James fired off telegrams to President Kennedy, Vice President Johnson, and several Congressmen. James said he praised the President for keeping his campaign promises on church-state separation, then asserted that the announced AID policy was as clearly a constitutional violation of the Constitution as would be federal aid to parochial schools.
Kennedy replied with a friendly letter dated August 22 which disclosed that AID had withdrawn its statement.
Subsequently, AID Administrator Fowler Hamilton issued a notice to subordinates:
“Policy Determination No. 10 has given rise to misconceptions concerning the policy of the Agency regarding ‘religious organizations and the U. S. aid program.’ Therefore, it is hereby withdrawn and has no further force and effect. Henceforth, the Agency will continue to pursue the same policies that it and predecessor agencies have pursued in this regard during the past period of more than ten years. In view of the confusion that has arisen, I wish to make perfectly clear that the Agency in administrating the funds for which it is responsible will do so in full accord with the traditional constitutional principles that are applicable to this area.”
POAU applauded the withdrawal with a comment by Associate Director C. Stanley Lowell.
Aid’S Controversial Policy Determination
“Appendix A” was probably the most significant portion of the “policy determination” issued and then withdrawn by the Agency for International Development. The policy was designed to set forth guidelines as to how U. S. foreign aid funds could be tied in with missionary work. This portion spelled out the policy as it was to apply to religious educational activity. Here is the complete text of “Appendix A”:
A. I. D. basic policy regarding assistance to or through “religious organizations,” and its specific reference to technical assistance, govern all relevant education programs. Supplementary guidance concerning contracts with “religious organizations” and assistance to religious or religiously affiliated schools is provided best by examining the application of A. I. D. policy to instances which, in terms of past experience, are typical of the problems which arise. The following paragraphs are illustrations.
1. Requests have been received for direct assistance to U. S. religious organizations for their work abroad, e.g., a grant to a missionary group to build a missionary school in Africa.
If the Mission finds the request compatible with the country program, and if the request is submitted by, or with the support of, the host country’s government, favorable consideration is possible.
2. The question has been raised whether it is permissive under A. I. D. policy to enter into a contract with a U. S. or foreign religious organization to assist in carrying out an A. I. D. project, or a project which will help to accomplish A. I. D. aims; e.g., (a) a contract with the American Friends Service Committee for assistance in developing school gardens in Jordan; (b) a contract with the Koinonia Foundation for conducting a literacy program in Yemen.
A. I. D. would first make sure (a) that such a contractor is the best available one, (b) that the contractor is clearly agreeable to the host government and people, and (c) that there are built-in guarantees that the contractor will refrain from any activities which might give the project a religious content. With these three items satisfied, a favorable response would be within established A. I. D. policy.
3. Requests have been received from institutions or organizations which are not classified as religious organizations but the request is for religious purposes, e.g., to build a chapel.
The determining factor is the requirement of conformity of a request with A. I. D.’s objectives and technical assistance aims. Policy regarding religious organizations would not be pertinent.
4. Projects have been submitted which involve assistance to schools maintained by a religious organization, but recognized as part of the national school system; e.g., Catholic normal schools in Peru which are “fiscalized” institutions receiving some support and supervision by the Ministry of Education and recognized by law as adjuncts of the national system.
Provided that the status of the school in the national educational system of the host country has been verified, the situation discussed in illustration I becomes applicable.
5. Requests for assistance have reference to schools or school systems where religious instruction is a required or customary part of the curriculum, e.g., many national school systems in Latin America (Catholic) or in the Near East (Moslem).
The decisive factor is whether the schools meet the criteria indicated in 1 and 4 above. The presence or absence of religious instruction in the curriculum of a national school system is in itself not a determining element.
6. A rather frequent type of request received by the Agency and concerning assistance to a religiously affiliated school in a foreign country is the submission presented directly by a representative of that school.
In such instances the school official or organization representatives should be advised to submit the request as a host government proposal, or at least with host government endorsement, through A. I. D. Mission channels. The status of the school and its relationship to the national education system would be evaluated by the field mission and if the situation thus revealed were analogous to cases 1 and 4 above, the same considerations would apply.
“This is a wise move on the part of AID,” said Lowell. “To assist religious organizations abroad in ways that would be unconstitutional at home would create an intolerable dichotomy in government policy. We cannot have one set of rules for home games and another set for away games.”
The POAU official still had some misgivings, however: “What disturbs us is the lack of any assurance that the policy of AID will be changed to conform to the First Amendment. It is a good thing to change a wrong statement, but it is better to change a wrong practice.”
The Baptist Joint Committee declared:
“We are informed by responsible spokesmen in AID that the policies contained in the recent policy determination are those which have been in use by the U. S. government foreign aid program for more than 10 years. Accordingly, in our estimation, the issuance and withdrawal … opens for church-state analysis the whole policy field as developed in recent administrations.”
The AID policy had reportedly been approved by the agency’s executives on July 16, but there was no public announcement. Subsequently, copies were made available to some religious organizations engaged in overseas work.
The first public notice of the policy statement apparently was disseminated by the National Catholic Welfare Conference news service to diocesan papers. An NCWC newsman said his office first learned of the policy statement when it was distributed at a Chicago meeting of relief agency representatives.
The statement had declared that “where such projects make a vital contribution to economic development, A. I. D. may therefore furnish assistance through a qualified organization, even if such organization has religious affiliations. Our standards and criteria here do not turn on the question of the nature of the organization, but rather on the question of where our assistance can be most effective to economic development and at the same time not to religious activity.”
The statement implicitly recalled the strong public reaction which followed a decision to grant U. S. aid to schools in Colombia, where Roman Catholic influence is felt throughout the educational system. One portion cautioned that “domestic and foreign traditions, views and sensitivities require special consideration and, in some instances, additional guidance.”
An agency official had been quoted as saying that “the important thing is helping people, not arguing over who gets credit for it.”
Protestant Panorama
• A plan is being worked out to coordinate Lutheran pastoral ministries in health, welfare, and correctional institutions. Participating churches of the National Lutheran Council have ratified an agreement with the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod to establish a “consulting committee” for implementing the plan. Normally, pastors and chaplains will schedule Communion services for members of their own churches.
• Church World Service, relief agency of the National Council of Churches, announced an administrative reorganization effective September 1. New positions are being created and responsibilities reassigned. The CWS overseas staff is being strengthened. Executive Director Hugh D. Farley cited a transition from temporary relief to long-term rehabilitation as reason for the change.
• Fire caused an estimated $315,000 damage to the First Methodist Church of El Centro, California. The Rev. Jesse J. Roberson, pastor, said there was “indisputable evidence of arson.”
• Delegates to the 63rd convention of Gideons International were told that the organization has distributed more than 50,000,000 Bibles since its inception. More than 3,000,000 were passed out last year.
• A Church of Reconciliation built by German volunteers as a symbol of repentance for Nazi crimes was inaugurated on a hilltop near Taizé in Burgundy, headquarters of a Protestant monastic community.
• A controversy over local church autonomy resulted in the ouster of the Rev. Wayne Smith, moderator of the newly-formed North Carolina Association of Free Will Baptists, from his post as pastor of the First Free Will Baptist Church in Smithfield, North Carolina. The association was formed by members of the North Carolina Free Will Baptist Convention who opposed withdrawal from the National Association of Free Will Baptists in a factional dispute.
• Delegates to the 61st General Session of the Missionary Church Association endorsed a proposed merger with the Christian and Missionary Alliance. To become effective, the merger plan must still be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the members in 121 association congregations.
• Eternity magazine and The Sunday School Times called off plans to operate under a joint governing board. Both will continue to publish as separate ventures.
• Gospel musician Thurlow Spurr begins a nation-wide tour of his 30-member instrumental and vocal troupe on September 29 with a concert in Chicago. The Spurr group plans concerts in 100 U. S. cities within the next year.
• A new seminary is being opened in Jacksonville, Florida, this month. A number of Southern Baptist ministers are behind the project, but no official denominational ties have been established.
• The Upper Room, world’s most widely used daily devotional guide apart from the Bible itself, now has a circulation of 3,250,000 with an estimated readership of 10,000,000. It is published bi-monthly in 34 languages and 40 editions and is distributed in 100 countries.
• Some 3,000 Anglicans paraded through the streets of Georgetown, British Guiana, last month, marking the consecration of the Rt. Rev. Bernard Markham as Bishop of Nassau and the Bahamas.
• A $1,000,000 interdenominational Christian high school and junior college will be built in Menifee County, Kentucky. Spearheading the project is newspaper publisher Jerry F. Ringo, a Presbyterian layman.
• A number of Lutheran Free Church pastors and congregations say they will not join the proposed merger with the American Lutheran Church. The Rev. Richard Snipstead of Green-bush, Minnesota, says a conference of dissident congregations is tentatively set for October. Churches from other synods also are expected to become a part of the new association.
Jews Versus Jesuits
It was not only hypocritical. It was also unjust. And the Jews were not the only ones to know it. Noting “disturbing hints of heightened anti-Semitic feeling” in an editorial “To Our Jewish Friends,” the September 1 issue of the weekly Jesuit journal, America, warned of “intense efforts … being made in some Jewish quarters to close ranks and to exploit all the resources of group awareness, purposefulness and expertise that are to be found in the Jewish community.” The object of such an effort, the Jesuits believed, was an “all-out campaign to secularize the public schools and public life from top to bottom.”
The Jesuit editorial came in the wake of the June 25 decision of the Supreme Court which banned the use of the New York Board of Regents prayer in the state’s public schools. A number of Jewish organizations have been active in voicing their support of the court’s decision. “What will have been accomplished,” the editorial demanded, “if our Jewish friends win all the legal immunities they seek, but thereby paint themselves into a corner of social and cultural alienation?”
To Jewish leaders the “friendly warning” was little short of a direct threat of anti-Semitism. Replied the rabbis, in a statement issued jointly by the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, “America is encouraging the very evil it claims to be trying to avert.”
“What would be the Catholic reaction,” the reply queried shrewdly, “if a Jewish publication were to publish an editorial entitled ‘To Our Roman Catholic Friends’ warning Catholics to cease their campaign for public aid to parochial schools … lest a wave of anti-Catholic bigotry descend on the nation?”
At week’s end another Roman Catholic publication took issue with the Jesuit editorial. In a move which may give weight to suspicions of friction between laity and clergy within the Roman church, the lay magazine Commonweal observed, “If there is any real danger of anti-Semitism among Catholics then it is Catholics who ought to be warned.” The approach was termed “very odd.”
Lamenting Indifference
Protestant laymen are more than twice as zealous as Catholics in seeking to win converts, according to a priest who is director of the Bureau of Convert Research at the University of Notre Dame.
Writing in the August 25 issue of America, national Jesuit weekly, the Rev. John A. O’Brien charged that “the overwhelming majority of Catholics have never so much as lifted a finger to share their faith.”
Quoting from a survey compiled by the bureau, O’Brien said Catholics “need to learn effective techniques of sharing their faith, as only 17 per cent of those who tried were successful, as compared with 43 per cent successful Protestants.”
According to the statistics he cites, 59 per cent of all Protestants sought to interest others in membership in their churches, while the Catholic figure came to 28 per cent.
O’Brien says the data came from “the most extensive survey of this subject ever made.” He said the survey was conducted by the Catholic Digest and that a cross section representing 75.9 million people in the United States who attend some church were confronted with two separate questions:
1. “Have you ever tried to get anyone to join?”
2. “Did you ever succeed in getting anyone to join?”
A chart accompanying the article in America showed that 67 per cent of all Baptists try to win converts. The record for other groups was as follows: other small Protestant denominations, 61 per cent; Presbyterian, 59; Methodist, 56; Episcopal, 53; Lutheran, 49; and Congregational, 38.
A second chart involved percentages of members of various faiths who succeeded in winning converts. It showed that Presbyterians were successful 52 per cent of the time. Other group figures were: Baptist, 50 per cent; Episcopal, 45; other small Protestant denominations, 44; Methodist, 39; Lutheran, 28; and Congregational, 19.
O’Brien said religious bodies “particularly active” in recruiting people for instruction include Jehovah’s Witnesses the Churches of Christ, the Seventh-day Adventists, and the Mormons.
“As a consequence,” he said, “they are gaining the largest numbers of adherents in proportion to their membership.”
He stated that Roman Catholics tend to think that “sharing the faith” is a business confined to priests. “The average Catholic feels that he is fulfilling his duty when he attends Sunday Mass and drops a fairly generous offering in the collection box. If, in addition, he acts as an usher or occasionally attends a Holy Name Society meeting, he considers himself a real apostle, with the crown of sainthood weighing heavily on his hallowed head.”
Southbound Evangelist
Evangelist Billy Graham leaves this week for South America where he and his team plan meetings in at least six major cities. The tour is his second in South America this year.
Graham will begin the crusade in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Tuesday, September 25. Meetings will be held each night at Pacaembú Stadium with the closing scheduled for Sunday, September 30.
Subsequent crusades will be held in Asunción, Paraguay, Córdoba, Argentina, Rosario, Argentina, Montevideo, Uruguay, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. The tour will close in Buenos Aires With a meeting on Sunday, October 28.
Last month Graham travelled to the Redstone Arsenal at Huntsville, Alabama, for a Sunday afternoon rally which drew a crowd estimated at 35,000.
Two days later, William F. Graham, the evangelist’s father, died in Charlotte, North Carolina, at the age of 74. The elder Graham had suffered a stroke several weeks earlier.
Arousing Suspicion
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect about the debut of the New English Bible New Testament was that the translation was judged on its own merits. The qualifications of the translators were seldom brought into question. Hopes for an equally objective reception for the NEB Old Testament suffered a severe blow last month when a 70-year-old Oxford professor took it upon himself to emphasize how drastic the new version would be.
Dr. Godfrey R. Driver, professor of Semitic philology and chairman of the panel of Old Testament translators, made the mistake of meeting the press without clearing his remarks with NEB publishers. He compounded the error by giving the virtual impression that his translators would improve upon God’s revelation to man. A London newspaper quoted him as saying that present translations include passages in the Old Testament which amount to “nonsense.” The quotation was picked up by wire services and appeared in headlines around the world.
Serious students of the Bible were satisfied that Driver meant no harm to Old Testament content, but the net effect of his indiscreet remarks was to arouse suspicion among uninitiated readers.
Driver also ventured a prediction that the Old Testament might be completed within two years. The publishers say there is no chance of it appearing before 1966.
The Road To Apostasy?
The leading complainant in the controversial Hick case charges that the United Presbyterian Church, for the first time in history, “has taken a deliberate step down the road that leads to apostasy by permitting, in effect, the word of man to be superior to the Word of God.”
The accusation is contained in a comprehensive 4,500-word statement released last month by the Rev. J. Clyde Henry, minister of the First Presbyterian Church of Lambertville, New Jersey. Henry said the General Assembly had taken an unconstitutional action last spring when it overruled a decision by the Synod of New Jersey which barred a Princeton Theological Seminary professor from membership in the Presbytery of New Brunswick because of his refusal to affirm belief in the Virgin Birth.
“The Church has declared officially that it is hospitable to heresy,” Henry declared, “and that error may stand on an equality with truth.”
Henry was chairman of the committee which initially examined Dr. John Hardwood Hick, who joined the Princeton faculty in 1960 and subsequently sought a membership transfer from a presbytery in England.
The presbytery accepted Hick, but 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 Henry. The Judicial Commission of the General Assembly then annulled the synod’s decision. Said Henry:
“The Church now appears before the world as one which will censure a minister who makes an error in judgment, but will welcome with open arms a minister who is unable or unwilling to affirm his belief in a doctrine which has been an integral part of the faith of the Holy Catholic Church, and of all its branches, from the beginning.”
Henry protested the General Assembly action which alleged that there were irregularities in synod’s proceedings.
“To reverse a court’s decision on the basis of irregular procedures is to jeopardize the right of the original complainant to a fair hearing and a just decision.”
The Curriculum Problem
The unified curriculum prescribed for military Sunday Schools came under fire last month from the National Association of Evangelicals.
Dr. Robert A. Cook, NAE president, lodged a protest in a stiffly-worded letter to the chairman of the Armed Forces Chaplains Board, Air Force Major General Terence P. Finnegan.
Cook complimented the chaplains’ efforts in seeking an acceptable curriculum for Protestant servicemen and their dependents and conceded that a unified Sunday School curriculum “has many points in its favor.”
He declared, however, that “the end does not justify the means when the basic principles of religious freedom in our American heritage are violated.”
“It has come to our attention,” he added, “that the manner in which the Unified Protestant Sunday School Curriculum for Armed Forces is being made available to the military Sunday Schools does violate the constitutional freedom which our Armed Forces are committed to defend.”
“We must, therefore, respectfully but vigorously protest the fact that the respective Chiefs of Chaplains have recommended that the Unified Protestant Sunday School Curriculum be used in preference to any other.”
Under the unified curriculum system, a military-civilian committee reviews the materials of denominational publishing houses and selects those deemed most appropriate to the military. (See also CHRISTIANITY TODAY, April 13, 1962.)
The Armed Forces Chaplains Board, meanwhile, began a study aimed at possible revamping of the curriculum program. The Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention was awarded a contract to determine the feasibility of producing a new type of curriculum. Users of the unified Sunday School material are said to have expressed a desire for a “more static curriculum.”
Guidelines for the “new approach” were set forth by the Protestant Religious Education Advisory Group of the Armed Forces Chaplains Board. The advisory group includes editorial-representatives of denominational publishing boards. Here is a complete text of the group’s document, entitled “Guidelines for Considering Curriculum Materials to be Used in the Unified Protestant Sunday School Curriculum”:
Theological Principles
1. The curriculum materials should themselves provide specifically Christian content and plans for learning experiences in which the uniquely Christian interpretation is plainly stated or identified. The minimum content presented and experiences proposed by the materials should themselves provide a positive Christian declaration. The experience of the individual pupil and of the class will, of course, be enhanced by whatever depth of Christian experience and clarity of Christian expression the teacher can bring; but the central witness to Christ in the lesson must not be left to the ingenuity of the teacher alone.
2. The curriculum materials should themselves provide for bringing the pupil into direct contact with the Bible and not depend upon the teacher alone to fill it in nor to provide it from his own background or knowledge. It is always important that the learner be led to see himself as over against God—not merely as over against a group of believers who do things a certain way. This aspect of curriculum materials is all the more significant in the Armed Forces since the quality of the Christian community within which the chapel program takes place is so varied and so changing.
3. The curriculum materials should foster belief and confidence in God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—according to the Scriptures, and in the church as the communion of believers in Christ.
4. The curriculum materials should emphasize the following major themes:
a. God the Father, and the history of Israel.
b. Jesus Christ
c. The church and the Christian witness.
Educational Principles
1. The spiritual needs of people in military centers are the same as those of persons everywhere. But at military installations there are persons who are on the move every few months or who might be ordered to move any day; persons in an environment far removed from their usual friendships, from the security of home and what might be called a normal life. The curriculum materials should emphasize inner conviction and security, the meaning of Christian faith in relation to situations and cultures in which the learners find themselves.
2. The curriculum materials should themselves provide direct guidance for classroom procedures. The skilled teacher can easily omit, modify, or remake lesson plans, but the unskilled teacher cannot supply what he does not know.
3. The teacher’s guide materials should provide presentations of background reasons, both theological and educational, for what is proposed.
4. The curriculum materials should provide for as many contacts with the home and family as possible.
5. The curriculum materials should contain a minimum of specifically denominational references or emphases.
6. The curriculum materials should present a positive approach to other religions rather than attacking them.
An Official Rebuke
The World Council of Churches needs to face up more boldly to moral issues involved in the East-West conflict, according to Lutheran Bishop Otto Dibelius of Berlin.
Dibelius, a former president of the WCC, chided the council last month in an interview with Religious News Service.
“Many German churchmen are disturbed,” he said, “over the silence concerning Soviet policies which has emanated from the WCC since the decision was reached last November to receive the Russian Orthodox Church into the world body.”
Some observers saw the rebuke by the 81-year-old Dibelius as an indication that the WCC is experiencing internal strife over its posture toward the Communist bloc. It is the most severe indictment thus far from a churchman within the WCC orbit, and is all the more significant in that it comes from one who has played such a key role in council affairs.
Dibelius, who retired last year as chairman of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKID), said that events since the WCC assembly in New Delhi tend to show that by receiving the Russian church into its membership the council may be committing itself to compromising its Christian witness in world affairs.
A “nefarious but successful” technique of dictators is to silence critics in the free world by threats to hostages, and the Russian churchmen are hostages, he declared.
“If a Christian stand is taken in this ecumenical body on issues of evident international justice,” he said, “the Russian churchmen will be called on the carpet when they return home and asked why they did not counter this anti-communism. So to avoid embarrassing and endangering their Russian delegates, the World Council seems to be heading in the direction of silencing its Christian witness where conscience should take a stand.”
Dibelius cited the report on world affairs presented at the recent meeting in Paris of the WCC’s policy-making Central Committee.
He said Dr. O. Frederick Nolde, chairman of the WCC’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, reviewed numerous world problems unrelated to the Communist world conspiracy and “then, at the end, as a kind of appendix, he did mention the Soviet threat to Berlin, expressing the hope that negotiation might ease the situation.”
Actually, Dibelius added, “the threat to Berlin is a major issue before the world today. Whether or not World War III breaks out may depend on a just solution to the Berlin harassment. Great issues of historical morality are at stake here. To pass over these issues because of expediency drives the blood to our faces.”
The bishop said that “often in history small minorities have imposed their will on the majority” and “the WCC may become another example.” Declaring that the World Council will have to face the issue in the immediate future, he added:
“Powerful influences in the Central Committee are increasingly concerned. Not only the true Christian effectiveness of the council’s witness but the cause of peace in our time hangs on the courageous facing of social immorality whether in the West or the East.”
Another factor which may still irk German churchmen is that they are represented on the WCC presidium by Dr. Martin Niemöller, whose pacifist views make him a highly controversial figure in West Germany. Niemöller was chosen at New Delhi over Bishop Hanns Lilje, who next to Dibelius is probably Germany’s best known and most respected churchman, but who takes a much stronger line against the Communists than does Niemöller.
Without Fear Or Favor
Even those who know the International Council of Christian Churches as an enterprising body would have been impressed at the first evening meeting of last month’s Fifth Plenary Congress in Amsterdam. The large choir did not confine itself to sacred songs, the magnificent organ of the Concertgebouw was heard to full advantage, a lady soloist rendered a piece by Mozart which is sometimes played in Roman Catholic churches before celebration of the Mass, and a full orchestra flung itself into a lively version of “D’ye ken John Peel?” A stranger might have thought such motley fare a somewhat unorthodox prelude to the president’s address which followed, on “Jesus Christ, the same.…”
“We are in the very hall,” began Dr. Carl McIntire, “in which the World Council of Churches, representing the ecumenical movement, was formally constituted, August 22 to September 4, 1948. Just previous to this our Gideon’s band met in the historic English Reformed Church in this city, August 11 to 19, 1948, and here the Doctrinal Statement was formulated, the Constitution adopted, and the International Council of Christian Churches unfurled its banner ‘For the Word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ …’.”
The ICCC now claims churches from 83 denominations, and has affiliated bodies and regional councils on five continents. Added Dr. McIntire, ICCC president: “The history of these 14 years is a chronicle of struggle, of vigorously fought battles on all the continents, and of a militant testimony to Jesus Christ.”
Describing an attack made on him at New Delhi by a leading WCC official, Dr. McIntire commented: “We were not fully aware of the increasing effectiveness of the ICCC’s testimony to Jesus Christ.… These ‘love’ arguments vanish when these men face the ICCC.” Up to the present time the ecumenical leaders had not issued a single invitation to an ICCC-affiliated body. “They do not want us,” said Dr. McIntire without evident sorrow, “they for some reason cannot seem even to stand us.” He went on to condemn the Blake-Pike proposal, the “advancing courtship with the Roman Church,” and religious syncretism. On the widely reported views of Dr. A. M. Ramsey he said: “A church leadership which honors an Archbishop of Canterbury who thinks that atheists will get into Heaven is in no position to give counsel to a world that is in confusion as to how it may deliver itself from the conspiracy of godless Communism.”
The secretary of the British Consultative Committee, Mr. George H. Fromow, reported that no British church bodies and no large groups of evangelicals were in the ICCC. In England most of the churches are in the WCC, and those which were not (here he named four evangelical denominations) “seem not to see the issues confronting us clearly enough to join us.” Lamenting that evangelicals would not “take a distinctive stand against the World Council of Churches, or call for separation from it,” Mr. Fromow listed four British objections to ICCC: it was an American institution, had a negative approach, was too political, and was “vicious” in its heresy hunting.
Referring to a recent WCC decision to “woo the evangelicals,” Mr. Bernard N. Bancroft, administrative secretary of ICCC’s Associated Missions, expressed the earnest hope that many of the missions and denominations would now understand the purposes and intentions of the WCC, and would cease to cooperate with the latter’s many agencies.
In a thoughtful and closely-reasoned address on “The Christ of the Scriptures and the Ecumenical Theology,” Professor S. U. Zuidema of Amsterdam’s Free University pointed out the dangers in the ecumenical recommendation of the dialogue as the most suitable means of preaching the Gospel. “The testimony of New Delhi,” he said, “even speaks of new ways for the missionary preaching of the twentieth century. We only get the right view of this matter when we take in account that this emphasis on the dialogue is closely bound up with a teaching about communication and solidarity,” and this in turn with the modern doctrine of identification. (This view says that we must be prepared to identify ourselves with those to whom we preach the gospel of salvation, just as Christ identified himself with men by becoming man and entering into their needs.) Such a doctrine, suggested Dr. Zuidema, which is represented by the testimony of New Delhi, “puts an end to missionary zeal (and) is also in principle the end of missionary fruitfulness, as it neglects the heart of the Gospel, that is, a rich Christ for a poor sinner.”
The Rt. Rev. D. A. Thompson, formerly bishop in the Free Church of England, pointed the need in the twentieth century for a second Reformation, and mentioned what he regarded as encouraging features since the last Plenary Congress. He said that an element of Korean Presbyterianism “which had been swept into the World Council of Churches through the influence of unworthy missionaries, was enlightened of God to see the error and disobedience, and so the sin, of being in such a fellowship, and came out and joined the ICCC. Likewise some 25,000 faithful Indian brethren, including two bishops and a number of ministers and evangelists, left the Mar Thoma Church which was in the World Council of Churches, and at great sacrifice have formed themselves into the St. Thomas Evangelical Church of South India.”
In typically forthright terms the congress made its mind known about the entrance into the WCC of a further group of churches from Soviet Russia. It passed a resolution, saying: “It is only logical to assume that according to the Communist timetable, the time has come when the program of world communism can be best advanced by injecting specially trained churchmen supposedly representing the masses in police states, into a religious United Nations with headquarters in Geneva.”
The congress: received greetings from the Mayor of Amsterdam and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek … denied that the Pope’s “subtle invitation” to his “separated brethren” has any application to true and faithful Protestants … condemned Dr. Leslie Weatherhead for his yen to take a blue pencil to certain parts of the Bible … expressed indignation at Russian blasphemies in exploiting outer space and “tells them that outer space belongs to the Almighty God and not to Mr. K.” … deplored the Ghanaian government’s deportation of two Anglican bishops, adding that “a Jeremiah must be free to speak for righteousness” … arranged its Sixth Plenary Congress for Geneva, August 12 to 21, 1965 … elected Dr. McIntire as president for a further three-year term.
J.D.D.
Convention Circuit
Medicine Lake, Minnesota—The Seventh Day Baptist General Conference voted at its 150th annual session to discontinue support of its School of Theology at Alfred (New York) University.
The conference voted to establish a new center of ministerial training at Plainfield, New Jersey. Ministerial students will take most of their work at other Protestant seminaries in the Plainfield area under supervision of the center’s director, yet to be named.
Rising costs of maintaining an accredited program at the Alfred School of Theology was given as reason for terminating the support, effective July 1, 1963. The school, founded by the denomination in 1857, has trained most of its clergy.
The Rev. Albert Rogers, school dean, said the conference action would undoubtedly close the school. Final action lies with Alfred University trustees.
Mankato, Minnesota—A renewed plea to dissolve the strife-ridden Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America came before the annual convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod.
A report from the synod’s doctrine committee said the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, largest member of the conference, “did not resolve the issues disturbing the conference” at its recent convention in Cleveland.
“What was disheartening,” the committee said in its report of the Cleveland convention, “was that many who spoke for what one would call the more liberal side were seminary professors and synodical leaders who offset the good testimony given.”
The 13,639-member ELS, smallest of the four bodies making up the Synodical Conference, suspended relations with Missouri Synod several years ago, charging it with unscriptural practices.
Northfield, Minnesota—By a one-vote margin, the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America chose to cling to its historic stand of “dissent from all immoral civil institutions.” An effort to relax the position, which required a two-thirds majority, failed at a meeting of the denomination’s general synod.
A spokesman said that one aspect of the denomination’s “highly complicated theological thesis” involving political dissent demands that the Christian must be “very careful” in taking any kind of oath.
Cape Girardeau, Missouri—Congress was asked to “restudy all U. S. Constitutional amendments, especially the First and Fifth,” in a resolution adopted by The Church of God at its 58th annual General Assembly.
The resolution said the First Amendment had resulted in “controversies” regarding freedom of religion and church-state separation and its interpretation has “sharply limited” religious liberty.
Concerning the Fifth Amendment, which protects witnesses from testifying against themselves, the resolution asserted that it has served to “darken judgment.”
A New Era
A new era began last month for the World’s Christian Endeavor Union. Thousands of delegates attending the concluding service of the World’s Christian Endeavor Convention in Sydney, Australia, stood to their feet in Rushcutter’s Bay Stadium as Dr. Daniel A. Poling passed on the symbol of his leadership to his successor, Bishop Clyde W. Meadows. Poling placed the presidential medallion about the shoulders of the man who becomes the third president of the worldwide youth movement. Poling retired after 35 years as president and was named honorary president for life.
The Sydney convention also saw a reorganization of the World’s Union “to provide for more participation by national unions.”
Meadows, who now also serves as president of the International Society of Christian Endeavor embracing the United States, Canada, and Mexico, is a bishop of the United Brethren in Christ. He said that Christian Endeavor is experiencing an upsurge in interest in the states of Washington, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. He said the program is “a vital display of ecumenicity at a level that makes an impact on people in the various churches.”
Among resolutions adopted was one which challenged Endeavorers “to make the ecumenism which is as natural as breathing to Christian Endeavor, effective in all their contacts with the Christian community.” Another resolution declared that undue emphasis given to material possessions and the crippling expenditure upon the manufacture and use of weapons of mass destruction make for suspicion and strife and that Endeavorers pledge themselves to use all available spiritual resources to encourage leaders of all nations to “seek peace and ensue it” (1 Peter 3:11).
Another statement released during the convention emphasized that there “can be no affinity between atheistic communism and Christianity,” and that atheism wherever incorporated into government is an affront to human personality.
People: Words And Events
Deaths: Methodist Bishop J. W. E. Bowen, 72; in Atlanta … Moravian Bishop Samuel H. Gapp, 89; in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania … George Pepperdine, 76, founder of Pepperdine College; in Los Angeles … Anglican Archbishop Reginald Charles Halse, 81; in Brisbane, Australia … Dr. William H. Wrighton, 78, former president of Western Baptist Theological Seminary; in Victoria, British Columbia … Dr. Clarence Bouma, 70, emeritus professor of ethics and apologetics at Calvin Seminary; at Grand Rapids, Michigan … the Rev. Martin Erikson, 61, editor of The Standard of the Baptist General Conference; in St. Paul, Minnesota … the Rev. Joel Fridelt, former owner and editor of the Swedish religious weekly Missions-Wännen; in Worcester, Massachusetts … Dr. Samuel Ferdinand Nelson, director of the Penzotti Institute in Mexico City; in Isabela, Puerto Rico … Dr. Paul D. Devanandan, 61, director of the Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society in Bangalore; at Dehra Dun, North India.
Elections: As president of the World Council of Christian Education, Sir Francis Ibiam … as president of the General Conference Mennonite Church, the Rev. Walter Gering … as president of the National Association of Church Business Administrators, W. Dean Willis … as president-designate of the Seventh Day Baptist General Conference, the Rev. C. Rex Burdick … as president of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the Rev. Theodore A. Asberg … as moderator of the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches, the Rev. Harry R. Butman … as president of the Supreme Council of the Presbyterian Church of Brazil, the Rev. Amantino Adorno Vassao.
Appointments: As president of Crozer Theological Seminary, Dr. Ronald V. Wells … as president of Iliff School of Theology, Dr. Lowell Swan … as dean of arts and sciences at Gordon College, Dr. F. Brooks Sanders … as president of Singspiration, Inc., John W. Peterson … as executive vice-president of the American Sunday-School Union, Walter W. Scott … as director of the Chaplain Service of the Veterans Administration, Rabbi Morris A. Sandhaus.
Resignation: As director of the Bureau of Information of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, Msgr. John E. Kelly.
