NAE: Key 73 a Key Issue

NEWS

Thirty years ago 187 persons assembled at the old Coronado Hotel in St. Louis for the founding meeting of the National Association of Evangelicals, with prominent pastor Harold J. Ockenga as prime mover and keynote speaker. Last month the NAE and Ockenga, now a college and seminary president as well as pastor, were back in St. Louis, this time at a plusher hotel and with a bigger crowd. The NAE and Ockenga had both come up in the world.

Today the NAE has thirty-four member denominations¹ with three million members, twelve full-time staffers, a $350,000 annual budget, publications (Action magazine, with 12,000 circulation, and Profile, a news sheet with 200,000 circulation), and commissions that are said to raise the NAE’s service constituency to ten million persons in 38,000 churches.

In closing out the annual meeting, Ockenga reviewed the NAE’s thirty years of growth. He said there would have been revival in the beginning had it not been for the cleavage between the NAE and the then one-year-old American Council of Christian Churches (ACCC) headed by Carl McIntire.

The NAE’s first priority now, he declared, should be “a broader movement that will include all evangelical groups.” He named the giant Southern Baptist Convention and called for a merger with the ACCC “now that McIntire has been discredited.” (Several ACCC leaders were present at the NAE meetings as observers but left early and did not hear Ockenga’s suggestion, almost certain to be rejected by the ACCC. As one old veteran of the separatist wars put it, “Times haven’t changed that much.”)

Citing widespread grass-roots disenchantment inside the major councils of churches, Ockenga warned that the NAE must broaden its appeal lest another movement arise to supersede the NAE in bringing together evangelical churches.

The NAE is apparently already too broad for some churches. Its second largest group, the Free Will Baptists, will vote this summer on a policy committee’s recommendation that it bolt the NAE. NAE executive director Billy Melvin, himself a Free Will Baptist, says that the denomination has only nominally supported the NAE in the past but that he will be on hand to fight the motion.

The uneasiness of others surfaced during consideration of a resolution that urged NAE churches to participate in the Key 73 evangelistic campaign next year, perhaps the broadest cooperative church effort in American history.

Harold Burdick, a conference superintendent of the Evangelical Church of North America (a Key 73 participant), read into the record a news story reporting that the Catholic bishops had voted to participate in Key 73. (Actually, there was no such vote; see following story.) He warned of confusion and identification with unscriptural concepts of evangelism, Christ, and the Gospel, then moved to refer the paper back to committee for study, an undebatable motion that carried 47–46. (Of the 1,000 registrants, 350 were voting delegates, but many were absent from the floor and others abstained.)

Action In North Viet Nam

The Alliance Witness says it has learned that the Christian and Missionary Alliance in North Viet Nam was able to hold a conference in March. “It is reported that many have believed in the Lord and are very zealous,” the official organ of the international Alliance added. “The Christians are giving sacrificially to repair church buildings which have ‘greatly deteriorated.’ The church asked for special prayer.”

Free Will Baptist moderator J. D. O’Donnell complained that “liberals and heretics” were yoked with evangelicals in Key 73. Others said the NAE had no business telling its members to participate in anything; they wanted the statement buried, not reconsidered. “This is the worst difference we’ve had in the NAE in its thirty years,” boomed NAE general director Clyde Taylor. “I’m for dropping the issue altogether.” The motion to refer was then recalled in favor of a motion to table indefinitely, which carried by voice vote.

NAE officials, noting that many NAE churches were already committed to Key 73 anyway, reassured members that nothing had been done to imperil local participation in Key 73. But despite such assurances and a mild NAE endorsement last year, the incident may be a storm warning of things to come in some evangelical groups for whom Catholic participation could be the last straw.

Afterward, Melvin said the Key 73 resolution had been presented late in the convention to the resolutions committee by a respected person. It should not have been sent to the floor, he said, because the NAE’s structure prohibits it from committing its member denominations to such a venture. (Years ago the Christian Reformed Church succeeded in hog-tying the NAE on evangelistic activities, then left the fold.) Melvin and Taylor both insisted that many of the votes were not really against Key 73 but against the NAE’s forcing it on those opposed to it.

Other resolutions were passed with virtually no discussion, including one on aging that affirmed the “right” to die with dignity “without the use of extraordinary means to prolong life.” It suggested that churches hire ministers to the aging as well as to youth. In other matters the delegates supported the concept of tax credits for gifts to institutions of higher learning (excluding tuition), and cautioned against giving to shady-dealing mission organizations.

A group of seminarians and collegians voiced displeasure at the absence of resolutions dealing with important social and political issues of the day. Not one woman or youth was nominated to the dozens of board and commission slots, a reflection of the way it is inside the member denominations and organizations, says Melvin.

Bishop Myron F. Boyd of the Free Methodist Church was elected president. Presbyterian Journal editor G. Aiken Taylor and Christian and Missionary Alliance president Nathan Bailey were elected vice-presidents.

Nearly 2,000 on the opening night heard youth evangelist David Wilkerson confess that he now sides with the Jesus-people movement after earlier hostility. He proceeded to drub the Church for what he saw as its coldness and inactivity.

A battery of workshops, seminars, and commission meetings kept delegates hopping in and out of elevators. The National Religious Broadcasters hosted Jesuit broadcaster Dennis Daly on “The Return to Scripture Within the Roman Catholic Church.” The Evangelical Foreign Missions Association listened to leading missions spokesmen discuss emerging foreign mission societies in Third World churches.

Insiders say the NAE must tend to some overdue housekeeping before it goes looking for new residents. A strategy meeting will this month take “a long, hard look at our commissions,” says Melvin. “Some are outdated and just not working. The affiliates need to be drawn in closer, and more grass-roots activity is needed.” Restructure of the pressure-ridden National Sunday School Association is already under way following the resignation of executive Joseph Hemphill and the sale of its headquarters building.

Meanwhile, more financial support is needed if the NAE—still $65,000 in debt—is to move into the stage Ockenga envisions, says an official who cites low salaries and understaffed offices. It’s one thing to talk about togetherness, he says, but it’s something else to fund it.

Catholic Bishops: Key 73 Sounds Okay

Some distinct evangelical notes came through loud and clear at the spring meeting of the nation’s Catholic bishops in Atlanta, which marked the first time the bishops’ deliberations were open to the press and other accredited observers.

The 240 bishops attending the conclave heard a report from their ecumenical relations committee that endorsed Key 73, the pan-denominational project to evangelize America in 1973. The committee’s head, Bishop Charles Helmsing of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri, warmly recommended Catholic participation in the evangelistic campaign. He noted that the St. Louis province had voted to participate.

John Cardinal Carberry of St. Louis, one of the most conservative bishops of all, was even more enthusiastic. In urging Catholic participation, especially through revival of parish preaching missions, he said Key 73 offered the church a chance “to stir up deep spirituality among our people.”

Auxiliary Bishop Gerald V. McDevitt of Philadelphia voiced his endorsement of Key 73 too but cautioned that clerics should be concerned about sacraments as well as about spreading the Gospel.

Although no action was taken on the report, the absence of dissent can be construed as tacit approval of Key 73—at least for now—at the highest official level of the church. Already, several dioceses in addition to the St. Louis district have voted to join the outreach.

There was a little more restraint in a report on the Catholic Pentecostal movement (see July 16, 1971, issue, page 31). The report said most bishops who responded to a special survey were satisfied with the growth and conduct of charismatic renewal groups in their dioceses, but it warned of “negative factors” listed by some bishops. Bishop John R. Quinn of Oklahoma City-Tulsa, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Pastoral Research and Practices, outlined the latter as: “emotionalism, anti-intellectualism, danger of religious indifferentism, and development of gnostic sects.”

Yet, reported Quinn, many bishops expressed “a very positive outlook” about the movement, mostly because of its emphasis on prayer, holiness, ongoing conversion, and sympathy for the sacramental life of the church.

Most of the bishops, he said, supported the recommendations of their doctrinal committee that they “not encourage this [movement] too enthusiastically or discourage it in any way” but rather “let it develop and keep a watchful eye on its progress.”

Quinn announced that Grand Rapids auxiliary bishop Joseph C. McKinney had agreed to serve as national adviser of the movement. (McKinney, in an earlier interview, told CHRISTIANITY TODAY he himself had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.) Quinn also mentioned that Rockford, Illinois, bishop Arthur J. O’Neill has started a non-territorial parish in his diocese for Catholic Pentecostals (see March 31 issue, page 34).

Besides dealing with reports and actions of a housekeeping nature, the bishops implied consent to continued conversations with Southern Baptists, American Baptists, Anglicans, and Lutherans (“separated brethren”), apparently ignoring the suggestion of Triumph’s editor that prayers for unity be instead characterized as prayers on heresy and schism.

But overall, the most significant story of the conference was probably the further emergence of evangelical trends in the Catholic Church as the moment of truth for Key 73 approaches. As if to underscore what is happening, Quinn called attention to a National Congress on the Word of God—aimed at underscoring evangelical truth, revitalizing preaching, and ministering to the current crisis in faith—to be held in Washington, D. C., in September.

Turned-On Mennonites Probe Evangelism

Last month’s Probe 72 All-Mennonite Consultation on Evangelism in Minneapolis was by all standards one of the most significant events in the 450 years of Mennonite history. From throughout the United States and Canada more than 2,000 participants representing a number of Mennonite groups gathered for four days to discuss how to reach the world for Christ. A third of them were high schoolers and college students, many of them newly turned on to Jesus, and they were largely responsible for a joyous revival atmosphere that swept over the conference shortly after it opened.

“Mennonite Hour” broadcaster David Augsburger pointed up perhaps the major significance: “We have been together in the past on relief and service; now we are together on evangelism.” (Although most Mennonite bodies² share a common heritage and are linked in the Mennonite Central Committee, there has been little common spiritual activity at the grass-roots level.)

One of the announced purposes of the consultation was to tool up for participation in the Key 73 outreach campaign next year. Workshops and seminars covered just about every conceivable way to apply the evangelistic touch, from music and drama to home Bible study groups, preaching, disaster relief work, and peace demonstrations.

Some groups hit the streets to practice what they had learned. Teams visited door to door and shared their faith on downtown street corners, returning with reports of conversions. Others visited a Christian commune across the street from the University of Minnesota to find out how to reach students and counter-culture youths.

A group of twenty-five delivered a petition signed by 1,400 to the Honeywell plant, asking the company to reconsider renewal of military contracts. Their statement closed with a testimony and an invitation to company officials to follow Jesus.

The peace issue kept coming up in sessions as news poured in of escalation of the Indochina war. (The Mennonites have been pacifists ever since their founding in 1525 in a Zurich church whose members—later known as Anabaptists—renounced civil authority.) But delegates resisted liberal pressure to turn the conference into an anti-war rally, with young people leading the way in keeping evangelism central. Testimonies and platform references to evangelical doctrine, especially the Second Coming, set off enthusiastic applause and shouts of “Praise the Lord!” among the young.

Dean George Brunk of Eastern Mennonite College in Harrisonburg, Virginia (100 of EMC’s 850 students attended Probe 72; many slept on church floors), called for “warmth and winsomeness” in the traditionally quiet, conservative Mennonite churches. “Hitherto we have not been known for our success in this realm of evangelism,” he observed. “We had our heyday in evangelism in the Reformation, and then we became the quiet people of the land. But we’re waking up, we are excited about Jesus in this consultation!”

Brunk told of hearing of a crowd that had applauded Jesus and was himself interrupted as the audience stood and gave a similar sustained ovation. As it subsided, Brunk, a balding man in his fifties, shouted, “Give me a J!” Young and old Mennonites joined in spelling out in loud cheers the name of Jesus—perhaps the most unusual moment in Mennonite history.

In telling of early Anabaptists’ enthusiasm for evangelism, EMC president Myron Augsburger said that when Anabaptist leader Michael Sattler was killed, a plan was found on his body to reach literally all of Europe for Christ. Picking up the cue, Palmer Becker—home-missions director of the General Conference Mennonite Church—in the closing session asked participants similarly to write down a plan to reach their world with the Gospel.

Commented church worker Marie Wiens: “If Probe makes each one of us feel responsible for our next-door neighbor, somehow winning the world for Christ will naturally follow.”

EDWARD E. PLOWMAN

Live Coverage

Because of the small auditorium in Charlotte, evangelist Billy Graham arranged to have his recent crusade there telecast each night over ten stations in both North and South Carolina, the first time he has ever employed live TV coverage.

Concordia’S Dispute Is Extended

Faculty members at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, say they do not affirm the doctrinal guidelines issued in March by Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod president J. A. O. Preus. The thirteen-page faculty statement charges that the guidelines are “invalid both as an assessment and a solution of presumed problems at the seminary.”

The statement was said to have been approved by a “virtually unanimous” vote of the seminary’s forty-eight professors. One professor known to have demurred is Dr. Robert Preus, a brother of the Missouri Synod president and a staunch evangelical. Robert Preus, who holds doctorates from Edinburgh and Strassburg, declared publicly that he rejects the historical critical method. Seminary president John Tietjen contends it is impossible “to teach at the seminary level of instruction and take the texts of Scripture with utter seriousness without using the so-called historical critical method.”

Evangelical Setback In Zaire

Thirty-three evangelical churches and missions in the Republic of Zaire (formerly Congo) entered a crisis period in early April when the government rejected their proposed council of churches. The Council of Protestant Churches in Zaire (CPCZ) had requested legal recognition in accordance with a new law requiring all but three major churches to reapply for permission to operate. The three exempted were the Roman Catholic Church, the Kimbanguist Church (an independent African movement now part of the World Council of Churches), and the Church of Christ in Zaire (CCZ).

The government ruled that the CCZ would be the only recognized church in which Protestants could work. All denominations and missions that had formerly been approved by the civil authorities were now to continue their activities within the united church. The official statement promised the imminent publication of a list of all authorized Protestant groups, or “communities,” as proposed in the CCZ.

The government’s decision put most of the thirty-three members of the rejected council back where they once were. The evangelical groups of CPCZ had withdrawn from the united church because of its ecumenical trends. They attributed these trends to the leadership of Dr. I (Jean) Bokambanza Bokeleale, who is president of CCZ and serves on both the Executive Committee and the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches. The CCZ itself is not a member of the WCC. (See March 17 issue, page 42, and April 14 issue, page 4.)

These problems of doctrine and administration were incomprehensible to the Zairian lawmakers, who are almost all Roman Catholics. So when they drafted a law to stabilize religious activities in the nation, they simply put all the Protestants together in one church. In the words of one national magazine, “all the Protestant communities were put into one sack and condemned to get along with each other.”

The council of churches was not the only group rejected by the government. The Ministry of Justice reported at least 1,300 religious groups operating in Zaire at the end of 1971; some cities with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants had 150 or more churches and sects. Forty-five of the 1,300 groups presented formal requests to the government for recognition. These included such familiar names as the Orthodox Church, Muslims, and Seventh-day Adventists as well as CPCZ with its thirty-three member groups.

The Ministry of Justice subjected the forty-five requests for legal status to the stringent conditions prepared by the National Assembly. Only four requests were passed on for President Mobutu Sese Seko’s signature. On April 5 the radio announced that in addition to the three churches previously approved, three more religious groups had been recognized by the government: the Islamic Community of Zaire, the Israeli Community of Kinshasa, and the Orthodox Church. Within three months the government had cut down from 1,300 to six the number of religious organizations permitted.

Even if permitted to continue within the CCZ, some evangelical groups may choose to disband rather than be part of a united church they consider ecumenical. To go or stay became a dilemma of conscience for the Unevangelized Fields Mission (UFM), working in northern Zaire. Mission leaders at first decided to pull out of Zaire unless CPCZ were recognized. After the council was rejected, UFM missionaries and national church leaders met in Kisangani. They decided that although the UFM could not support the CCZ in any way, missionaries were free to continue working with their local churches if they desired.

ROBERT L. NIKLAUS

Ecumenical Midwifery

Officials of the World Council of Churches claim a share of the credit for the peace agreement reached by the government of Sudan and the South Sudan Liberation Movement. The pact offers the prospect of peace in the Sudan after sixteen years of civil war during which an estimated half a million Sudanese died. WCC spokesmen say its representatives along with local ecumenical leaders were instrumental in bringing together the warring factions. As one member of the government put it, “their role has been to act as midwives” between the Arab Muslim leaders in Khartoum and the part-pagan, part-Christian tribal chieftains in the south.

Bangladesh: ‘Come Before June’

The monsoon season will begin next month in Bangladesh, and many of the still homeless refugees—estimated to number ten million—will die as a result.

Dr. Larry Ward, president of Food for the Hungry, announced that without a dramatic airlift program Bangladesh won’t survive the summer months. Citing a recently published United Nations study, Ward estimated that the majority—some sources put it as high as 75 per cent—of trucks, riverboats, and bridges were destroyed during the war. Also involved in relief efforts is Russell O’Quinn, who heads the Foundation for Airborne Relief and led the successful Biafra airlift. He planned to go to Bangladesh soon with a big C-97 cargo plane carrying smaller amphibious planes and helicopters. Most sources say helicopters are needed most. Food is said to be rotting on docks.

Foodstuffs and building supplies rank highest in priority to be air-lifted, says Bernard A. Confer, executive of Lutheran World Relief. And along with supplies, the refugees need help in rebuilding. Many major relief organizations are providing just that (see March 3 issue, page 38).

Students, too, are getting involved. In late March twenty-one young people, including sixteen Wheaton College students, left for Bangladesh to spearhead a village relief effort sponsored by Medical Assistance Programs of Wheaton, Illinois. They are headquartered at Memorial Christian Hospital in Chittagong. Other Wheaton students, as well as faculty and staff, donated nearly $4,000, channeling it through the World Relief Commission of the National Association of Evangelicals.

The recent history of the Bangladesh people is characterized by disaster. In 1970 the worst natural disaster of the century, a cyclone and tidal wave, drowned 500,000 Pakistanis and left millions homeless. Three million were killed in the 1971 civil war, and the 1972 India-Pakistan conflict has raised the figure.

If the tragedy is to cease, immediate help is needed, points out Ward: “This is a race against time”—the one thing no one can give Bangladesh.