In prospect for 1962 is a growing revolt against statistics as an index of spiritual health. According to key observers of the religious scene, American church leaders are increasingly skeptical of arithmetical approaches to religious vitality.
A CHRISTIANITY TODAY sampling at the turn of the year confirmed this tendency of an increasing number of influential churchmen to discount numerical data.
This de-emphasis on statistics comes, curiously, during an appreciable leveling-off of the U. S. religious boom of recent years, and at a time when many observers are beginning to inquire about the pragmatic success of ecumenical mergers in addition to spiritual trends in general. Church membership gains are barely keeping pace with the population increase. Fewer students are enrolling in accredited seminary programs leading primarily to the pastoral ministry (see box). Construction of new churches fell off in 1961 for the first time in a number of years. Some Protestant causes are sorely lagging in financial support.
Dr. D. Elton Trueblood, recognized authority on the American church scene, foresees an upsurge, however, in the growth of small fellowships of Christian witness, extending across theological lines.
He distinguishes between a growth “on paper” and “in reality,” citing the fact that membership figures are “deceptive.”
“I hope for a great deepening of the lay ministry,” Trueblood adds, “but I am not sure it will occur.”
Dr. Edgar H. S. Chandler, religious affairs adviser of the United States Information Agency, also tends to give less attention to religious statistics.
Chandler expects a “deep implementation of the ecumenical spirit” to characterize American church life during 1962. He is executive vice president of the Church Federation of Greater Chicago.
Miss Lillian R. Block, managing editor of Religious News Service, says there are many reasons why less emphasis is being given cold facts and figures.
“There are more and more church members,” she says, “but the increase is not showing that the world is more deeply religious.”
Miss Block expects “a hassle” to develop out of the admission of the Russian Orthodox Church into the World Council of Churches. She also predicts a continuing clergy debate on fallout shelters.
Louis Cassels, religious news analyst for United Press International, likewise senses a widening suspicion that “big growth” figures are misleading. “I see a little less concern for counting sheep,” he says, “and a little more with finding sheep.” He adds that there appears to be more consciousness that the really important things cannot be measured quantitatively.
Seminaries Show Small Enrollment Gain
Fall enrollment figures in accredited seminaries showed a small increase over the previous year, according to the American Association of Theological Schools.
The increase for 1961 over 1960 contrasted with a decline in 1960 as compared with 1959.
Total enrollment of theological students in the member schools of the American Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada in the fall of 1961 was 20,466 as compared with 20,032 in 1960.
Canadian schools showed a 10 per cent increase in 1961 over the previous year. The U. S. increase was less than two per cent.
The AATS said that students enrolled in programs leading primarily to the pastoral ministry were slightly fewer than in 1960. Associate Director Jesse H. Ziegler declared: “The staff of the AATS have no clear answers as to the failure of the churches to enlist men for their ministries in numbers comparable [to population, church membership, and college enrollment increases]. Possible reasons that have been suggested are competition with recruitment by industry, questioning regarding the relevance of the church and its ministry, rising costs of theological education especially for married students, relative lack of grants comparable to other fields to assist the student without financial resources, lack of clarity regarding the ministries of clergy and laymen, lack of as clear voices speaking appreciatively of church and ministry as those speaking critically.”
Perhaps the biggest religious statistics story in 1962 will be the expected emergence of the Southern Baptist Convention as the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. The overtaking of The Methodist Church in membership totals has received little mention in Southern Baptist promotional material. As of the end of the year, U. S. Methodists numbered slightly more than 10 million and Southern Baptists slightly less.
A particularly relevant observation was made last month by John T. Sisemore, superintendent of Adult Sunday School work for the (Southern) Baptist Sunday School Board. Sisemore told a group of Baptist administrators in Nashville that the “most critical problem” of Southern Baptists is this:
“In trying to win the lost, we have failed to hold those we have already reached” and to reclaim others.
Dr. Kermit Long, president of the Methodist Council on Evangelism, also had a scolding for his colleagues. He said that in one of its early years in America The Methodist Church grew by 153 per cent while the population increased only 36 per cent. Said Long:
“Our record today is so sad and sickening that, give us a little more time and they will soon write us off.”
He told the Western Jurisdiction Workshop in Evangelism that “with all our education, our theology, our fine buildings, our image of the church, we are doing less to win people to Christ and our unschooled forefathers who rode the frontier spreading scriptural holiness.”
“Evangelism is the lifeline and the heartbeat of the church,” he added. “It is our mainline business, and we ought never trade a streamliner for a hand car. But this is what we are doing.”
“We no longer are fishers of men but keepers of the aquarium. Among our churches it has become a matter of ‘you swipe from my fish bowl and I’ll swipe from yours.’ ”
The Rev. Thomas F. Zimmerman, president of the National Association of Evangelicals and general superintendent of the Assemblies of God, asserts that in 1962 “stronger lines of delineation will be drawn between evangelicalism and ecumenicity as further steps are taken toward a massive world church.” Says the Assemblies leader:
Protestant Panorama
• “Question 7,” Lutheran-produced film which takes its theme from the East German church-state struggle, was named last month as the best motion picture of 1961 by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures’ committee on exceptional films. A spokesman for the independent reviewing organization said the film presents with “considerable cinematic competence the most important theme of the twentieth century, to wit, the encroachment of the state into the realm of the individual’s conscience and belief.”
• A proposal to “strengthen its democratic principles” will be presented to Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s 45th regular convention in Cleveland next June. A 76-page report by the synod’s survey commission calls for “restoration of two-way communication between congregations, districts, and the synod so that congregations can have a greater part in formulating the church body’s plans and programs as well as in carrying them out.”
• The Schwenkfelder Church, one of the oldest and smallest of the world’s Protestant denominations, marked the 400th anniversary last month of the death of its founder, Caspar Schwenkfeld von Ossig. The church has only five congregations, four in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and one in Philadelphia, with a total of 2,500 members.
• An atomic research reactor donated by American Episcopalians is in operation at St. Paul’s University in Yokosuka, Japan. It will be used for research, training and medical applications.
• A “religion and arts festival” sponsored by the United Churches of Greater St. Petersburg, Florida, will be a prominent feature of the city’s first “Art Month” in March.
• Special services this week mark the 175th anniversary of Louisburg (North Carolina) College, which claims to be the oldest church-related junior college in the United States. The Methodist school has a current enrollment of 552.
• Two ministers are among sponsors of a new group called the Capital Punishment Information Council of New Hampshire and formed to fight the death penalty. The clergymen are the Rev. Lester Kinsolving, an Episcopalian, and the Rev. R. E. Morin, a Unitarian.
• The Zondervan publishing firm will introduce The Amplified Old Testament next month. The work is a counterpart of The Amplified New Testament, of which nearly 750,000 copies have been distributed.
• A “study” made of tar paper and sawdust bags stands on the lawn of the Congregational church in Freeport, Maine. It was erected by the minister, the Rev. David Day, as a protest against what he considers to be the inadequacy of the country’s fallout shelter program. Day proposes a federal survival program, effective world law, and responsible Christian peacemaking.
• The Assemblies of God will sponsor a series of nine film and audio ministry seminars for pastors, Christian education directors, and laymen around the country. • The seminars will be conducted by the Rev. Willard Cantelon, an evangelist and specialist on audio-visual methods. A film production studio in Burbank, California, has been purchased for conversion into an audio-visual production center.
• The West Indies Mission says that its “Wings of the Morning” gospel radio broadcast has gone off the air in Cuba. It had been transmitted without interruption for nearly 20 years and was reported to be the last evangelical program being aired in Cuba.
• Baptists in Lugano, Switzerland, are building the first free church chapel in the Tessin canton, a predominantly Roman Catholic area. The Italian-speaking Baptist congregation currently has some 30 communicants. They are receiving financial aid from other Swiss Baptists and from the Southrn Baptist Convention in the United States. The new church will cost about $46,500 and will seat 100 persons.
“Current trends toward greater interest in the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit in the church will continue. Many so-called old-line denominations will experimentally participate in the phenomenon of glossolalia and the manifestations of the gifts of the Spirit.”
He also predicts that missions boards will be forced to re-evaluate their approaches as nationalistic surges make world evangelism more difficult.
The Sloniker Prints
The Smithsonian Institution is circulating 60 prints from the “Sloniker Collection of Twentieth Century Biblical and Religious Prints” of the Cincinnati Art Museum. Represented are artists from 14 countries, including Chagall, Ciry, Dali, Derain, Kokoschka, Picasso, Redon, and Rouault. Most of the prints are from woodcuts or etchings in black and white.
A picture is readily classified as religious if the artist indicates a Scripture text from which he received his inspiration, if the title indicates biblical characters, events or places, or if he chooses a recognizable event. But what does one search for in a scriptural work? And how does a Christian look at art?
Most Christian critics would be willing to suggest that first, one looks for an orderly and balanced plan; second, truthfulness in using the information given in the Bible; third, a moving emotional appeal, and finally, possibly simplicity. Since religion is sometimes defined as a quest for values of the ideal life, each viewer is bound to choose one of these criteria as the most important one. Some people are interested in the ideals of religion, others stress the practices in attaining the ideal life, and still others wish to understand the world-view relating to his quest of the ideal.
While the Sloniker prints were on display last month in The George Washington University Library, Washington, D. C., CHRISTIANITY TODAY asked Mrs. Rose Van Dyken, a Christian artist, for the appraisal. Her comments follow:
“Some ugliness and distortion can be accounted for in the state of our world today, and this shows itself in many prints. The Christian has a plan for his life as well as order. A non-Christian is chaotic. A Christian knows why b is here on earth and where he is going after this life, while the unbeliever hasn’t found the answer to these questions and is searching and confused. Is it little wonder that this shows up in the works produced by contemporary artists?
“People these days are exceptionally prolific in art and art forms but not many choose religious art as their theme. The early painters worked exclusively for the church, but slowly the subject matter has changed to more secular themes.
“In the group of 60 prints, 22 are sincere in their portrayal of the Bible story and characters, but only about eight could be chosen as moving. The other artists have used distortion or vulgarity to call attention to their work. Confusion and use of unrelated backgrounds or activity characterize some.
“Salvadore Dali has a very simple and effective line drawing of the Crucifixion. The face of Christ does not show because the drawing is made as if from God’s view looking down on his suffering son. It shows the humanity of Christ, the extreme suffering of our Lord, and his loneliness. It is very moving and it is appealing to those who object to a portrayal of the face of the Messiah.
“Picasso chose Salome’s dance for his biblical theme and in such a choice there is nothing uplifting, for the work portrays human degradation.
“In a contemporary show it is strange to find no purely abstract work. However, since the subject matter of the Bible is definite, a representational type of technique seems called for.
“Art from many countries was discernible: the light French touch, a cactus as foreground in a Mexican picture of the flight to Egypt, and oriental facial features and flower designs in the woodcuts of the far-eastern artists.
“Michael City has two strong woodcuts of early saints. Both characters are simple, devout, and their piety was easily evident in posture as well as visage.
“A head of Christ by Odillon Redon is very moving and sad. His head is pierced by thorns and the eyes are exceptionally beseeching.
“ ‘Flight into Egypt’ by Robert Sargant Austin, shows rocky land to indicate hardships. Joseph looks determined and hardworking as he hurries forward to an unknown future and Mary is shown to be a loving mother sheltering the child in her arms. They are very alone and tender and sad.
“Churches tend, regrettably, to minimize art as a creative blessing from God. Many are willing to invest in fine furnishings, but few ever seek out original paintings or murals.”
Weighing School Prayers
The U. S. Supreme Court plans to issue a ruling on whether it is constitutional to say daily prayers in public schools.
The ruling will come in a test of a New York state practice. A prayer recommended in 1951 by the New York Board of Regents for all public schools reads as follows:
“Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon thee, and we beg thy blessing upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country.”
Challenging the use of the prayer are five Long Island families. Two of the families are described as Jewish, one as Unitarian, one as members of the Ethical Culture Society, and one as nonbelievers in any religion.
The families contend that “the saying of the prayer favors belief in religion over non-belief.”
The regents, in approving the prayer for use in public schools, had said it was in the public interest to teach children “as set forth in the Declaration of Independence, that Almighty God is their creator and that by him they have been endowed with their inalienable rights.”
Southern Travellers
Colorful posters were cropping up this week in the steaming jungles of the South American interior. Indians were preparing for long treks to the big city. Prayer chains were in full swing in five countries where Billy Graham and his evangelistic team are about to launch a crusade tour lasting for more than a month.
Graham’s first rally is scheduled for Caracas, Venezuela, January 20, to be followed by visits to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile. Graham even hopes that a service still can be arranged in Georgetown, British Guiana, where the Marxistinclined Prime Minister, Dr. Cheddi Jagan, influences a predominantly Protestant population.
While in the Washington, D. C., area last month for a series of engagements, Graham found himself in an unexpected audience with another South American-bound traveller, U. S. President John F. Kennedy, whose parting jest was, “I’ll be your ‘John the Baptist.’ ”
Graham’s unexpected meeting with Kennedy occurred just a few days before the President and his wife flew to Venezuela and Colombia. Some Protestant observers had hoped that Kennedy would use his influence in Colombia to ease discrimination against non-Catholics.
Graham had gone to the White House to visit an old personal friend and Southern Baptist colleague, Brooks Hays, recently named a presidential aide, Kennedy spotted Graham in a hallway and sent press secretary Pierre Salinger to summon the evangelist into the President’s private office. There they conferred alone for about 20 minutes, after which Kennedy introduced Graham to Undersecretary of State George Ball and W. Averell Harriman, Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs. Graham refused to reveal the nature of their discussion.
Graham’s engagements in the Washington area included an address to 3,000 Naval cadets at Annapolis. He also inaugurated a series of Protestant services at the Pentagon before a crowd of some 7,000. His turn-of-the-year schedule called for several addresses in Illinois and the offering of the opening prayer at the Orange Bowl football game in Miami. He was to leave then for a two-week vacation in Central America.
Here are the dates for Graham’s South American appearances:
Brotherhood In Rome
Brooks Hays, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention (1957–1959), disclosed last month that he paid a call on Pope John XXIII during a visit to Rome October 23.
Hays and his wife talked with the Pope for about 15 minutes in a private reception room in the Vatican.
“Pope John and I met as fellow Christians,” said Hays, “without concern at that moment over differences between the religious bodies with which we are identified.”
Hays is now a special assistant to the president. At the time of the papal visit, however, he was an assistant secretary of state.
Hays emphasized that his call at the Vatican was not as a representative of the Southern Baptist Convention and “was wholly unrelated to my governmental duties.” He said he visited the Pope as a private citizen.
The high point of their talk, Hays said, was the Pope’s statement, “We are brothers in Christ.”
It was an historic meeting, the first between the head of the Roman Catholic church and a leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, which, with nearly ten million members, is the second largest Protestant denomination in the United States. It was one of a recent series of meetings the Pope has had with Protestant leaders, beginning with the historic call of Dr. Geoffrey Francis Fisher, then Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1960.
Another recent visitor to the Pope was Presiding Bishop Arthur Lichtenberger of the Protestant Episcopal Church in, the United States. Their half-hour talk. was described by the Vatican Press Office as “most cordial.” Lichtenberger paid the visit while in Rome en route to the World Council of Churches assembly in New Delhi.
There was speculation as to why Hays’ Vatican visit was not known for nearly two months. Hays said it was in no way confidential, and added that it was on the regular list of audiences. Its significance was apparently missed by newspapermen in Rome, he declared, remarking that they must have concluded that Hays was “just another of those pesky American tourists who take up the Pope’s time.”
Peace Corps Baptists
Another Southern Baptist was appointed to a leadership post in the Peace Corps last month. He is Lloyd Wright, former director of public relations for the Baptist General Conference of Texas, who was named director of community relations for the Peace Corps.
Wright will work under the direction of another Southern Baptist, associated, Peace Corps director Bill Moyers. Dr. Paul Geren, second in command of the Peace Corps agency, formerly was executive vice president of Baylor University, a Southern Baptist institution.
A Public Function?
An 82-page legal study, on which a battery of Roman Catholic lawyers had hammered away for some eight months, was released to the public last month as a constitutional rationale for federal aid to parochial schools.
The study concludes that church-related schools perform a public function and that therefore they are entitled to government support. A number of Supreme Court decisions are cited.
The study also concludes that there exists no constitutional bar to aid parochial-school education in a degree proportionate to the value of the public function it performs. The problem of figuring out the proportion is to be left to accountants.
Birth Control Controversy Spreads
The birth control issue burst into prominence again last month: A Yale University medical expert faced trial on charges of violating Connecticut’s 82-year-old law which bars the use of contraceptive devices. Prominent Roman Catholic theologians handed down conclusions which permit the use of contraception pills by women in danger of being raped. And a manufacturer of such pills disclosed that “upwards of one million women” are now using its product.
The Connecticut case involves Dr. Charles Lee Buxton, chairman of the obstetrics and gynecological department at Yale, and Mrs. Richard W. Griswold. Buxton and Mrs. Griswold are officials of a planned parenthood center in New Haven. Both were arrested when the center began issuing advice to clients in violation of the state law.
Last June the U. S. Supreme Court refused to rule on the constitutionality of the law—because there had been no arrests involved. Later it was reported that the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut would initiate a test case.
In Rome, Studi Cattolici, an authoritative Roman Catholic publication, carried the findings of a study conducted by three Vatican theologians, the study having been promoted in part by sexual abuse of nuns in the Congo some months ago.
Msgr. Ferdinando Lambruschini, a professor of moral theology in one of Rome’s seminaries, said married women are forbidden to use the pills, but that they can use the abstention technique for avoiding children.
The rape victim who lacks this alternative can take the pills, he concluded.
A Roman Catholic spokesman in Washington intimated that there might be some disagreement on the point among other Roman Catholic theologians.
Another Roman seminary professor defended the Studi Cattolici conclusions saying that a farmer has the right to defend his property with arms and any human being in certain circumstances is justified in suspending various bodily functions. In like manner, he said, given the circumstances of threatened rape, the female victim would be justified in defending herself by arresting the germination function of the egg cell.
In Chicago, a statement issued by G. D. Searle and Company said that more than a million women use its birth control pill, Enovid, regularly. The statement commented on the deaths of two Los Angeles women said to have taken Enovid.
Dr. Irwin C. Winter, company medical director, said there was no evidence to indicate the drug contributed to the deaths.
Enovid, which controls ovulation, was cleared by the Food and Drug Administration and the Council on Drugs of the American Medical Association as safe for use as an oral contraceptive. A company spokesman said that the drug has become widely used in America, England, and Japan.
Furthermore, the study concludes that “the government has no power to impose upon the people a single educational system in which all must participate.”
The study was released by the Legal Department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference in Washington, D. C.
A Veto In Delaware
A bill to reinstate capital punishment in Delaware got as far as the governor’s office. Governor Elbert N. Carvel vetoed it.
The death penalty was abolished in Delaware in 1958, but the General Assembly recently approved a bill to reinstate capital punishment for such criminal offenses as murder, rape, treason, and kidnaping.
The Unsubmitting
Two Spaniards were sentenced to prison last month for “unlawful printing and distribution of Protestant propaganda.”
Salvador Salvado and Jose Grau, in addition to being consigned to a month in jail over Christmas, also were assessed for costs entailed in their trial before a Barcelona court.
According to police, the two had published material without an identifying imprint and without submitting it to a censor as required under Spanish law. Salvado and Grau were identified as members of the Worldwide European Fellowship, Inc. Among those who witnessed their trial testimony was an American consul general.
Grau was reported to have taken a book to a civil censor, who referred it to an ecclesiastical censor. Grau refused to submit it to Roman Catholic scrutiny.
The court verdict came even as a leading Spanish Catholic publication promised a more conciliatory attitude toward the country’s very small Protestant minority.
Conflicting Orders
Protestant missionary activity in Ecusdor is proceeding normally under the newly-proclaimed president, Dr. Julio Arosemena Monroy, who came to power amid charges that he was a leftist.
“The foreign press has exaggerated the significance of the President’s trip to Russia and his refusal to break relations with Cuba,” said a spokesman for HCJB, Quito’s world-famous missionary radio station. “Relations between the evangelical community and the new government are as cordial as ever.”
A new radio station aimed at reaching between 50,000 and 100,000 Quechua Indians with the Gospel went on the air last month at Colta. There was no government interference.
HCJB personnel were also distributing pre-tuned radio receivers.
Staff personnel at HCJB studios sweated out several difficult days, however, during the government changeover. Though they were treated courteously by both military and civil officials, contradictory orders were being received continually. On the final night of the political struggle, the Ecuadorean Congress asked the station to transmit session, but the chief of the armed forces ordered the transmission cut. Station officials politely declined, and the outcome of the session confirmed the soundness of their decision.
Orthodox Overview
Eastern Orthodox came out of the New Delhi Assembly playing a new role in the ecumenical movement, according to Archbishop Iakovos, head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America and a member of the World Council of Churches presidium.
“We are no longer ‘just present,’ ” said the prelate on his return from India, “we are full-fledged members.”
A change in posture toward the ecumenical movement was reflected in the Orthodox hierarchy’s decision to discontinue the practice of issuing independent statements on the subject of unity at ecumenical meetings. Archbishop Iakovos characterized the decision as a change of tactics. He said the Orthodox prelates felt they could register their opinions more effectively in helping to shape policy in committee work.
[Some observers feel that Orthodox prelates now carry far more weight in ecumenical policy formulation because of gains in numerical strength through addition of large Orthodox churches into WCC membership. Some statistical analyses show Orthodoxy to hold a numerical advantage following acceptance of the Russian Orthodox church.]
The New Delhi meeting, Archbishop Iakovos declared, was “the best and most productive” of the WCC assemblies to date.
He predicted that the Roman Catholic church will come into the ecumenical movement if the World Council “stops playing an ambiguous role.” This was apparently a reference to the controversy over whether the WCC is to be viewed merely as a common fellowship or whether it has super-church objectives. The archbishop said that critics who wrongly attribute a super-church character to WCC can help to stabilize the direction of the contemporary ecumenical movement.
Roman Catholic participation in the ecumenical process will be a matter of progression, he asserted, with limited activity at the outset and more as time goes on. He said he considered the Delhi admission of the Orthodox churches to be pleasing to Pope John XXIII but distressing to other members of the Roman hierarchy. Rome increasingly has been placed on the defensive, he observed, through ecumenical mergers, since Rome’s failure to participate means her isolation. Asked what problem the papacy would create were Rome to join the WCC, he said “none at all,” provided that papal infallibility and authority are “limited to Roman Catholics.”
As for Orthodox ecumenism, Archbishop Iakovos stated that a planned ecumenical council will be convened “before 1965.” The likely location, he added, is the island of Rhodes, where previous pan-Orthodox meetings have taken place.
Hailing Pope Leo
Pope John XXIII, in an encyclical letter commemorating the 15th centenary of the death of Pope St. Leo the Great, made a new appeal for Christian unity. At the same time, he made it clear that by Christian unity, the Roman Catholic church means unity under the authority of the Pope.
Hailing Leo, the Great, who held the papal post from 440 to 461, as the “doctor of the unity of the Church,” Pope John also noted the opposition he faced from enemies of the church. In doing so, he stressed that the “sad conditions” prevailing in the fifth century were similar to those in Communist countries today where millions of Christians are suffering religious persecution.
The new 10,000-word encyclical, known as “Aeterna Dei Sapientia” (The Eternal Wisdom of God) from the first three words of the Latin text, was dated November 11, the date of Pope Leo’s death 1,500 years ago, but was not released to the public until after the close of the World Council of Churches assembly in New Delhi December 6.
Sanctuary For The Scrolls
A sanctuary to house some of the Dead Sea Scrolls is being built in Jerusalem in connection with the Israel Museum. It will known as “The Shrine of the Book” and will be made possible by funds from the D. S. and R. H. Gottesman Foundation of New York. The Gottesman fund was established by the late D. Samuel Gottesman, industrialist and philanthropist, who donated four Dead Sea Scrolls to Israel in 1955.
Documents to be stored at the Jerusalem sanctuary include the Bar Kochba documents, 15 letters dispatched by the Hebrew military leader in 135 A. D.
Libyan Deportation
A Church of Christ minister is being deported from Libya, apparently because of his missionary activity.
Federal police in Tripoli cancelled the resident visa of Bob Douglas, who was working for the Church of Christ in Benghazi, Libya, and gave him an exit visa.
Douglas is supported by the Sixth and Arlington Church of Christ in Lawton, Oklahoma.
Lawrence Taylor of Tripoli, the only other Church of Christ minister in Libya, said Douglas had merely taught Libyans who came to his home and church. Taylor blamed Moslem pressures for the move to oust Douglas.
Dr. Sam Retires
A community-wide tribute to a nationally-known clergyman was paid at an interdenominational service last month in Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Music Hall on the eve of his retirement.
Dr. Samuel M. Shoemaker, who has been rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh for nearly 10 years and is a contributing editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, retired December 31.
He will move to his family homestead, “Burnside,” at Stevenson, Maryland, where he expects to add to the 25 books he has written and work on the “One Reach One” series of television films sponsored by the Episcopal Radio-TV Foundation.
Shoemaker formerly was rector of Calvary Episcopal Church, New York.
An advocate for practical, personal Christianity, Dr. Sam, as he is affectionately known to hundreds, was instrumental in founding the Pittsburgh Experiment.
The “experiment” is more of an organism than an organization. It is the use of small cell groups who meet for prayer and witness to the power of Christ in steel mills, offices and the market place.
“The Communists would expel us from the party for being as inarticulate and inactive as most Christians are,” Shoemaker said.
“We can’t work by murder and mendacity as the Communists do,” he added, “but we can work with the same passion.”
Sidelined Scot
The Rev. Tom Allan, the most fervently evangelistic voice in the Church of Scotland, suffered a severe heart attack last month.
At Victoria Infirmary in Glasgow, Allan’s condition was reported improving after several days, but he faced a period of recuperation lasting many weeks.
Allan, who has been prominently assocated with the “Tell Scotland” movement since its inception and with summer seaside mission work, is minister of St. George’s Tron Church, in the heart of Glasgow’s central business district.
Archbishop Nikolai
Archbishop Nikolai, long the most controversial figure in the Russian Orthodox Church, died of a heart attack last month at the age of 69.
For years the Moscow Patriarchate’s chief liaison with churches in the West, Nikolai had been frequently criticized abroad for his apparent stand in support of the Communist regime and especially of its widely propagandized “peace” campaign. More recently, however, there has been speculation that Nikolai lost favor with Red leaders through attitudes toward the West that were too conciliatory (see editorial, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, December 22, 1961).
Metropolitan of Krutitsky and Kolomna—the ecclesiastical title for the diocese of Moscow—until his relinquishment of the post last year under circumstances never fully revealed, Archbishop Nikolai had for 16 years been the top-ranking prelate of the church next to Patriarch Alexei of Moscow.
As metropolitan, Archbishop Nikolai was replaced by Archbishop Pitirim, former Metropolitan of Leningrad. Meanwhile, his other duties as chairman of the Russian church’s department of foreign affairs were taken over by Archbishop Nikodim, the church’s youngest bishop, who previously had been head of the Russian Orthodox Mission in Jerusalem.
Nikolai’s body lay in state at Zagorsk monastery, where a delegation of U. S. churchmen headed by Stated Clerk Eugene Carson Blake of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. placed beside his bier a wreath of flowers. The churchmen were in Moscow during a stopover on their way home from the World Council of Churches assembly in New Delhi.
Nikolai’s funeral took place the following day in the cemetery of a neighborhood church. No prominent Soviet personages attended.
His death came a month after he had telephoned the patriarchate office to report that he was feeling “not quite well.” Half an hour later, he was admitted to the city’s leading hospital, where doctors found he had suffered a heart attack. Within 15 days he was reported to have experienced a “radical improvement” and was allowed to receive visitors. Almost every day he was visited by church colleagues and personal friends and his room was filled with flowers. However, two days before his sudden death, the doctors diagnosed a second heart attack and cancelled all further visits.
People: Words And Events
Deaths:Dr. William Hiram Foulkes, 83, one-time moderator of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.; in Newark, New Jersey … Aaron Budimba, 90, a Congolese who served with U. S. reporterexplorer Henry Stanley and who until recently worked in an American Baptist mission; in Lukunga, Congo … Dr. Thomas Hendricks Taylor, 76, former president of Howard Payne College; in Brown wood, Texas … Dr. Charles F. Sims, general secretary of the South Carolina Baptist Convention; in Greenville … Frederick Passler, 50, missionary pilot and evangelist, killed when his plane crashed in a Mexican jungle.
Appointments: As dean of the Graduate Seminary of Phillips University, Dr. J. Daniel Joyce … as executive secretary of the American Baptist Union of the San Francisco Bay Cities, the Rev. Lynn E. Hodges … as general secretary of the European Baptist Missionary Society, the Rev. Herbert Mascher.
Election: As president of the Canadian Lutheran Council, Dr. Otto A. Olson, Jr.
Inauguration: As ninth president of Oklahoma Baptist University, Dr. James Ralph Scales.
Quote: “I saw there were no Catholics in the astronaut team and among fliers of research aircraft, so I thought I’d better get with it.”—Major Robert White, X–15 test pilot.
Many times Nikolai had condemned American “imperialist policies.” He referred to the U-2 incident as one of America’s “aggressive acts which have nothing in common with Christianity.”
Miss Lillian Trasher
Miss Lillian Trasher, 74, world-famous “Mother of the Nile,” died last month at the Assemblies of God orphanage which she had headed for some 50 years.
The orphanage at Assiout, Egypt, houses some 1,400 children and is one of the world’s largest.
