NCC Missions Units in Joint Assembly

A report prepared especially forCHRISTIANITY TODAYby Dr. G. Aiken Taylor, editor of the Presbyterian Journal:

“From Missions to Mission,” theme of the first joint assembly of the Divisions of Home and Foreign Missions of the National Council of Churches meeting December 8–11 in Atlantic City, implied to nearly 500 delegates the failure of the churches to recognize their supreme mission in the world in their preoccupation with the “missions enterprise”—pictured as an administrative “static ecclesiastical pattern” (in which some felt involved, some not).

More profoundly, the theme indicated the existential situation and the current theological pattern: churches being forced to reassess their mission by the pressure of revolutionary changes within their own enterprises at home and abroad. To keep pace with change (the theme suggested) the churches must themselves change or become lost in the shuffle. As one delegate saw it, “paternalism is becoming fraternalism because the formerly paternalized are demanding it.”

“Change,” and its sequel “unity” (for the first time superseding “cooperation”), were the conference big words. Speaker after speaker referred to “catastrophic changes,” “revolutionary changes” in social and economic patterns, in attitudes of nationals toward “foreigners,” in missionary concepts, in service concepts, in theology. And speaker after speaker saw the only solution in a deeper, more effective “unity.” One called flatly for “re-structuring” the NCC.

The most influential address was not delivered to the conference at all. Presented before the General Board of the NCC a week previously by Dr. Virgil A. Sly, chairman of the executive board of the Division of Foreign Missions, it was sent in advance to delegates as a guiding statement.

Dr. Sly declared: “The basic challenge is change itself. If we can meet the challenge of change, we can meet the emerging ideologies which are but effects. To do this we ourselves must change.” “The taint of colonialism still clings to mission work. Christianity is often known as the white man’s religion.” To offset this the missionary must become more closely identified with the people, “working under the direction of the church to whom he is sent.” “The role of the mission as the dominant body with sovereign control is passing out of the picture.” Our new relationship is from mission to church and from church to church,” not from denominational board to church.

“We must turn funds over to the native churches” for direct administration, he said, and delegate to the cooperative bodies we have created, such as the National Council of Churches, the International Missionary Council, or the World Council of Churches, creativity in leadership: “We should encourage the cooperative bodies that represent us to seek a creative role that places them in positions of leadership rather than merely a group that executes a responsibility allocated to it by boards or denominations.” It was clear to some delegates, though not all, that given such a development, the major ecumenical bodies would cease to be the servants of the denominations who created them, but the denominations would become the servants of a new centralized authority.

Dr. Sly referred to the “rising tide of non-cooperative missions.” In the year 1958 boards not associated with the National Council sent out about 55 per cent of all the missionaries from the U. S. “Surely in the spirit of Christ there must be some way to bridge this rift in Protestantism across the world.”

Finally: “We have been so busy discussing methods, structures, institutions and movements that we have often forgotten why we have them: to preach Christ …”

Well-chosen speakers enlarged upon Dr. Sly’s outline. Dr. H. Edwin Espy, associate general secretary of the NCC, introduced as the “philosopher of the NCC,” pleaded for “functional ecumenicity.” He declared: “The unity of the Church precludes disunity in its mission. We are called to one mission of the one Gospel.” Now “the unity of the Church’s mission requires a unitive approach to the church’s functions,” at home and abroad. Dr. Espy proposed no procedure, conference or committee, but pleaded “for an orientation, a point of view, a largeness of view.” “The unity of our mission must transcend our denominations … at the very least it calls us to make common cause in home and foreign missions.”

Dr. Jon L. Regier, executive secretary of the Division of Home Missions, confessed one indelible impression of the Home Mission enterprise: internal uneasiness. We must “help Christians in the whole fellowship to understand that when they joined the Church they agreed to be missionaries.” This involvement in mission, he said, will demand involvement in the decision-making processes of society (housing, legislation, civic planning, education).

Dr. Eugene L. Smith, executive secretary of the Methodist Board of Missions, in what many delegates considered the conference’s most significant address, called for a recognition of new dimensions overseas. The “old covenant of mission and responsibility,” the “western pattern” which overseas churches have had to accept, has been “cooperation at the fringe rather than at the center of the task.” Today we are challenged to “a radically different orientation.” “The power of decision belongs not with the mission board giving aid, but with the local church which is doing the evangelism” on the field. “Our calling is to make personnel and funds available to churches for their use in their missionary and evangelistic outreach under their own administration.”

In probably the boldest address of the meeting, Dr. Willard M. Wickizer, executive chairman, Home Missions and Christian Education, The United Christian Missionary Society of Christian Churches, called for restructuring of the NCC. For unified impact upon the world, the speaker pleaded for a program of: (1) Longer range and more comprehensive planning, setting sights 25, even 50 years hence. (2) More basic research, enabling the church, for example, to estimate what Christian family life will be like in America in 2000 A.D. (3) Enlistment of wider involvement of people in the National Council than now exists; not just board executives but church leaders at every level. Then: “I now propose that the National Council set aside the six-year period, 1960–1966 for comprehensive study.… That at the time of the 1963 triennial meeting there be a Convocation on the Mission of the Church in America. Out of such a convocation might come … a re-structuring of the National Council along more realistic and effective lines.”

Off in a corner another meeting was going on, not part of the assembly but in its own way perhaps of equal importance. For the benefit of board executives assembled at the invitation of Dr. Wallace C. Merwin, Secretary of the Far Eastern Office, Ellsworth Culver and Dr. Paul S. Rees were answering questions about the global strategy of World Vision. It certainly wasn’t an endorsement of World Vision by the NCC, but the exchange of views may have been significant. One denominational executive commented: “To me true ecumenicity … recognizes diversity. In the area of cooperation my ecumenicity embraces Billy Graham as well as Bob Pierce and World Vision.”

Not all members of the Division of Foreign Missions would agree with the “bold thinking” of the NCC. For some, the “missionary enterprise” is not quickly to be identified with a subsidy in funds and personnel offered churches abroad. Missions is not “foreign aid.” And the Christian pattern of authority advocates a spiritual “paternalism” if not a social one: the Apostle Paul thought of his churches as those he had “begotten” in the name of the Father and to whom he could speak as a father in Christ. But a large proportion of major denominational representatives in the Division of Foreign Missions have clearly fallen in line with the program of “cooperation” and subsidy, and are busily engaged in re-orienting their constituencies to the “new facts of life.”

The assembly was frankly oriented to implement the idea that the fragmentation of the missionary enterprise must cease. The cooperative body at home was implied to be the only valid body through which administrative contact may be established and maintained with the “younger churches” abroad. For several denominations this has already eventuated in a surrender of part, if not most, of their major board functions to the inter-church committees of the Division of Foreign Missions of the NCC. It was assumed, without question, that the “younger churches” are ready and able to take over responsibility and control of the Christian work within their bounds and that the function of the home churches will ultimately become that of bodies subsidizing the work abroad, upon demand, with funds and personnel. The strong implication, throughout, was that denominations really have no right to further existence abroad as denominations and the day may come when they will surrender their individual interests to the ecumenical body at home. One delegate deplored the disinterest of the people in his denomination in missions as “mission.”

Here was the General Staff of the Church at work: the Supreme Command efficiently briefing its field staff by lectures and carefully guided discussion groups for the execution of top-level purposes. Somehow it called to mind the Mass, in which the activity at the altar is for the benefit of the witnessing congregation which comes to see, to receive and to return home. The machinery of the ecumenical movement does not really think of itself as the servant of the churches. It tends to think of itself as the voice of authority speaking to the churches. Increasingly the denominations may turn to New York also for their theology and their polity. There is certainly little encouragement for them to turn to the Bible. The message is from the “ecumenical spirit” for a “mission” determined by men of sound judgment appraising the existential situation. One may see why Rome is increasingly in Protestantism’s doctrine of the church.

Worth Quoting

DR. C. MELVIN BLAKE, executive secretary for Africa, Board of Missions, Methodist Church: “The big issue … is ‘paternalism’ or ‘fraternalism.’ The world needs missionaries as colleagues, not as bosses. The African does not want the missionary to control things. In places he has said, ‘Unless you turn over your work to us we will take it from you.’ Another problem is posed by the existence of central administrative auspices exercising world-wide control.”

DR. A. DALE FIERS, president, United Christian Missionary Society, Christian Churches: “We instruct our missionaries to submit to the policies and programs of the churches under which they work, though this may result in differing missionary policies for different missions. It would be suicide for the ecumenical idea for us to feel a direct administrative responsibility for any part of the Church of Christ in Japan, for instance, under which our missionaries work. The natural administrative body in America would be the Japan Board Committee of the Division of Foreign Missions of the National Council. Ideally, in dealing with unified churches abroad, the inter-board committee of the DFM becomes the denominational board.”

DR. D. J. CUMMING, educational secretary, Board of World Missions, Presbyterian Church in the U. S.: “We have been moving towards the goal of autonomous churches on the field and we have attained that goal in several parts of the world. However, the ‘missions enterprise’ is distinct in our thinking from the ‘national church.’ Where we work alongside the younger churches we do so in cooperation with them but our evangelistic missionaries engage primarily in pioneer work rather than as workers of the younger churches. Our policy is based on three broad considerations: First, the younger churches may be ready for autonomy without being ready to take over all ‘missionary’ work. Then, it is doubtful that the churches will grow more rapidly under a subsidy system of foreign aid granted for them to administer. There is a practical difference between a grant made to a church for its general operating expenses and a grant made for a particular project such as the construction of a seminary. And, finally, there is yet missionary work which the younger churches are not ready to assume. This task is one primary reason for our being on the field.”

DR. JOHN W. DECKER, past secretary of the International Missionary Council: “Merger of the IMC with the WCC is coming. It will carry out on a world scale what has already occurred here in the United States with the unification of such bodies as the old Foreign Missions Conference and the Home Missions Council. We must recognize that the Church is increasingly being called to mission and to unity. To meet the objections to merger, there will be a continuing Commission on World Mission and Evangelism to which organizations may belong without committing themselves to WCC membership.”

DR. ORIE O. MILLER, associate secretary of Eastern Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities and of the Mennonite Central Committee: “Some of our boards are members of the Division of Foreign Missions, although none of our churches belong to the NCC. This membership is largely for accreditation, that is, for reference in the purchase of property, etc. In my opinion, there is more talk of unification here than there is actual implementation on the field. When you force a centralized structure, administratively, a ‘breadth of vision’ is lost which leaves vacuums in the work. Then God raises up his Bob Pierces and World Vision, for instance, to supply the deficiency.”

DR. ADAM W. MILLER, president of the Missionary Board of the Church of God: “At the present time we are granting workers to serve under the national churches. We are also granting funds to national churches to be administered at their sole discretion. However, there are dangers inherent in the evident trend towards the integration of boards and agencies at home. Some of us fear that if the IMC is integrated with the WCC … our own missionary work as a distinct, effective entity, might suffer.”

Jungle ‘Junk’

Hundreds of jeeps rust away in jungle junk yards while U. S. missionaries in nearby compounds plod about on foot.

Such lamentable juxtaposition of missionaries and materiel is common. Surplus goods at U. S. military bases overseas is valued in billions of dollars. While missionaries beg for equipment to minister more effectively, commanders worry about getting rid of their excess.

With the reconvening of Congress January 6, the U. S. Defense Department plans to press lawmakers for authorization to give away surplus property. Reportedly, it is cheaper to write the material off than to try to sell it.

Such giveaways pose distribution problems, however, and denominational representatives in Washington are open for suggestions from missionaries as to what advice they can provide Congressmen in formulation of the procedure. Who should determine recipients of the surplus? Should U. S. missionaries be given priority? Should the foreign government concerned have a say?

Other Congressional legislation of interest to church organizations:

—Federal aid to education proposals.

—Projects aimed at curbing juvenile delinquency.

—Bills to help the postmaster general crack down on obscenity in the mails.

—Bills to outlaw liquor advertising.

Postal Panel

Three clergymen are among nine prominent citizens appointed by Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield to aid him in reaching decisions “in matters relating to the mailability of books where questions of obscenity arise.”

Summerfield stresses that his new “Citizens’ Advisory Committee on Literature” “will in no sense of the word be a censorship body.” The committee:

Dr. Daniel Poling, editor of Christian Herald; Roman Catholic Archbishop William E. Cousins of Milwaukee; Dr. Julius Mark, senior rabbi of New York’s Temple Emanu-El; Dr. Erwin D. Canham, on leave as editor of the Christian Science Monitor while serving as president of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce; Roscoe Drummond, columnist; Dr. Shane McCarthy, executive director of the President’s Council for Youth Fitness; Miss Chloe Gifford, president of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs; Mrs. James Parker, president of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers; and Douglas Black, president of Doubleday publishers.

Boomerang!

A dramatic film built around Billy Graham’s 1959 campaign in Australia is slated for spring release.

Titled “Boomerang,” the film stars Georgia Lee and Dick Clark, both well known to the Hollywood Christian fellowship. An Australian actress who made a decision for Christ during Graham’s Sydney meetings also is in the cast.

Director Dick Ross of World Wide Pictures says the fall filming was done under a “continued spirit of revival.” Ross will accompany Graham to Africa to make a documentary and TV films.

Crusade in Africa

Evangelist Billy Graham is appealing to Christians to pray earnestly for the three-month crusade he and his team will conduct in Africa starting January 13.

Public rallies will be held in at least sixteen major cities in nine countries. In addition, special meetings are being arranged for missionaries, native pastors, students, business and civic leaders.

Graham will have the help of six associate evangelists, including the Rev. Howard Jones, Negro minister from Cleveland who during several years with the Graham team has been laying the groundwork for the coming crusade by making periodic trips to Africa.

Besides Graham and Jones, Africans will hear, through interpreters, evangelists Grady Wilson, Leighton Ford, Joe Blinco, Larry Love and Roy Gustafson.

Here is the complete Graham team schedule for Africa:

The Sultan’s Praise

The Sultan of Sokoto, Sir Abubakar, head of all West Africa’s orthodox Muslims, praised the medical work of Christian missionaries in a message of good will sent last month to 195 patients discharged from the Sudan Interior Mission’s Leprosy Isolation Centre at Moriki.

The Sultan urged the ex-patients to spread “the good news” of their cure so others would come for help. Leprosy sufferers, afraid of social stigma, sometimes do not seek treatment until the disease is in advanced stages.

Work among Nigeria’s estimated 750,000 lepers provides an open door for evangelism, reports the Rev. John C. Wiebe, supervisor of the SIM Leprosy Service. Serving full or part time among the 28,000 patients now under SIM treatment are 6 doctors, 32 nurses, 67 other missionaries, and 416 Africans.

Wiebe says 29 per cent of the leprosaria patients have recorded decisions for Christ, apart from others making such spiritual commitment through follow-up after discharge. At least 12 ex-patients now are full-time pastors or evangelists, spreading the “good news” of both their physical and spiritual healing.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: The Rt. Hon. John Edwards, 55, president of the General Assembly of the Council of Europe and a leading Anglican layman, in Strasbourg … Dr. Percy H. Harris, 37, president of London (Ontario) Bible Institute and Theological Seminary … Dr. Harris J. Stewart, 75, retired United Presbyterian missionary to Pakistan.

Appointments: As professor of biblical history and literature in the University of Sheffield, England, Dr. Aileen Guilding (first woman ever to be named to a professorship in biblical or theological studies in any British university) … as director of the Chicago office of Protestants and Other Americans United, the Rev. James M. Windham … as associate secretary of evangelism for the Board of Church Extension, Presbyterian Church in the U. S., Dr. Lawrence A. Davis.

Retirements: As general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, Dr. Arnold T. Ohrn, effective next summer … as pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Dr. Robert G. Lee, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Resignation: As vice president of San Francisco Theological Seminary, Dr. Jacob A. Long, (he will remain on the faculty as a professor of Christian social ethics).

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