On Friday night, March 4, Baptist seminary students Ion Nelo Rus, 31, and Nicolae Moroccos, 26, stopped for some ice cream at the popular La Scala coffeehouse in downtown Bucharest. They were on their way to the railroad station to pick up a church document. More than 150 persons were packed inside La Scala. At 9:22 the ten-story building began to quiver. Plates fell to the floor. Plaster walls and ceilings cracked and shattered. With a roar the entire structure suddenly collapsed, and nine floors of occupied apartments disintegrated into tons of debris that smashed La Scala and its occupants. Hundreds died in the rubble.
Days later Rus was finally identified by the initialed undershirt on his headless, flattened torso. The leading student at the Baptist seminary in Bucharest and the president of his class, Rus left a wife and four-year-old son. Some 3,000 attended his funeral at his home church in Cluj, Romania’s leading university city. Evangelist Liviu Olah, ousted from his church last year in Oradea in a clash with government officials, preached the sermon.
The earthquake wrought its worst devastation in eastern and south-central Romania. In all, more than 1,600 deaths had been counted by mid-month, and workers were still digging bodies from mounds of debris that once were apartment houses. Many of the more than 11,000 seriously injured were expected to die. Scores of buildings were down and hundreds of others were damaged beyond repair. Almost every structure in Bucharest, the capital city with a population of 1.7 million, suffered damage ranging from minor to major. Nine large hospitals were partially destroyed, along with schools, factories, and agricultural centers throughout the country. Some southern towns were 75 per cent obliterated and much of the university city of Craiova was in ruins.
A number of churches were also destroyed or irreparably damaged. Hardest hit was the Romanian Orthodox Church, which claims the nominal allegiance of 85 per cent of the nation’s 22 million people. Preliminary reports show thirty-eight churches destroyed, as many as 500 severely damaged, and 1,117 others with lesser damage. Three seminaries, located in Bucharest, Buzau, and Craiova, were either destroyed or damaged so badly that they cannot be used. Nearly 1,000 students are affected. Also destroyed was the 800-student Orthodox Theological Institute in Bucharest. Institute professor Nicholae Fer, his wife, and three students were killed. The students were in a shower room when the quake struck. Sixty others had left only ten minutes earlier. Also destroyed were many administrative buildings, parish houses, and other Orthodox property, according to Patriarchate spokesman Anthony Ploiestfanul. He estimated damage to be more than $25 million.
A Reformed Church, three Unitarian churches, and five Jewish synagogues were among the religious buildings demolished. Among the churches that sustained heavy damage and will probably need to be rebuilt are: Seventh-Day Adventist (36), Reformed (14), Brethren (13), Baptist (9), and Lutheran (6). Six Muslim mosques must be rebuilt.
Many of the churches are too unsafe to be used. Additionally, the main building of the Baptist Seminary in Bucharest, built by Southern Baptists in 1923, will have to be replaced. Half of the thirty-room Department of Cults (Religion) building across the street from the U. S. Embassy had to be evacuated, and employees huddled in remaining cold unheated rooms. In an interview, cults-department president Ion (John) Rosianu said that for now aid from outside church groups cannot be designated for church use. He said a special fund known as Account 1,000 has been established to receive all aid, and it will be disbursed on a priority basis by the government, with homes, hospitals, and schools highest on the list. Caritas, the Catholic relief agency, and a German Lutheran relief agency have both given large gifts to Account 1,000, he said, and smaller amounts were channeled through several other organizations. Many churches in Romania took up special offerings for the earthquake relief fund, and pastoral letters were read from pulpits across the land encouraging such projects. Later on, said Rosianu privately, specified aid for church reconstruction will be welcome, and a way to channel it is already open under an arrangement worked out between the churches and the government last fall.
No pastors were reported among the dead, and miraculously no church building collapsed with people inside. Many Baptist, Adventist, and Pentecostal churches have Friday-night meetings, and some have band and choir rehearsals afterward. For example, the choir at the large Golgotha Baptist Church on Titulescu Street in Bucharest was having a rehearsal in the sanctuary when the quake struck, and Pastor Ioachim Tunea was upstairs in his office. “I thought the entire building was going to fall,” he said. Choir members prayed. Many similar experiences were recounted to this reporter.
Christian Rosche, 46, a Pentecostal layman fired recently from a high government post for his Christian witness, assembled an account of the events surrounding the earthquake. A Christian nurse reported to him that she had seen doctors slip into the hospital courtyard and utter heart-rending prayers. Two army officers were heard praying in the street. Although many believers were unable to attend church on the Sunday following the earthquake, a number of services were nevertheless jammed—with non-members. Some pastors declared that a revival atmosphere prevailed in their churches, with dozens of people professing their faith and others expressing recommitment. That night, “The Voice Of Truth,” a recorded U. S.-based missionary broadcast beamed by shortwave to Romania, had as its topic, “The Sign of the Earthquake.”
“God has shaken us,” declared pastor Josif Ton at the funeral of Peter and Luiza Belicov and their daughter, victims of an apartment collapse. The elderly, well-liked Belicov was a former president of the Baptist Seminary. “The end did not come for us,” said Ton to the hundreds gathered at the cemetery. “What is God trying to tell us?” (See Ton’s article in the March 26, 1976, issue, page 6.) Ton’s own church in Ploesti sustained severe damage.
He and the other six pastors who took part hammered home the challenge of renewed Christian commitment and purity as a result of the spiritual aftershock.
Meanwhile, trucks were hauling away debris, workers were restoring vital services, and people were taking up the tasks of rebuilding their broken lives and society. During the gray rainy days just after the quake, forsythia bushes in the cities and countryside burst forth in magnificent golden bloom.
Probate
Ernest Digweed, a Portsmouth, England, schoolmaster, became a recluse in later years. He lived in squalor under a homemade tent in the front room of his house, spoke to no one, and ignored all knocks at his front door. Outside, he scared children away by brandishing a walking stick. Last year, at age 81, he died.
His will was recently published in British newspapers. He left his fortune of $44,000 to “the Lord Jesus Christ”—on the condition that he arrive on earth within the next eighty years and be recognized as the Messiah by the Public Trustee, a state official. Otherwise, said Digweed, the money is to go to the Crown.
The will is valid, observed the government official. An attorney working on the case, however, says there may be difficulty eventually in determining who is the real Christ.
Guatemala Remembers
Just weeks before Romania was rocked by an earthquake (see preceding story), people in Guatemala observed the first anniversary of the earthquake that devastated their country last year (see February 27, 1976, issue, page 37). Landslides still mark the hillsides along the Motagua valley, site of the major fault where pressure built up between two continental plates was released in a sudden jolt on February 4, 1976, moving the land mass as much as one meter. The shock (7.5 on the Richter scale) lasted for thirty-five terrifying seconds over a 28,000-square-kilometer area. The results: 24,000 people dead, 77,000 injured, 1.2 million homeless. More than one-fourth of the schools and fifteen large hospitals with 60 per cent of the nation’s hospital beds were damaged. It was the worst disaster in Central American history.
Abandoned buildings and vacant lots bear mute testimony to the ferocity of the quake, but tens of thousands of new houses and busy repair crews also show the resilience of the Guatemalans and the extent of relief aid. Although the government expects total reconstruction to take at least ten years and a billion dollars, an enormous amount of progress has already been made.
Considering the size of the evangelical community in Guatemala—10 per cent of the country’s six million people—the estimated total of 300 to 400 Protestants killed, including a dozen pastors, was small. No evangelical missionaries were killed or seriously injured. But at least 500 churches were destroyed or damaged, along with the homes of thousands of church members.
Evangelical relief efforts have played a significant part in the reconstruction. Although a relatively small proportion of the estimated $60 million in materials and financial help came from non-government sources, evangelical projects have been among the most effective and have drawn favorable comment from the government and press. Almost all the churches and missions in Guatemala have been involved in relief and reconstruction in some way.
Approximately 10,000 housing units have been built or are planned by various evangelical agencies. Most are given to needy families in exchange for work or sold at subsidized prices with monthly payments of from $3 to $8.
Church reconstruction was another area of activity. Rebuilding 138 churches and seven educational institutions affected by the quake made up a substantial part of Central American Mission’s $1 million relief budget. The Assemblies of God had about the same number of buildings damaged, while the Primitive Methodists lost all but one of their thirty-five churches.
Much of the initial emergency aid from evangelical sources was channeled through CEPA, the Permanent Evangelical Committee for Aid, related to the Evangelical Alliance of Guatemala. (The alliance includes seventeen denominations and represents about 45 per cent of the evangelical community.) CEPA came under fire at the beginning from conservative elements for receiving substantial backing from Church World Service, the relief arm of the National Council of Churches in the United States (see September 24, 1976, issue, page 65). Along with charges of mismanagement and lack of controls, this led to a major shake-up in July in which Executive Director Virgilio Zapata and other officials were replaced.
CEPA limped along with financial difficulties to the end of the year and was then buried. It was resurrected as CEDI, the Evangelical Committee for Integral Development, directed by José Francisco Solórzano, of the Pentecostal Church of God in America. CEDI is still in the process of formation. A spokesman acknowledged that one of the first problems is to reestablish credibility. According to Solórzano, CEDI intends to keep the anti-ecumenical stance that characterizes the great majority of Guatemalan churches. “We want to conserve the fundamentalist base of the Word of God,” he said. The Evangelical Alliance, CEDI’s parent body, has gone on record as having no direct or indirect links with any group that fosters “Catholic-Protestant ecumenism” or with the World Council of Churches or similar groups.
The evangelical configuration in Guatemala has been somewhat altered as a result of the quake. Some of the groups that came to help temporarily, such as the Salvation Army, have decided to stay. A number of the established churches plan to turn their relief operations into long-range development programs. Perhaps the strongest new presence is Church World Service, which originally intended a short-term involvement but now has programs planned at least through 1979 and may spend as much as $15 million, according to a spokesman. He said CWS has received more donations for the Guatemala earthquake than for any other disaster.
In the absence of a counterpart agency such as CEPAD in Nicaragua and CEDEN in Honduras, CWS operates directly in Guatemala, channeling funds through a variety of organizations, including some secular ones. Despite the anti-ecumenical suspicion, a number of churches have been receiving aid for their programs from CWS, which claims that it bears no relation to the World Council of Churches and that there are no strings attached to its help.
In a different sort of problem, the New Jersey-based AMG International, headed by evangelist Spiros Zodhiates, was forced to withdraw at least temporarily from the Fourth of February colony by a committee of self-appointed community leaders. An AMG spokesman claimed the men were trying to muscle in for their personal advantage. The AMG has invested $100,000 in facilities that provide a day-care center, clinic, meals for children, and a store that sells staples below cost. The AMG is also building temporary housing in the politically sensitive colony, formed when 40,000 squatters invaded valuable land along a new belt highway in Guatemala City. A similar AMG program in the slum section of La Verbena was unaffected.
The earthquake and the nearly two thousand tremors that followed made a deep spiritual impression on the people of Guatemala. Most churches held special evangelistic efforts to take advantage of the new openness, and thousands of conversions resulted. CAM, for example, reported more than 1,800 decisions and 600 baptisms in a widespread program of literature distribution, house-to-house visitation, and short local campaigns. Seventy thousand copies of a CAM-produced book on the earthquake with photos and an evangelistic message were sold.
A number of planned mass campaigns failed to materialize. One with Luis Palau was postponed indefinitely, as was a World Vision pastors’ conference. A crusade with Baptist evangelist E. J. Daniels and eighty-five U. S. preachers in August resulted in 1,500 decisions.
The anniversary of the quake passed quietly. Fresh flowers decorated thousands of graves. The Guatemalan government sponsored an ecumenical mass. When most evangelical groups declined to participate, officials suggested a separate united evangelical service, but this was apparently ruled out by President Laugerud. The head of the Southern Baptist Seminary, Enrique Díaz, did take part in the mass, which was held in the national cathedral. The Baptists later published a statement clarifying that Díaz represented only himself.
A service sponsored by the Association of Evangelical Ministers of Guatemala on February 6 in the Central Park drew a crowd of several thousand.
“Remember that day? It’s better to forget!” said a woman outside the cathedral on February 4. But for many Guatemalans, the memory of the earthquake includes not only suffering and loss but also help and hope.
STEPHEN SYWULKA
Ecumenical Inspection
The first high-level ecumenical group to visit Cuba since Fidel Castro turned the island into a Communist state came back to the United States last month calling for a normalization of relations between the U. S. and Cuba. The team included four members named by the National Council of Churches and four named by the church-related Cuba Resource Center.
The NCC’s mission director for Latin America and the Caribbean, William Wipfler, headed the group. He is an Episcopalian minister. The lay president of the Episcopal House of Deputies, Charles Lawrence, was also in the NCC delegation.
“We are impressed and appreciative of what we have seen, experienced, and learned,” the group said in a statement released upon their return. The eight visitors, who were on the island ten days, said they were unanimous in their “conviction that the U. S. must take initiatives to normalize relations between our nation and Cuba.…” They also reported that they gained “a deep understanding of the profound change and social development taking place in Cuba.”
One of the group, Presbyterian pastor Herbert Meza of Washington, said that they all met with two members of the Communist Party Central Committee who had foreign affairs responsibilities. Otherwise, he noted, the visitors had no meetings with top-level government officials. Some individual members of the delegation did visit other leaders of the state, however.
Meza said the visitors met with a variety of church leaders and members. In answer to a question he noted that “no place among the line did anyone bring up the return of missionaries.” One of the persons they met was Lois Kroehler, who went to Cuba in 1949 as a Presbyterian missionary and who stayed after the Castro takeover.
There is a “most intense dialogue on the role of the church in a revolutionary state,” the Washington pastor reported. Some of the younger members see their role as revolutionists, he said. Others in the church see its place only in the spiritual realm. Meza, who has spoken Spanish all his life but who had never before been to Cuba, said that at no place on his itinerary did he sense that the church considered itself under a “state of siege.”
The statement issued by the group urged “an immediate end to the embargo that has caused great sacrifices and frequent sacrifices for Cuba’s people.” Meza said the visitors found long lines waiting for various commodities and services wherever they went.
While the group was the first to be organized as an ecumenical delegation, several American church leaders have gone before to see members of their respective denominations.
The NAE: Unity the Base
Some evangelical leaders are uneasy about the times: on the one hand they see an evangelical resurgence in the nation, and on the other they see what appears to be a lack of evangelical initiative, a failure to take advantage of a spiritually ripe moment in American history that may soon pass.
In a sense, the thirty-fifth annual convention of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), held in late February in suburban Chicago, reflected the same sort of mixed emotions. Broadcaster Dave Breese of Carol Stream, Illinois, in summing up the national scene for a Chicago reporter, observed: “Evangelical Christianity has become the greatest show on earth.” Everybody seemed to be conscious of the new day of growing awareness and acceptance of the NAE brand of Christianity, and they noted it with delight. But there were no calls for a unified response to it, and no bold new plans or programs were announced. Privately, however, some NAE leaders have been discussing the matter, says NAE executive director Billy Melvin, and the talks should soon lead to wider involvement and action.
What stood out at the NAE convention more than anything else was a spirit of unity among the 1,200-plus who attended. Indeed, one leader insisted that this was the key news element in the convention. “We are together more than ever before,” he said. And such a unity, Melvin said, must precede any attempts to do something broadly significant. (The NAE, formed in 1942 at St. Louis, has among its members thirty-five mostly small denominations, many local churches of thirty other denominations, and scores of colleges, seminaries, and other organizations, as well as large numbers of individuals. Member denominations range from Pentecostals and Quakers to Baptists, Wesleyans, and Reformed Presbyterians.)
An important position paper reaffirmed the NAE’s belief in the infallibility of the Bible, but the word “inerrancy” did not appear, and no one suggested publicly that it should be inserted. There were some corridor utterances to that effect, but apparently no one wanted to disturb the unity. As it turned out, the paper was one that both sides in the current inerrancy debate among evangelicals can live with. Its core affirmation is taken from the statement on Scripture in the Lausanne Covenant.
Inerrancy advocates quietly took their lumps. In a message on accepting people into church “just as they are,” Pastor Don Moomaw of Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Beverly Hills, California, suggested that belief in Christ, not commitment to a doctrinal statement, is the basis of unity, and he gave Fuller Seminary a ringing endorsement in this connection. Professor Bernard Ramm of Eastern Baptist Seminary denounced an “adversary scholarship” that “attacks, destroys, and puts others down.”
An omnibus resolution on repentance was referred back to the drafting committee. It came out against obscenity, homosexuality, “morally degrading” TV programs, liquor advertising, and any use of alcoholic beverages, and it advocated a tougher administration of criminal justice and punishment. The NAE’s executive committee will vote on the final version, which will reflect more moderation and compassion in wording than the original.
The delegates also adopted a resolution that was sharply critical of the government of Uganda for atrocities against Christians and called for worldwide prayer and protest.
Headline speakers Charles Colson (on prison ministry and revival in Washington) and evangelist Luis Palau (on Third World evangelism) drew large evening crowds.
A number of NAE affiliates held their annual meetings simultaneously. Included were a variety of workshops and seminars. The Evangelical Foreign Missions Association heard that laymen are asking for more accountability on the part of mission boards. The group also featured a panel presentation on how far missionaries can go in “contextualizing” the Gospel. A report on short-term mission work described it in positive terms and showed that 26 per cent of all short-termers go on to choose full-time service.
The Evangelical Social Action Committee fielded Chicago pastor William Leslie, who called for a partnership between suburban churches and inner-city churches. “Evangelicals have no strategy for the city,” he lamented. The committee sponsored an afternoon tour of specialized urban ministries in Chicago.
The American Association of Evangelical Students presented a check for $3,300 to the World Relief Commission as a down payment on a $20,000 goal for digging wells in Africa. The money came from students at scores of Christian colleges.
Federal prosecutor Larry Parrish of western Tennessee spoke to a meeting of NAE administrators about obscenity. He pointed out that fighting “pornography” as the issue is difficult because it can’t be defined. Obscenity, however, has been defined by the U. S. Supreme Court and can be successfully combatted, he maintained. He gave pointers, and he challenged churches to give guidance in communities concerned about taking action. He said the church has no obligation to police private morality but does have a responsibility to promote high public standards.
Nathan Bailey of the Christian and Missionary Alliance began the second year of a two-year term as president. The NAE budget this year totals $441,000.
A highlight of the three-day meeting was the dedication of the building site of the proposed new headquarters for the NAE, located about two blocks from the present building in Carol Stream, a community adjacent to Wheaton. About 100 persons took part.
Surveying Losses In Methodism
The new head of evangelism for the United Methodist Church bluntly took his denomination to task last month. Said Dr. George G. Hunter III, “The United Methodist Church is in bigger trouble than she currently perceives.”
Hunter said loss of membership in the last decade is unprecedented in the Wesleyan tradition. There have been few cases in church history where a denomination has lost so many members and made a comeback, he added.
The criticism was voiced at the annual meeting of the denomination’s Board of Discipleship in Nashville. Hunter, who is just taking office as the new staff executive for the board’s section on evangelism, pointed a finger at another agency. The Board of Global Ministries, he said, is not doing an effective job in new church development and world evangelism “and doesn’t want anyone else to.” The Board of Global Ministries is responsible for evangelism work outside the United States and the planting of new congregations in the United States. Hunter said United Methodists opened 68 new churches from 1970 through 1974 but closed 1,679 during the same period. He declared that the former Board of Evangelism, which is now a part of the Board of Discipleship, has been blamed unfairly for United Methodist membership decline. The denomination has lost more than a million members in the last decade.
Hunter is a former professor of evangelism at Perkins School of Theology who has been completing a study on church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary.
Tracey K. Jones, Jr., the top executive of the Board of Global Ministries, promptly responded to Hunter’s charges by stating that “proclamation of the Gospel is our first priority.” Jones emphasized that while Western missionaries continue to work in church planting, a high priority has been assigned to developing indigenous leadership overseas. He said the global board allocates 45 per cent of its resources to “proclamation for initial decision and strengthening the life of the Christian communities.” In the past four years, Jones reported, his board’s national division spent $2.5 million to help new congregations start buildings. It has also concentrated resources to assist the growth of minority congregations, the executive noted.
Ugandan Exposure
The persecution of the church in Uganda is genuine, and Christians around the world should protest. That has been the message of Anglican Bishop Festo Kivengere in American appearances since his flight from Uganda (see March 18, 1977, issue, page 49.)
Kivengere, the best known evangelical from Uganda, “went public” after he reached the United States, speaking at a New York news conference, on the NBC “Today” morning show, on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “700 Club,” and in numerous platform situations.
The bishop-evangelist, who has preached throughout the United States, said in the New York conference that President Idi Amin was responsible for the arrest of Archbishop Janani Luwum and that those responsible for his arrest were responsible for his death. He also said that he had talked with individuals who had seen the bullet holes in Luwum’s body. Amin claimed that the archbishop died in a car wreck.
Kivengere maintained that “those around Amin” are responsible for the crackdown on Christians and Amin’s failure to communicate with Christians. He said the President has been surrounded by foreign forces. The bishop emphasized that the current situation in Uganda is not a Muslim-Christian conflict.
“How long can the church last in Uganda under these circumstances?” a New York reporter asked. Kivengere replied, “Until the Lord Jesus Christ returns.”
World Scene
Radio Voice of the Gospel (RVOG), a 200,000-watt station in Ethiopia operated by the Lutheran World Federation since 1963, was off the air for nine hours one Saturday last month. When broadcasts resumed that afternoon, listeners in Asia and Africa heard from the “Radio Voice of the Revolution in Ethiopia,” not RVOG. The military government that ousted Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974 had previously allowed RVOG to operate as usual most of the time, insisting only on censorship of news about Ethiopia. Now all programming (reduced to only a few hours in a few languages) is being prepared by the Ethiopian ministry of information and national guidance.
The Vatican’s Urban University has opened an Institute for the Study of Atheism, thought to be the first center of its kind outside Moscow.
Mormons have organized their eight-hundredth stake (diocese) in the world. Getting the honor was the stake headquartered at Veracruz, Mexico, one of forty in that country. Total Mormon membership in Mexico is now reported at 200,000, with 40,000 baptisms in 1976 alone.
The Norwegian (Lutheran) Church has been embroiled in controversy over membership in the World Council of Churches since the WCC 1975 assembly, and its bishops have promised to review the question soon. The Norwegian Lutheran Mission, responsible for 450 missionaries overseas, has recommended that the church withdraw, specifically citing what the mission’s board describes as the WCC’s detrimental effects on the younger churches.
Ground will be broken in Toronto this month for the first Coptic Orthodox Church building in North America, and
Pope Shenouda III of the Copts will make an unprecedented trip to America to lead the service. The Egyptian-based group counts 600 families in its Toronto constituency.
Hans Küng, the Swiss-born Roman Catholic scholar at the University of Tübingen, sent the bishops a clarification of his views, but last month the West German hierarchy said he was still unclear. The bishops told him that Jesus Christ must be “presented and professed without ambiguity as true God and true man.”
Israelis and their friends around the world are choosing up sides over the issue of Israel’s drafting of girls into the army. Some Jews see conscription of females as an act of promiscuity, and the Supreme Rabbinical Court called a demonstration to protest it.
Chira Lubich, founder of the Focolare Movement in Italy and worker in various Catholic organizations, is the 1977 winner of the international Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, including a cash award of over $80,000. She was cited for promoting unity among Christians.
The Presbyterian Church in Ireland has called for the introduction of divorce in Ireland. Current government proposals, if enacted, will give courts wider discretion to grant decrees of annulment. These generally follow views of the Roman Catholic Church. The Presbyterians and other Protestant bodies say they want to see instituted instead a system of civil marriage and divorce.
Deaths
JAMES BAKER, 56, pastor of the Robertsville (South Carolina) Baptist Church and the only clergyman to speak with President Carter on the first “dial-a-president” radio program; of a heart attack shortly after the telephone conversation, in his Ridgeland, S.C., home.
HAROLD BOWMAN, 30, missionary pilot with Africa Inland Mission; apparently in crossfire of a quickly crushed political rebellion near Juba, Sudan.
H. R. ROOKMAAKER, 54, leading Christian art historian, professor at the Free University of Amsterdam, and leader of the Dutch L’Abri Fellowship; of a coronary attack in the Netherlands after leading a L’Abri Sunday service.
