Despite the counter-attraction of a parade featuring 100,000 Young Pioneers, many Prague citizens chose one Sunday last month to go to that same Bethlehem Chapel where Bohemian reformer Jan Hus preached five and a half centuries ago. There they joined visitors from more than sixty lands in a service to inaugurate the Second All-Christian Peace Assembly. Officiating were Dr. J. L. Hromadka, dean of the Comenius Theological Faculty; Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad; and the veteran German pastor Martin Niemöller. Rays of sunlight streamed through the tall Gothic windows as ancient Slavonic chants, delivered in the rich bass voices of Orthodox bishops and archpriests, alternated with Protestant hymns sung in different tongues. The gay turbans of Mohammedan mullahs and the saffron robe and shaven head of a solitary Buddhist monk from Nepal stood out even in that congregation of varied and colorful ecclesiastical attire.
Later, at its first meeting in Prague’s Municipal House, the assembly heard the keynote address from its president, Dr. Hromadka, who the previous week in Geneva had led a delegation to discuss with World Council of Churches leaders the relation between the two bodies, and matters of common concern. In four languages above the platform were blazoned words from Malachi 2:5 that formed the assembly theme: “My Covenant Is Life and Peace.” In discussing the Church’s responsibility in the world, the ex-Princeton Theological Seminary professor attributed the turmoil in Southeast Asia to “the fifteen-year-old unsettled problem of People’s China, her unity, and her participation in international bodies, notably in the United Nations.” Referring to events in the Portuguese colonies and the South African situation, the 75-year-old churchman stressed that these involved Christians who were “trampling on human dignity, freedom and civil rights.” He called for a campaign “to bring it about that countries abandon the use of force and violence in settling their differences; that atom-free zones be established; and that all nuclear tests, including underground tests, be suspended.”
Dr. Hromadka had received a personal letter of greetings from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Both Premier Khrushchev and President Novotny of Czechoslovakia responded warmly when the assembly sent greetings to various leaders, including Prime Minister Douglas-Home, who also replied, and President Johnson, who did not.
The first list issued of those attending made no distinction of category but lumped together delegates, observers, guests, and journalists, according to country, as “participants.” Having provoked some indignant complaints, this was eventually superseded by four separate lists. These showed some 265 delegates from Communist Europe and the U. S. S. R., 270 from other European countries (71 of them from the United Kingdom), and a further 176 from thirty non-European countries (including 65 from the United States). There were also 73 observers, 74 guests, and 52 journalists (CHRISTIANITY TODAY was the only U. S. or U. K. journal listed).
Western delegates included a large proportion of young people of both sexes (the average age of the British contingent was about thirty), but those from Communist countries, possibly excepting East Germany, were of a much older generation and were mostly ecclesiastics. It was impossible to ascertain which churches were represented officially, for some delegates had come on their own initiative. Those who were not delegates were put in an invidious position when told that, contrary to prior correspondence, they were the guests of the local committee but could contribute the equivalent of their hotel bills to the Christian Peace Conference.
Right from the start the dice were loaded against the non-German-speaking press, for simultaneous translation equipment was not made available to journalists. Strenuous protests were met with vague allusions to “technical difficulties” involved in extending for a further six feet wiring that already covered several hundred feet. This left many dependent on the official translation of major speeches and such documents as were made available in other languages, and on the inadequate English, if somewhat better French, of an amateur interpreter.
Paradoxically, further frustration was averted because the assembly did not permit free discussion in the plenary sessions, except for the closing stages. Challenged by CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S correspondent on the absence of such discussion, an official at first stressed its impracticability in a 700-strong gathering, but under attack quickly abandoned this position for different ground: “The Eastern Europeans do not conduct meetings according to Western democratic procedures.”
One-fifth of the assembly was German, and it was soon evident that visitors from the two states and from West Berlin had come to Prague with predetermined views on the vexed question of their divided fatherland. “This, naturally,” commented the following day’s news release rather naïvely, “endows the Christian Peace Assembly with an unexpectedly political flavour.”
An hour’s Bible study opened each day’s proceedings. Major conference addresses were given by delegates from the Malagasy Republic, Uruguay, Japan, the U. S. S. R., and the United States (Professor Harvey Cox of Andover-Newton Theological School). In addition to these, special interest attached to a speech by Professor Yoshio Inoue of Tokyo, who had maintained close contact with Chinese colleagues and was regarded in some measure as reflecting their views. The Chinese Protestants had declined to send delegates because (it was said) they felt that the gathering was “pro-Soviet.” Asking the assembly for “understanding and sympathy” for the policy of the Peking government, Professor Inoue warned against “absolutizing the policy of the Pax Russo-Americana as the Christian policy.” Agreement between Russia and America did not remove the danger to peace in Asia. “The formula may be the beginning of a solution of problems in Europe and elsewhere,” he continued, “but it is insufficient in Asia, where the American government keeps the Seventh Fleet in the straits between the Chinese mainland and Formosa, and where the unpopular Chiang government is being maintained by force.” At a later session when voting was called for on what was broadly a Communism-versus-the-West issue, he supported the former position.
During the closing stages, delegates were asked to approve a “Message to Churches and Christians” drawn up by a small working committee with scarcely a scrap of decent English among the lot of them. (The British member of the committee denied authorship of the English version but helped construct a readable amendment.) Sparks flew over the political implications of a sentence that read: “Too often Christian preaching is not yet free from overtones of the Cold War, of anti-Communist crusades, and of slogans of political propaganda.” Many Western delegates objected strongly and suggested that if “anti-Communist” went in, then “anti-Western” should go in, too. “The integrity of this whole conference is at stake on the vote we take on this particular proposal,” said one speaker, drawing loud applause.
A proposed alternative substituted for the offensive phrase “hatred against the political systems of other countries,” but speakers from the Eastern bloc did not like this. “We hear preaching from San Francisco which is political and not Christian,” shouted Archbishop Kiprian of Moscow; “when I preached in a Western city people came to me and told me I was preaching from the Gospel; in their churches they heard only political preaching.… Anti-Communism in their preaching is a reality, anti-Westernism in ours is a fantasy.”
The Rev. Harold Row of the United States, a minister of the Church of the Brethren, scoffed at the notion of the East’s total innocence and the West’s total culpability. A vote taken on the amendment made things worse, for though the Eastern bloc had evidently carried the day, the counting of hands was done in the most slapdash fashion, and the announced result of 388 to 110 was wildly inaccurate. When this was pointed out with admirable restraint by the British delegation, it elicited some bad-tempered remarks from Secretary-General J. N. Ondra, who took it as a personal insult that his staff’s arithmetic should be questioned. A sticky scene was avoided by the intervention of Archbishop Nikodim, who confounded the gathering by suggesting that perhaps “anti-Communist crusades” should be dropped from the proposed wording after all. The bearded Russian was rewarded by a most un-British kiss on both cheeks from Paul Oestreicher, religious broadcasting director of the BBC.
The assembly issued also an “Appeal to the Governments, Parliaments, and Authoritative Personalities of the World.” This condemned apartheid, urged that the U. N. prohibition on weapons to South Africa be respected, and supported the appeal for an economic blockade against that country, “where the ruling classes affront humanity, and thus bring about a serious threat to peace.” The appeal called also for a peace treaty involving East and West Germany, and peaceful settlement of the Chinese-Indian, American-Cuban, and Southeast Asian disputes. It deplored colonialism in such places as Angola and Mozambique, and suggested that economies in armament expenditure could represent a decisive contribution to the elimination of hunger. Communists spoiling for a fight would assuredly not find provocation in these findings.
There were times during the six-day proceedings when one felt the addresses were merely a background accompaniment to the blinding and utterly disruptive work of ubiquitous photographers. In the control of the sessions, little things were noticeable: long speeches, observations and warnings from the chair, time-consuming explanations on what might legitimately be discussed, frequent interventions by committee members, angry little asides from official sources, and a testy chairman who in the closing stages twice condemned applause for speeches by Western delegates, then betrayed himself by his own feverish handclapping after an Eastern contribution.
It was apparent that people came to the conference with vastly different motives. Many were genuinely and exclusively concerned with peace, some of them for non-Christian reasons. One of the dangers of an assembly like this, however, is that it provides a rallying point for malcontents of various sorts.
One sensed behind the movement a group of men, dedicated and united on essentials, who did the real work and fostered the recurring implication just behind the surface that while Communist preaching against democracy was a wholly laudable pursuit, Western preaching against Communism was a misuse of Christianity.
Miscellany
An Episcopal rector and a Roman Catholic priest jointly conducted a marriage ceremony in a Catholic church near St. Louis last month. The Protestant Episcopal Book of Common Prayer was used in the service, but the bride, an Episcopalian, was required to promise that she would bring up her children in the Catholic faith. The groom is a Roman Catholic.
Spain’s Roman Catholic archbishops, while agreeing “in principle” to the provisions of a draft law that would provide more freedom for the Protestant minority, advised the government that they endorse such liberty “to the extent appropriate for a Catholic country.” It was understood that sponsors of the measure will attempt to secure further concessions from the hierarchy before it is submitted to the legislature.
Deaths
CANON CHARLES EARLE RAVEN, 79, chaplain to Queen Elizabeth; in Cambridge, England.
DR. J. H. BAVINCK, 68, professor of missions at the Free University of Amsterdam; in Amsterdam.
DR. THOMAS HANSEN, 67, former president of the Florida Baptist Convention; in Gainesville, Florida.
Current church-union negotiations throughout tire world number 38 and involve 102 churches in 30 countries on 5 continents, according to a World Council of Churches survey.
A commercial syndicate is purchasing the late Percy Crawford’s UHF television station in Philadelphia for $219,000.
A famous cathedral in Carthage and about 120 other Roman Catholic churches are being turned over to the government under an agreement between the Vatican and the Tunisian Islamic republic. They are to be converted into museums or other public institutions, according to Religious News Service.
A self-governing conference is being created among the Methodist churches of the West Indies and Central America.
Personalia
Dr. Robert L. Stamper named president of The Biblical Seminary in New York.
The Rt. Rev. Ralph S. Dean appointed executive officer of the worldwide Anglican communion.
The Rev. Vaughn Fults elected moderator of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower named to receive the second annual “Family of Man Award” given by the Protestant Council of the City of New York.
The Rev. Joseph N. Petersen elected president of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod.
They Say
“No more painful evidence of near-apostasy in the Church exists than the fact that councils and synods can become mightily agitated over the fruits of religion but not over the Gospel itself.”—The Presbyterian Journal.
“The defense of the rights of the child—its right to be born or its right to be—is a major battle in a civilization acquiring the contraceptive mentality.”—Roman Catholic Bishop John J. Wright.
