A 10,000-word Holy Communion “guide,” which provides for discussing fellowship at the Lord’s Table with other denominations, was adopted by delegates to last month’s 22nd biennial convention of the United Lutheran Church in America.
The statement, three years in the making, takes the place of a 20-year-old, 250-word statement which the delegates rescinded. It was prepared by a special commission composed of 10 theology professors, 4 pastors, and a synodical president.
“The time is ripe,” the statement says, “for Lutherans to initiate theological discussion with other Christian bodies regarding inter-communion … [In the meantime] no blanket judgment should be expressed about the celebration of the sacrament in interdenominational assemblies.”
Generally, the new statement discourages extremes of both “high church” and “low church” communion practices.
Dr. John W. Behnken, president of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, restricted his comment on the ULCA statement to a reaffirmation of the conviction that there must be doctrinal unity before there can be intercommunion.
As expected, ULCA delegates unanimously endorsed a proposed merger with three small Lutheran groups: the Augustana Lutheran Church, the American Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church.
The ULCA itself represents a union dating to 1918 of the General Synod, the General Council, and the United Synod of the South. It now has some 2,500,000 members in 4,600 congregations.
The new body, to be known as the Lutheran Church in America, will have some 3,140,000 members and will probably rank anywhere from fourth to sixth in size among U. S. denominations. The ULCA, now the seventh largest American denomination, is the biggest in Lutheranism.
If the merger is ratified by local congregations as anticipated, the constituting convention will be held in June of 1962.
The ULCA convention, held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, was marked by a prolonged debate on a disarmament statement sponsored by the Board of Social Missions.
As first presented to delegates, the statement prompted a critical address by the Rev. William B. Downey, who is now pastor of Fox Point Lutheran Church near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Downey was chaplain to the crew of the “Enola Gay,” the aircraft used to drop the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
He centered his opposition to the original draft on a section which called upon the governments of the United States and Canada to engage “in such forms of peaceful cooperation and competitive co-existence with the Communist world as will not further the totalitarian concept of control.”
“What does the statement say with regard to the defeat of Communist ideology?” Downey asked. “What word is there concerning the rollback of the forces of Sovietism? What does it say about the liberation of our own brethren of the household of faith who are now enslaved? Can we cooperate with Communist treachery?”
Downey’s remarks were greeted with enthusiastic applause, but after lengthy debate his amendment to the part of the statement he found objectionable was defeated by the delegates. He had sought a stronger anti-Communist stand.
The statement then was referred to an informal committee composed of members of the Board of Social Missions, Downey, and Dr. O. Frederick Nolde, a ULCA clergyman who is director of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, a joint agency of the World Council of Churches and the International Missionary Council.
The revised statement, adopted by a large majority, urged the nuclear powers “to persist in the efforts to arrive at effective multilateral agreements on the cessation of all kinds of nuclear weapons testing with provision for adequate inspection and control.”
“A moratorium on testing should be continued,” the statement added, “until every opportunity to secure such effective agreement has been utilized.”
Eliminating mention of “competitive co-existence,” it asked the United States and Canada to engage “with other governments in peaceful competition where important differences exist and in peaceful cooperation where fundamental principle is not compromised.”
Another statement endorsed by the Board of Social Missions, opposing capital punishment, was defeated 248 to 238 in the last hour of the eight-day convention.
Elected ULCA secretary was Dr. George F. Harkins, who succeeds Dr. F. Eppling Reinartz. Harkins since 1949 has been assistant to Dr. Franklin Clark Fry, ULCA president.
Stand On Sacrament Defined
Dr. F. Eppling Reinartz, retiring secretary of the United Lutheran Church in America, hailed a new statement on Holy Communion adopted by its 22nd biennial convention as “one of the principal documents to be produced by the ULCA in its 42-year history.”
Here are highlights of statement:
Presence of Christ—“There is no direct physical discernment of the presence of Christ in the sacrament any more than of the presence of God in the man Jesus. The mystery is the miracle of God’s gracious approach to man. Rationalizations are ruled out. A mystery can only be acknowledged, not explained.” Thanksgiving—“We do not offer Christ’s body and blood in thanksgiving but we offer thanksgiving for the body and blood that are given and shed for us, imparting forgiveness, life and salvation.”
Frequency—“The frequency of the sacrament, the designation of a proper ministrant, and the character of vestments are not unimportant or dismissable.… The Lutheran Church has its own organic way to deal with such practical issues.”
Fellowship of Believers—“The legally organized congregation may well provide the context within which the sacrament is normally celebrated, but as an institution it has no sacramental monopoly. The holy communion may be celebrated elsewhere as well, wherever an assembly of believers is gathered.”
Wine or Grape Juice?—“… not inconclusive is the length and unity of the tradition which specifies wine as the element commonly used.… This is not to say that grape juice may not be used either in the instance of an offence to conscience created by the use of wine or because of reasons of health.”
Communion Cup—“In the past the church has generally used the chalice for the administration of the sacrament. However, the banning of the use of a common cup by civil law in some states and general training in hygienic measures in our society have caused considerable concern about the continued use of the chalice for the administration of the sacrament. It is appropriate that the vessels used in the sacrament do not create an obstacle to the devotion of the people.”
Posture at Altar—“Contemporary parishes are encouraged to ask if kneeling at the altar for the reception of the sacrament might not be desirable for our time and circumstances.… However, this is not to be interpreted to suggest that standing is an inappropriate posture for the reception of the sacrament where local conditions make it more desirable.”
Vestments—“In the absence of local conditions to the contrary, the use of cassock, surplice and stole (by the pastor) for services of holy communion is acknowledged as generally appropriate today.”
Protestant Panorama
● The Protestant missionary force in the Congo was gradually regaining pre-independence strength as of the end of October. Even women missionaries were finding their way back, despite continued instability in the political situation.… A newly-organized agency of the Congo Protestant Council, the Congo Protestant Relief Agency is seeking additional medical help.
● Central College in Pella, Iowa, associated with the Reformed Church in America, has one of the youngest presidents on the U. S. educational scene. Arend D. Lubbers, 29, inaugurated last month, is the son of Dr. Irwin J. Lubbers, who served as Central president from 1935 to 1945.
● An advertising campaign in behalf of Churches of Christ reached into the October 31 issue of Life. The $11,000 quarter-page advertisement in Life represents the most ambitious undertaking of the Gospel Press, a non-profit foundation which raises money for promoting Churches of Christ in the secular press.
● A new organ arrived last month for the Anglican church located on the tiny island of Tristan da Cunha off the South African coast. It was a gift of Queen Elizabeth, sent to replace one accidentally dropped in the ocean during unloading operations.
● American Baptists in Burma plan to turn over all mission property to local ownership. The transfer involves more than 160 plots of land, many with churches, schools, residences, and hospitals. Burma was the American Baptists’ first mission field.
● Methodism’s newest mission hospital is located in Kapit, Sarawak (Borneo). The $175,000 plant dedicated this fall serves a population of 41,000 scattered over a territory the size of the state of Maryland. Facilities include a fleet of mobile clinics.
● The Far East Broadcasting Company plans to beam Gospel programs overseas from a new short-wave station, KGEI, with studios and a 50,000-watt transmitter in Belmont, California.
● A new missionary boat began serving isolated Philippine islands this fall with a five-member crew which includes a Protestant evangelist. The “St. Luke” also carries a doctor, a nurse, and a handyman. Skipper is Dr. Ray Bennett, who for the past 10 years has been consultant on respiratory diseases at Los Angeles General Hospital.
● The entire townsite of Hlolden, Washington, was presented as an outright gift to the Seattle Lutheran Bible Institute last month by the Howe-Sound Mining Company. Buildings on the townsite, valued at $1,750,000, are said to have been well maintained since the company ended 20 years of copper and gold mining there.
● Seven countries were represented at the 23rd annual meeting of Christian Business Men’s Committee International in Seattle last month. The CBMCI norv has nearly 500 local chapters with a world-wide membership of 15,000.
● Dr. Siegried Asche, custodian of Wartburg Castle, fled to West Germany last month after complaining to Communist authorities that his life and work had been marked by “the atmosphere of a jail.” Wartburg Castle, located in the Red zone of Germany, is famous as the retreat where Martin Luther found refuge after the Diet of Worms.
● The Granville (North Carolina) Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. overwhelmingly rejected last month an anti-integrationist proposal which would have restricted use of a new summer camp to presbytery members only.
● Chaplain (Colonel) Charles I. Carpenter, first Chief of Air Force Chaplains, will retire from military service November 30. Top Air Force officials have paid tribute to Carpenter, a Methodist, by presenting him with testimonials from government, military, and church leaders.
● Trustees of Chicago’s Northern Baptist Theological Seminary are negotiating the purchase of a 50-acre suburban site for a new campus.
The Passion Play
Before chilly autumn breezes in the Bavarian Alps coaxed an end to the 1960 edition of their decennial Passion play, Oberammergau villagers were able to enact a total of 93 performances. This year’s series, the 37th since the villagers conceived the idea of a Passion play back in 1634, was witnessed by 518,000 paying patrons and stirred many controversies.
For an appraisal of the play and the issues it raised,CHRISTIANITY TODAYcalled upon Contributing Editor Harold B. Kuhn, professor at Asbury Theological Seminary and a student of the German scene. Dr. Kuhn, who with his wife saw the 1950 play as well as the latest performance, is currently at the University of Mainz on sabbatical leave.
Those critical of the play usually base objections upon one of the following: That the play was not well done; that the village of Oberammergau commercialized the endeavor; that the effect was anti-Semitic.
As for the first objection, one must observe that the performance is basically a work of village folk art, done in pursuit of a vow made during a time of pestilence which marked the Thirty Years’ War. The play must be judged upon criteria which are applicable to such art. Such a judgment is difficult for the sophisticated, who tend to make Broadway, or Sunset and Vine, the standard. Oberammergau has no Cecil B. DeMille, and no facilities for the production of the fabulous, even if its people should desire to present an art-spectacle. The play was artistically staged and beautifully performed, the staging and costumes being the hand-work of the villagers. But the nature of the Passion play itself is such that to revise it in the manner demanded by those who would make it “authentic” and cause it to conform to contemporary “ideas of reality” would be to remove it from the sphere in which it was designed to move.
Some are inclined to view the Daisenberger text of 1860 as the bête noir, as if there came some self-conscious change over the original play during the nineteenth century. This writer has examined a copy of the text as it was about 1670, and so far as he has been able to compare, he finds that the changes made by Father Daisenberger were made, not in the direction of an alteration to suit nineteenth-century ideas and prejudices, but with a view to making the text intelligible in modern High German.
With respect to alleged commercialism of the Passion play, it needs to be borne in mind that some misunderstandings and inequities are inevitable when a village of a few thousand inhabitants attempts to present a play for more than a half million persons. The “block booking” of room, meals, and play tickets doubtless seemed harsh to some who had local connections in Bavaria. But when one seeks to be sympathetic with the problems of the village, and when he remembers the lack of control in 1950, he may conclude that the matter of tickets and accommodations was handled admirably, measured against the problems. As for the motives of the inhabitants of Oberammergau, no outsider would presume to speak the last word. However, when one realizes that the total economy of the community was disrupted for nine months, and when one views the vast quantity of physical and expendable properties involved, he will be slow to charge the Oberammergauers with being mercenary.
Regarding the alleged anti-Semitism of the play, it needs to be said that the text is taken, for the most part, directly from the four Gospels. Granted that selection and emphasis may be tendentious, it can be shown from the play as a whole that no one narrative has been utilized to the exclusion of the others. It must be faced, at the same time, that no presentation of the Passion of our Lord can be faithful to the Scripture and at the same time serve the contemporary purpose of improving relations between Christians and Jews, so long as there is any realistic facing of the fact that our Lord was crucified at the insistence of the Jewish authorities of his times. If this be anti-Semitism, then no authentic Passion play can be free of the charge.
In summary, it may fairly be said that the Oberammergau Passion play has accomplished a large task. It was able to hold the attention of people of diverse faiths—and perhaps some of no faith at all—for a performance lasting some seven hours, in a theatre definitely not constructed for comfort.
There was no resort to the usual dramatic vehicles by which crowds are held spellbound. Not one of the twenty tableaux presenting Old Testament and Apocryphal support of the scenes contained a torrid love scene; there was no alcoholism and no scene of seduction; Mary Magdalene did not even take another try at “happiness.” If the impression made upon the writer and his wife be at all typical, audience after audience left the Passion play theatre gripped by the conviction that they had seen a faithful presentation of the mighty event in which the Prince of Glory died for the sins of the world. This conviction cannot fail to persist as an abiding result, of genuine value to the Christian cause.
It seemed to this writer that the part of Christus was played with great fidelity. This is especially noteworthy in view of the demands of the role upon the performer. Not all supporting roles were played with equal effectiveness. The next strongest character-portrayals were, in order, Judas, Caiphas and Pilate. A 48-voice chorus enhanced and enriched an impressive dramatic performance.
People: Words And Events
Deaths:Rabbi Jacob Moshe Toledano, 80, Israeli Minister of Religious Affairs; in Jerusalem … Dr. Robert Marsden, 55, executive secretary of Westminster Theological Seminary; in Middletown, Pennsylvania … Dr. William M. Fouts, 73, retired professor and registrar at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Appointments: As professor of Pastoral Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, Dr. Seward Hiltner … as executive editor of Christian Herald, Dr. Kenneth L. Wilson … as editor of The Methodist Hymnal, the Rev. Carlton R. Young.
Quote: “I welcome this opportunity to acknowledge my nation’s indebtedness to the spiritual and intellectual resources of Scotland. A symbol of this indebtedness, the Rev. John Witherspoon, stands in bronze outside the door of our church in Washington. Born in Edinburgh and nurtured in the land of his fathers, Witherspoon became a heroic leader of Americans in their struggle for independence. As such he represents a great host of Scots who helped to build my country and whose descendants give living strength to the bonds which unite our peoples.”—President Eisenhower, in a message to the 400th anniversary General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, delivered by his minister, Dr. Edward L. R. Elson of the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D. C.
A ‘Common’ Bible
A team of Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish scholars are working together on a new translation of the Scriptures, which they hope will win acceptance as a “common Bible” for theological and ecumenical discussions and for public school reading.
The Rev. Walter M. Abbott, editor of the national Jesuit weekly America and a leading proponent of the “common Bible” idea, says the new translation will be published in 30 paperback volumes by Doubleday in its Anchor Book series.
“The first of the volumes,” says Abbott, “is scheduled to appear in January, 1962, and it is expected that the last will appear in 1966.”
Heading the translation team is Dr. William F. Albright, renowned Methodist scholar and professor emeritus of Semitics at Johns Hopkins University. His associates include the Rev. Mitchell J. Dahood, a Jesuit priest from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome; Dr. Moshe Greenberg and Dr. E. A. Speiser, both of the University of Pennsylvania; and Professor Bo Reicke of the University of Basel, Switzerland.
Purely Religious?
The city of Nashville’s bid to place a tax assessment of some $5,000,000 against Baptist properties was stopped short last month by the Tennessee Board of Equalization.
City attorneys may appeal the ruling, which removed from Nashville’s tax rolls $5,101,400 in assessments on denominational publishing and educational properties.
The assessments, most of which were placed on the tax rolls for the first time this year, would have yielded about $150,000 in tax revenue annually.
The bulk of the assessment—$4,796,200—was on properties owned by the Baptist Sunday School Board, publishing agency of the Southern Baptist Convention. A portion of the remainder was levied against the Sunday School Publishing Board of the National Baptist Convention in the U. S. A., Inc.
Church Giving
A record $2,407,464,641 in contributions was reported for 1959 by 49 Protestant and Eastern Orthodox denominations in the United States, according to statistics compiled by the National Council of Churches.
Average gain in contributions was reported to be 4.6 per cent above 1958 for 35 of the 49 bodies which gave comparable figures for both years.
The totals appear in an annual report issued by Dr. Thomas K. Thompson, director of the NCC’s Department of Stewardship and Benevolence.
Per capita giving for the 35 groups amounted to $69.13, of which $2.26 was earmarked for foreign missions, the latter figure representing a four-cent increase over the previous year.
Six Canadian church bodies disclosed contributions totalling $105,304,001. Among four of these reporting comparable figures for both years, total gifts averaged $54.20 per member in 1959, an increase of $1.27 over 1958. Their foreign missions contributions rose 7.6 per cent to $1.69 per member.
Agitation in Laos
Communist agitation in Laos prompted evacuation last month of a Protestant mission station at Xieng Khouang.
In Vientiane, shell fire damaged a large Roman Catholic cathedral. Sam Neua, where eight Catholic missionaries were stationed, was reported overrun by Communist troops.
The evacuated Protestant station was operated by the Christian and Missionary Alliance, which reported that all other missions activity in Laos were proceeding normally. The Alliance has 12 missionaries in Laos, and two more were due to arrive this month.
Swiss Brethren and the China Inland Mission also are represented in Laos, each with some 20 missionaries.
WCC as Mediator
Still unresolved are the strained relations between Dutch Reformed and Anglican churches in South Africa which resulted from basic differences on the apartheid issue and on the policies of Prime Minister Hendrik F. Verwoerd.
The dispute dates back to attacks by Dr. Joost de Blank, Anglican bishop of Cape Town, against the Dutch Reformed church in South Africa for its support of apartheid. There has been talk in the meantime of expelling the Dutch Reformed from the World Council of Churches.
The WCC intervened by sending a representative to arrange a round table of its South African member churches, including the Anglicans and Dutch Reformed. Negotiations progressed until the government issued an expulsion order against Anglican Bishop Richard Ambrose Reeves of Johannesburg. No official reason was given, but deportation evidently followed statements by Reeves which were interpreted as “meddling in politics.” Reeves opposes apartheid.
De Blank then balked at continuing negotiations, asserting that Reeves was a central figure in the discussions. The WCC representative was scheduled to make a new attempt at renewing talks, and de Blank’s attitude seemed to be softening last month.
The round table was originally scheduled to take place in December in Johannesburg. It may still transpire as initially planned.
B. J. M.
Christ Depicted In Modern Dress
A Sunday school booklet which includes illustrations of Christ wearing Bermuda shorts is being distributed to local congregations of the United Church of Christ.
The booklet, designed for three-year-olds as part of a new religious education curriculum, won endorsement last month from the General Council of the Evangelical and Reformed Church, which is merging with the Congregational Christian General Council to form the United Church of Christ.
Stories in the booklet are retold in nursery rhymes, and biblical figures are depicted in clothing and appearance familiar to children.
Some of the illustrations show Christ and his disciples dressed in knee-length Bermuda shorts and tuniclike shirts. Others portray them in slacks and sports coats, with slight beards and short hair.
“I can more easily imagine [Jesus] wielding his carpenter tools dressed like this than in the long robe with long sleeves in which he is usually pictured,” said Dr. James E. Wagner, United Church co-president.
Dr. Robert Koenig, director of the curriculum, cited archeological authority to support his assertion that working men of Jesus’ time customarily dressed in garb approximating short trousers and shirt. The long robe in which Jesus is traditionally pictured, he said, was used as a combination overcoat-blanket by travellers.
In approving the booklet, the General Council called on “pastors, church school teachers and parents to participate in a fair, thoughtful trial use of this new curriculum.”
