Some 50 radio stations linked with the Mutual Broadcasting System added a 30-minute weekly broadcast this month featuring the voice of Dr. Billy James Hargis, founder-director of Christian Crusade, “largest anti-communist ministry in America.” Hargis was already being heard on 15-minute daily broadcasts carried by some 76 stations and on 30-minute weekly broadcasts heard over 66 stations. He also has a 15-minute weekly telecast seen in 12 U. S. cities and in the Virgin Islands. The added outreach for the 14-year-old Hargis organization takes advantage of a rightist revival now sweeping the United States. Assorted new organizations, all thriving on bad publicity, are springing up almost daily.
The right-wing renascence is basically a political phenomenon, but some of the motivations are religious, as are some of the repercussions.
The Hargis organization and the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade of Dr. Fred C. Schwarz both have a large following among fundamentalists, but their scope long ago transcended theological lines. Schwarz was catapulted to national prominence this fall through widely-telecast public rallies in Southern California. Retraction of a critical story in Life magazine also helped the cause, inasmuch as Life publisher C. D. Jackson actually took the platform at a Schwarz rally to concede the magazine’s “over-simplified misrepresentation” and to praise the Schwarz enterprise.
Responsible evangelicals applaud the initiative of genuinely sincere anti-Communists. But some observers record their reservations over an excessively negative approach. They agree that the public ought to be more aware of Communist strategy, and that the ideological transition from socialism to communism is well worth publicizing. But they question whether some of the hoop-la rallies provide much ideological orientation. More important, these observers are disturbed at preoccupation with communism to the neglect of positive Christianity. The question is asked: Would we not be more profitably engaged if we indoctrinated the masses in the fundamentals of the Christian world-life view and called for personal commitment and for aggressive cells of workers?
Some anti-Communists and anti-liberals have become so irresponsible in their accusations and blanket denunciations that they hurt their own good cause. They have even leveled accusations at people who share their own convictions but who exercise more restraint. Extremists fail to see that they are being used as decoys by the liberals: smoke swirls about right-wing extremists while left-wingers quietly go about peddling their influence.
The Appeal To Roman Catholics
U. S. Roman Catholicism plays a major role in today’s right-wing renascence. The number of Roman Catholics active in conservative political ranks is believed to exceed their population proportion.
Officially, the U. S. Roman Catholic hierarchy frowns on right-wing extremists. Archbishop William E. Cousins, episcopal chairman of the Social Action Department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, said in an annual report issued last month that “these groups are unwittingly aiding the Communist cause by dividing and confusing Americans.” America and Commonweal, most influential of American Roman Catholic periodicals, have taken similar stands.
Individually, however, it is a different story. Robert Welch, head of the John Birch Society, maintains that 50 per cent of its membership is Roman Catholic. The society’s national council includes several well-known Roman Catholic figures, including a priest. Even Cardinal Cushing was once quoted as having expressed sympathy for the Birchers’ cause.
Many more Roman Catholics espouse the conservative political views of U. S. Senator Barry Goldwater, who avoids the Birch extreme. Goldwater has attracted Roman Catholic support by cautious pronouncements, as on federal aid to education. He says that if there is going to be such aid (he is against it), then parochial schools should be given a share.
Acknowledged leader of Catholics-for-Goldwater is William F. Buckley, Jr., editor of the National Review, who stirred considerable controversy with a criticism of socialistic overtones in the latest encyclical of Pope John XXIII.
The aggressive liberal attack on right-wingers gives the liberals the initiative, keeps the right on the defensive; it raises questions about the right, while making the left seem respectable and normative; it enables the liberals to achieve their ends while discrediting those who would call them to account.
Many right-wingers are highly sensitive to the conspiratorial facets of contemporary Communist strategy, a fact which causes some to trace all socialistic trends back to the Kremlin. Thus the socialistic overtones in liberal church pronouncements are interpreted as continuing evidence of the presence of “Communist clergymen” in the United States.
Anti-Communist extremists who saw a Red in every other committee went into virtual hibernation at the demise of Mc-Carthyism. They came to life again when the National Council of Churches made a big affair out of an obscure Air Force Reserve manual which warned of clergy subversion. Some Protestant anti-Communist extremists also came to new life in the wake of the Roman Catholic issue in Kennedy’s election campaign because they happened also to share a genuine concern for church-state separation. Almost to a man they supported the candidacy of Vice President Richard M. Nixon, and Nixon’s narrow-margin loss was a batter blow.
Kennedy’s initial approach to the Soviets was decidedly more conciliatory than that of his predecessor in the presidency, and this stirred the feelings of the extremists still more. Following the Kennedy-Khrushchev meeting in Vienna, however, U. S.-Soviet relations deteriorated sharply. As he had done any number of times, Khrushchev feinted in East Germany, and Kennedy took the opportunity for a military buildup that some sources say he had wanted all along. But criticisms arose similar to those directed at Eisenhower by liberals and conservatives alike, that U. S. policy seemed to be shaped more by reaction than by initiative. By this time, many ultra-conservatives were vocal in calling for a policy of strength and stability, and their influence was spreading rapidly.
Political discontent in America today largely follows one of two general courses. To the left are pacifistic critics of nuclear testing. To the right lie a myriad of complainers ranging from George Lincoln Rockwell and his self-styled Nazism to the arms-carrying Minute Men of Southern California.
Liberally-oriented news analysts continually do the public a disservice by lumping all together under the right-wing forces under the same umbrella and assigning them a common identification. Washington correspondents largely regard the right-wing bloc as a laughingstock, and their bias is readily discernible in news stories. Thus far, however, this adverse treatment (even President Kennedy’s denunciation) has worked to the advantage of the extremists. It seems to win them friends, and most certainly spreads the word to persons of like convictions eager to line up behind a cause.
Two tactics currently used to discredit right-wingers are the same as those long decried by liberals: guilt by association (lumping together of superficially-similar representations) and arbitrary labeling on the basis of isolated quotations removed from context.
The year 1962 promises political developments which are bound to have one kind of bearing or another upon theological conservatives. The show will begin with Congressional hearings next month over the alleged muzzling of Major General Edwin A. Walker.
Missions Debate
What priorities ought to characterize evangelical missions strategy?
The question was tossed about with determined vigor in the fall issues of His magazine, a monthly published by Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship primarily for college students. The literary debate was designed as a prelude to the IVCF’s sixth International Student Missionary Convention at the University of Illinois, December 27–31.
Chief figures in the debate were Dr. Kenneth Pike, linguistics professor at the University of Michigan, and Dr. Arthur Glasser, home director of China Inland Mission-Overseas Missionary Fellowship.
Pike, affiliated with Wycliffe Bible Translators, asserted that contemporary missionaries “should tackle those specialized tasks which the indigenous local church cannot, or will not … handle … in this decade.”
Glasser, who was a missionary to the Nosu tribal people of China, cited Kenneth Scott Latourette’s concept of “the ongoing Christian community” as the great tool. He declared that too much emphasis is being placed on “subsidiary” specialization.
‘Ferocious’ Objections
A national women’s magazine with a circulation of 7,000,000 cancelled a drug company’s $120,000 series of full-page advertisements on birth control and planned parenthood because of “readers’ objections,” Religious News Service reported last month.
Karyl Van, advertising director of Every woman’s Family Circle, a 10-cent magazine sold mainly in supermarkets, said the publication had received numerous complaints about the first advertisement of a six-part series for the Ortho Pharmaceutical Corporation, the nation’s largest manufacturer of contraceptives.
“The objections from readers was ferocious,” said Van. “We no longer are carrying the ads. This subject is too hot to handle.”
However, a spokesman for the drug company said the decision to withdraw the advertisements had been made by the firm itself after an article denouncing such advertising appeared in America, the Jesuit weekly.
The first advertisement, as it appeared in Everywoman’s Family Circle and True Story, a romantic fiction magazine, showed a young woman talking over a picket fence with an older woman. Large type over the advertisement read: “Don’t plan your family over the back fence.”
Smaller type in the advertisement urged young mothers to consult their doctors about spacing babies. It said: “He can recommend a method that is dependable, simple, inexpensive and best suited to the needs of you and your husband.”
Although contraceptives are not mentioned in the advertisement, the last line says: “This message is sponsored by Ortho Pharmaceutical Corp., to whom medical methods of family planning are a particular concern.”
The Bookies Of Boston
Richard Cardinal Cushing, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston, says his city has been “betrayed” by a CBS television documentary which spotlighted bookmaking.
“Gambling exists everywhere,” the prelate told a policemen’s ball in the Boston Garden. “And no one can deny it. The United States Army wouldn’t be a sufficient law enforcement body to stop people from gambling.
“In my theology, gambling itself is not a sin any more than to take a glass of beer or of hard liquor is a sin. It’s the abuse that makes gambling evil or drinking intoxicating liquors an evil.”
He said that whoever was behind the program “owes an apology to the City of Boston.”
In New York, meanwhile, a state government commission investigating operations was told that bingo games were more profitable to bingo hall operators than to the charities they were intended to benefit. A commission counsel estimated that one lessor had made an annual net profit of more than 600 per cent on a $6,000 investment in a bingo hall.
Embarrassed Baptist
“In the 24 years I’ve lived in Louisiana,” said Dr. J. D. Grey, “we’ve had Baptists in the governorship for 16 years. They’ve been the sorriest years that our state law enforcement has ever seen.”
The pastor of the First Baptist Church of New Orleans was addressing some 2,000 men attending the annual Louisiana Baptist Brotherhood Convention last month.
“I’m not mad,” added Grey, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, “I’m embarrassed.”
Grey singled out Jimmie H. Davis, ballad-singing governor of Louisiana, as “the shame of Louisiana Baptists” for failing to act against “organized and commercialized gambling and corruption.”
Davis is a Baptist and once taught school in a Baptist college in Shreveport. He has written a number of songs, such as “You Are My Sunshine,” and has made recordings of Gospel songs.
Education And Religion
Gordon College won full academic accreditation this month.
The Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, school was approved for membership by the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools as a senior, four-year college of the arts and sciences.
Dr. James Forrester, president, announced that the Gordon Divinity School will move at once for full membership in the American Association of Theological Schools, recognized accrediting agency for seminaries, in which it now holds an associate membership.
Both the college and the divinity school are known for their evangelical orientation, but neither have official ties with a church body.
Other developments in church-related education:
—Dr. Ralph Phelps announced he had withdrawn his resignation as president of Ouachita Baptist College.
—The new half-million dollar campus of Grace Bible College, Wyoming, Michigan, was dedicated.
Religious Review
Here is a brief resumé of significant religious developments during 1961:
EVANGELISM: Billy Graham conducted major crusades in Florida; Manchester, England; Minneapolis; and Philadelphia. Telecasts of the meetings took on new importance.… Bob Pierce held a month-long campaign in Tokyo. Overall impact was unprecedented, despite public controversy.
THEOLOGY: Theological activity by scholars on the conservative side of the theological spectrum gained momentum.… To the left, neo-orthodoxy and waning classic liberalism continued their ideological struggle.… “Neo-evangelicalism” apparently has established itself as a term describing some conservative scholars avoiding the fundamentalist label.
MISSIONS: Violence hindered missionary effort in such lands as Laos, Vietnam, Congo, and Angola.… A Church of Christ in Israel was stoned repeatedly before being granted police protection.
ECUMENICITY: The World Council of Churches received into membership Orthodox churches from Iron Curtain countries. The action weakens the numerical domination of the WCC by Protestants.… The International Missionary Council was absorbed into the World Council.… Roman Catholic and Orthodox leaders planned separate ecumenical councils.… Many denominational mergers were brewing.
SCHISM: Congregational Christian churches which rejected denominational ties with the Evangelical and Reformed Church formed fellowships of their own.… The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod suspended relations with the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.… A Conservative Baptist faction formed its own mission society.… A group of Negro Baptists split off from the National Baptist Convention, U. S. A., Inc., to form a convention of their own.
EDUCATION: A new liberal arts college is planned at Sarasota, Florida, with the help of the Congregational Board of Home Missions.… The Conwell School of Theology, successor to the Temple School of Theology, opened its doors in Philadelphia.… The Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, a pioneering Negro ecumenical institution, was dedicated. It embraces four theological schools in a cooperative program.
MORALITY: If the cinema and television are indicative of public moral standards, the trend continued downhill.
SOCIAL ACTION: The propriety of fallout shelters raised many an argument among churchmen, but a number of liberals who claim to be on the front lines of social action were caught napping.… A papal encyclical dealing with social problems won unprecedented publicity.… Christian-oriented crusades against communism mushroomed.
PUBLISHING:The New English Bible New Testament made a big hit among clergy and laity alike. More than 3,000,000 copies are already in print.
CHURCH-STATE: Roman Catholic pressure for federal school funds gave President Kennedy the biggest controversy of his first year in office.… Demands grew for restrictions upon tax-free church-related business.… The U. S. Supreme Court handed down a record number of decisions touching upon religious issues.… A Peace Corps program began operation, prompting concern as to whether cooperation with missionary organizations would violate the church-state principle.… Communist leaders were reported trying to split German Lutheranism.… Burma adopted Buddhism as a state religion but proclaimed religious liberty for all citizens. Effect upon missionary activity is still uncertain.… Dutch Reformed churches in South Africa, supportive of the government’s apartheid policy, severed relations with the World Council of Churches.
Protestant Panorama
• Dr. Karl Barth is planning to make his first visit to the United States next spring, according to Religious News Service. He is scheduled to arrive sometime around Easter (April 22) and to give a five-day series of lectures at the University of Chicago Divinity School. The world-famous Swiss theologian is also said to have accepted an invitation to lecture at Princeton Seminary’s 150th anniversary observance.
• A Christian Herald poll shows that “The Old Rugged Cross” is still America’s favorite hymn. “How Great Thou Art” was a close second, followed by “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” “In the Garden,” “Amazing Grace,” and “Rock of Ages.”
• A commemorative four-cent postage stamp was issued last month to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Presbyterian clergyman who invented the game of basketball in 1891. The stamp honoring Dr. James Naismith was first placed on sale at Springfield (Massachusetts) College, where he taught and where a Basketball Hall of Fame is being erected.
• Texas Christian University plans a 12-year program of development that will include construction of six new buildings at an estimated cost of $5,000,000.
• A year-long evangelistic effort aimed at Guatemala’s 4,000,000 citizens will open next month with a three-day orientation session for pastors. The effort will operate under the framework of the “evangelism-indepth” concept developed by the Latin America Mission. It will include training classes, public rallies, visitation, campus ministries, and local church campaigns.
• Youth for Christ plans to begin a national radio program. It will be developed by Tedd Seelye, a staff announcer for station WMBI, affiliated with Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. Seelye joins Youth for Christ January 1.
• Some 30 journalists representing 15 Protestant church publications in Portugal formed a fellowship group last month. It will be known as the Portuguese Evangelical Press Association. Baptist, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Nazarene, and Brethren churches are represented.
• The Italian Bible Institute in Rome, project of the Greater Europe Mission, was dedicated last month. It will offer a three-year Protestant course.
• The British Weekly, founded by the late Sir William Robertson Nicoll to represent the so-called “nonconformist conscience,” is observing its 75th anniversary. The journal, published in Edinburgh, achieved a position of considerable influence in the religious and political life of the British Isles. It is now owned by the Church of Scotland but still serves the original purpose of representing Presbyterianism in Scotland and the nonepiscopal churches in the rest of the British Isles.
Regional Reaction
Resolutions criticizing the establishment of a new mission society were adopted at two of the Conservative Baptists’ three regional conferences this fall.
The Eastern and Western conferences labeled as “unfounded” certain allegations given as grounds for the founding of the new society by the Conservative Baptist Fellowship. Leaders of the fellowship, most separatist of Conservative Baptist bodies, charged that the “impact of Neo-Evangelicalism and its twin evil of ecumenical evangelism has had a divisive and deteriorating effect on the schools, societies and churches of our movement.” … Eschatological differences also were cited.
Highlights Of Wcc Assembly
Here is a summary of actions taken at the 18-day assembly of the World Council of Churches in New Delhi, India:
—Admission of the Russian Orthodox Church to membership in the WCC. The Russian church is the largest single religious body in the WCC, and its admission made Eastern Orthodoxy the largest “confessional family” in the World Council.
—Integration of the International Missionary Council into the WCC.
—Adoption of an appeal to all governments to make every effort to take “reasonable risks for peace” in order to dispel the climate of suspicion that leads to war. The assembly also endorsed a report warning that years of living under the threat of nuclear war will reduce mankind’s sense of human worth and dignity.
—Endorsement of a report on Christian witness which urged creation of cells of Christian laymen and women in areas where the church has lost contact with the masses.
—Election of six new presidents and a 100-member (formerly 90 member) central committee.
—Participation in the first official WCC communion service celebrated according to the Anglican rite. Although the service was open to all, Orthodox and some Lutheran churchmen, in accordance with their doctrines, did not participate.
—Expression of solidarity with those in South Africa who oppose the government’s racial policies.
—Adoption of a report from the WCC’s Division of Inter-Church Aid and Service to Refugees which said that churches should encourage governments in programs of relief and rehabilitation and should establish their own pilot projects where governments are uninterested.
—Adoption of a resolution submitted by Dr. Frederick Donald Coggan, Archbishop of York, that provided for a message of Christian unity to be sent to the East German church leaders who were refused visas to attend the assembly.
—Revocation of a report condemning Portugal for repressive acts in Angola. The assembly had endorsed the report by a margin of 179 to 177, but because of the closeness of one vote, the report was declared “meaningless” and was referred back to the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs.
—Approval of the first detailed plan for Christian unity ever acted on by a WCC assembly. The plan calls for interlocking communities of churches which recognize another’s members and ministers and allow joint participation in communion. Another unity report which the assembly endorsed calls for removal of barriers which keep members of different churches from taking communion together.
—Adoption of a new Basis for WCC membership which specifically mentions the Trinity and the Scriptures instead of requiring only recognition of Jesus Christ as Lord, as in the original Basis which was adopted back in 1948.
—Condemnations of violations of religious liberty through “legal enactments or the pressure of social customs.”
—Denunciation of anti-Semitism as a “sin against God and man.”
The Central conference adopted a resolution which affirmed the right of Conservative Baptists “to start new C. B. schools, C. B. Mission Societies, homes for the aged and other agencies to help in the further spread of the Gospel.” However, the resolution made no specific reference to the new mission society or to issues in its establishment.
Dr. Albert G. Johnson, president of Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, has resigned his position as a director of the Conservative Baptist Fellowship in protest of the fellowship’s action in creating a new mission society.
German Misgivings
Misgivings were voiced in many German Protestant and Roman Catholic quarters over the World Council of Churches action in admitting the Russian Orthodox Church to membership and electing Dr. Martin Niemöeller, controversial figure in the Evangelical Church in Germany, as one of its six presidents.
Der Tag, West Berlin organ of the Christian Democratic Union, whose membership includes both Protestants and Roman Catholics, said the first obvious result of accepting the Russian church in the World Council seemed to be a tendency to keep out of discussions “all problems which might anger the Eastern churches.”
Der Tag said New Delhi delegates must have been aware of the fact that Niemöeller “uses, or rather, misuses the pulpit and the Church to propagate his politically misty and often abstruse ideas.”
It added that Niemöeller’s election “may be regarded as a signal for a new WCC course.”
The Soviet Zone press hailed Niemödeller’s election as a serious warning for advocates of “the West German Military Church traveling in the wake of NATO.”
A Blow To Liberty
Even while the World Council of Churches in New Delhi was calling for religious liberty, a Seventh-day Adventist minister in Greece was found guilty of proselytizing by a Court of Appeals and given a 40-day suspended sentence.
The Rev. George Kotsasaridis, 47, had been acquitted last September by a lower court, but the local Greek Orthodox priest who instigated the charge appealed the case. The Orthodox clergyman maintained that Kotsasaridis had visited a number of families in his parish “to change their religion” and therefore was guilty of proselytizing, which is outlawed in Greece.
Still another appeal is expected.
Heresy Trial
A theologian’s trial on charges of heresy before a Dutch Reformed Church of Africa commission will be resumed January 30.
Professor A. S. Geyser won an adjournment to allow him time to prepare his defense. He is charged with heresy in interpreting the New Testament for his students and in criticising the church’s ban against nonwhite members.
Target: Adventists
Seventh-day Adventist missionaries in the Congo accused United Nations troops last month of firing shells that wrecked the church mission’s office building and damaged several villas in a compound at Elizabethville.
The mission buildings are a cluster of villas about 30 yards from U. N. headquarters. They were shelled as fighting erupted between U. N. and Katangan forces.
“We are everybody’s friend,” said a Seventh-day Adventist official. “We are here for our spiritual and medical work. Why should the U. N. shoot at us?”
The Rev. Chester L. Torrey, treasurer of the World Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, who was on a deputational tour, was hit on the head with a small shell splinter.
Official news dispatches said the missionaries had been caught in crossfire between U. N. and Katangan troops, who had taken up positions in flower beds at the compound. Mission buildings were badly damaged.
Crusade ’61
In the Australian CRUSADE ’61, covering 23 cities in four states, the Rev. Leighton Ford and Dr. Joseph Blinco of the Billy Graham evangelistic team rode the crest of a wave of spiritual enthusiasm that started with the 1959 Graham crusade. A major aim this year was to reach small communities untouched two years ago, and that half of Australia’s population which is under 21 years of age.
Police estimated that 10,500 attended a welcome rally in Sydney Stadium, where the platform party included Anglican Archbishop H. R. Gough, Primate of Australia, and other church leaders. Three days later CRUSADE ’61 was officially launched, with Mr. Ford in Brisbane, and Dr. Blinco in Wollongong, an industrial city of about 125,000 some 50 miles from Sydney. The Brisbane attendance was about 56,000, with 1,046 decisions; in Wollongong, more than 30,000 came, and more than 600 decided for Christ. Every Protestant church in the greater Wollongong area cooperated. In one boys’ college more than half the students made public commitment to Christ. Both evangelists conducted services in other provincial areas, and addressed also industrial groups and ministers’ meetings.
Mr. Ford assured reporters: “We have not come with some strange North American brand of Christianity, or a religious sideshow … but Christ means so much to us that we want to share him with others.”
In Sydney, whose population now exceeds 1,500,000, attendance at nine crusade services totaled 97,000, with 2,832 recorded decisions for Christ, including scores of teenagers.
Dr. Blinco in an interview had spoken hopefully of the World Council of Churches meeting in New Delhi, observing that though sound historic and often spiritual reasons lie behind divisions in the Church, these reasons must gradually fade. He rejoiced that Christians are “finding one another again in fellowship, in opportunities to serve together.”
In many places during the crusade, which closed December 10, the evangelists were given civic receptions.
J. D. D.
Sunday Versus Sobriety
As a result of local elections held under a new licensing act, drinking is now permissible on Sundays in nine of the 17 “areas” in Wales. In an electorate of some 1,804,000 (not including some 80,000 young people between 18 and 21, who are permitted to drink but not to vote) 47 per cent voted. “As expected,” commented one influential British newspaper, “industrial and Anglicised areas chose the Sunday open door.”
The president of the Methodist Conference, after pointing to the election percentage as evidence of no large demand for Sunday opening, added: “One would like to know why the government considers Sunday closing good for Scotland and not for Wales.” This was a reference to a government decision which brought surprise and dismay in certain quarters by decreeing that Scottish public houses should remain closed on Sunday.
J. D. D.
Church Union In Ceylon
The Church of England’s attitude toward the proposed United Church of Lanka (see CHRISTIANITY TODAY editorial, June 5, 1961) presents bewildering features. Not, however, to Principal M. A. P. Wood of Oak Hill Theological College, London, who has compared Anglican objections to the project with the situation in the early Church when Christians had “cold feet” about the admission of Gentiles into fellowship.
Recent efforts of an actively vocal group of Anglicans have contrived virtually to reverse a previous decision on the plan by pushing the “apostolic succession” issue to the forefront. What emerges now is a Canterbury Convocation decision stating that Anglicans would establish intercommunion with the Lanka Church “provided that ambiguity in the rite of unification is removed so as to make it clear that episcopal ordination has been conferred on those who have not already received it.” Basically this is the same rock on which foundered negotiations with the Church of Scotland in 1958.
A significant note was nevertheless struck by the Archbishop of Canterbury in a speech to the autumn Convocation of York. “In all our thoughts of unity,” said Dr. Ramsey, “we ought, I feel sure, to submit ourselves to justification by faith alone. That means in practice that in our attitude to other Christian bodies, we let ourselves as far as we can, be stripped of any boastfulness about our own possessions and our own standing.” The Archbishop then approvingly quoted William Temple, who had said: “Those who by God’s election have received His ministry will neither surrender it, nor so hold it as to make difficult the access of others to it.”
Many feel that the intercommunion problem is only a part of a more fundamental issue facing the Church of England today: Is she to adhere to the basic Reformation formularies of her Prayer Book and the Thirty-Nine Articles which are her legal charter, or is she to follow the Tractarian innovations of the last century? The whole subject had caused great controversy in England. Much interest was aroused by an open letter addressed to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York by 32 Anglicans, mostly professors and college principals, in which they urged immediate intercommunion, and added that nonepiscopal ministries were not to be considered in any way inferior to episcopal ones.
J. D. D.
Disputed Motivations
Four American Methodist missionaries, jailed for three months by the Portuguese government for alleged “conniving with terrorists” in Angola, were released this month and deported from Lisbon.
Three of the four returned to the United States and promptly became involved in a dispute over the cause of the terror in Angola. The fourth, the Rev. Wendell Lee Golden, 39, proceeded to Southern Rhodesia.
In New York, charges of “conniving with terrorists” were denied by the Rev. Edwin LeMaster, 39, and his lay colleagues, Fred Brancel, 35, and Marion Way, Jr., 30.
All labelled as false the Portuguese accusations that the missionaries had aided Angola rebels by permitting them to hold political meetings in Methodist churches or mission grounds.
They expressed disagreement with reports by other first-hand observers that Communists had instigated and led the Angola revolt.
“We can’t say that the Communists aren’t trying to capitalize on the revolt,” said Way, “but they neither started the war nor lead it. The Africans are rebelling against the deplorable conditions that have existed in Angola for almost 500 years.”
Other informed sources tended to place more blame on the Communists and to attribute the violence to tribalism and fetishism rather than to nationalism.
The Pittsburgh Choice
Dr. Donald G. Miller was chosen last month to assume the presidency of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Miller, now professor of New Testament at Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia, will succeed the retiring Dr. Clifford E. Barbour next May 31.
Selection of the 52-year-old Miller climaxed 18 months of work by a seminary-nominating committee. Theological considerations played a chief role in the selection process, inasmuch as there are sharp differences between conservative and liberal factions at the seminary. The Pittsburgh seminary came out of a merger between the old Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary of the former United Presbyterian Church and Western Theological Seminary of the former Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. prior to denominational merger. The seminary is the oldest and second largest among the seven theological seminaries of the United Presbyterian Church, U. S. A.
Miller is a member of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (Southern), which operates the Richmond seminary and which is generally considered to be more theologically conservative than the United Presbyterian.
Miller, a native of the Pittsburgh area, was graduated in 1930 from Greenville (Illinois) College, and won advanced degrees at the Biblical Seminary of New York and New York University. He took post-doctorate study at Faculte de Theologie Protestante in Montpellier, France, and at Basel, Switzerland.
People: Words And Events
Deaths: The Rev. Mordecai F. Flam, 84, Baptist evangelist under whose ministry Billy Graham was converted; in Louisville, Kentucky … Canon T. C. Hammond, 84, world-renowned authority on Anglican affairs; in Sydney, Australia … Dr. William A. Curtis, 85, former principal of New College, Edinburgh; in Melrose, Scotland … the Rev. Percy E. Warrington, 72, founder of Bristol (England) Theological College … Bishop Theodore Russell Ludlow, 78, retired suffragan bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Newark, New Jersey; in Newark … Dr. Charles Ernest Scott, 85, for 33 years a Presbyterian missionary in China; in Philadelphia … Dr. John Raymond Chadwick, 65, president of Iowa Wesleyan College; in New York … theRev. David Schmidt, 39, professor at Concordia Lutheran Seminary in Villa Ballester, Argentina.
Appointments: As executive secretary of the General Commission on Chaplains and Armed Forces Personnel, the Rev. A. Ray Applequist … as treasurer of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, Norris H. Koopmann … as moderator-designate of the Free Church of Scotland General Assembly, Professor W. J. Cameron … as vicar of St. Mary’s, Islington, London, the Rev. R. P. Johnston … as pastor of the Baptist Tabernacle in Atlanta, Georgia, the Rev. William F. Doverspike … As an associate pastor of the Central Presbyterian Church in Towson, Maryland, Dr. T. Roland Philips, pastor emeritus of the Arlington Presbyterian Church of Baltimore … as bishop of the Krishna-Godavari diocese of the Church of South India, the Rev. N. D. Anandarao Samuel … as president of the National Council of Churches in Germany, Dr. Hans Luckey, director of the Baptist seminary in Hamburg … as chairman of the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America, the Rev. James A. Cross, general overseer of the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) … as executive director of the Unitarian Fellowship for Social Justice, Richard Wilson … as president of the Scripture Press Foundation, Vincent C. Hogren … as editor-in-chief of Youth for Christ Magazine, Ron Wilson.
Elections: As chairman of Christian Business Men’s Committee International, Andrew W. Hughes … as president of the Christian Writers Association of Canada, the Rev. Bernard T. Parkinson.
Installation: As “Ecumenical Minister” of the Missouri Council of Churches, Dr. Stanley l. Stuber.
Citation: As “Chaplain of the Year” of the Reserve Officers Association, Air Force Colonel Samuel M. Bays.
Resignations: As executive director of the Greater Oakland (California) Council of Churches, Salvation Army Colonel Bertram Rodda … as director of the Lutheran Immigration Service, Vernon E. Bergstrom … as executive vice president of World Vision, Ellsworth Culver.
Retirement: As president of Pacific Lutheran College, Dr. S. C. Eastvoid … as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Pontiac, Michigan, Dr. H. H. Savage.
Quote: “Every human ideology comes to an end sometime, and communism, too, will be a thing of the past, maybe much sooner than anyone presently thinks. There already are traces of crumbling and falling down.”—Bishop Otto Dibelius, at a Reformation rally in the First Methodist Church of Los Angeles.
The Pittsburgh seminary announced this month the receipt of a $1,350,000 grant, largest in the school’s history, for construction of a new library. The gift is a joint grant of the Sarah Mellon Scaife Foundation and the Richard King Mellon Foundation.
