Is ‘News Management’ Ethical?

Ever since the Cuban crisis last fall, the Kennedy administration has been under fire for the face it presents to the U. S. public. The attack focuses upon how and what the government says about itself. Critics consider the executive branch guilty of what they term “news management”—which can mean anything from release of information strategically timed for political advantage to employment of falsehood as a cold-war weapon.

The controversy turns on ethical issues, although for months nobody seemed interested in asking clergymen for their judgments. And the clergy seemed equally reluctant to offer advice.

Key figure in the controversy is Arthur Sylvester, 61-year-old Pentagon press chief who brashly or forthrightly (depending on one’s point of view) spells out his convictions.

Last fall Sylvester was quoted as saying that news is a weapon the government can and ought to use in the cold war. On December 6, in a speech to the Deadline Club in New York, Sylvester said he had erred in asserting that news is a part of the government’s arsenal. But in reply to a question posed at the close of his address he uttered another line which has become famous (or infamous, again depending on the observer’s viewpoint). He said it is the government’s “right, if necessary, to lie to save itself when it’s going up into a nuclear war.”

How do the clergy react to Sylvester’s stand?

“I disagree,” said Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, stated clerk of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. “It is never proper to manage news.”

In the case of full-scale war where espionage is involved the circumstances are different, Blake declared. But he ruled out deliberate falsehoods in the present world situation.

“Withholding information should be limited to those cases where its disclosure would be really dangerous,” Blake added.

At a House inquiry last month, Sylvester sought to clarify his statement on the government’s “right to lie.” He said it had been a “shorthand answer” taken out of context. The government does not have a right to lie to the American people, he declared, but it does have a right in a time of extreme crisis to attempt to mislead an enemy. He added that this may provide some “fallout” that misleads the American people in the process.

Dr. Edward L. R. Elson, minister of National Presbyterian Church in Washington, said the nation must trust the judgment of its leaders in times of crisis.

“Later on,” he said, “their judgment may prove wrong. If so, you can turn them out.”

NEWS / A fortnightly report of developments in religion

TRUTH AND THE CHRUCH

Reluctance of the churches to voice judgment on “news management” ethics may stem partly from the fact that they have yet to put their own house in order.

The problem is not new, but its importance remains. In every century the Christian church has been plagued by management of ecclesiastical news no less than distortion of the “good news.”

Major religious stories of our time have been hampered by an affinity for secrecy and seeming fear of truth by principals involved.

The English-speaking world did not learn of the immense significance of the debate at the Second Vatican Council until the information was leaked surreptitiously to The New Yorker magazine.

Until last month, secrecy also prevailed over deliberations of the Consultation on Church Union, which hopes to bring about a merger of six or more major U. S. denominations (see full report on succeeding pages).

Plenary sessions in Oberlin, Ohio, were finally opened to the press following extensive criticism of the closed-door policy. However, members of the consultation reaffirmed that preliminary discussion of reports would continue to take place in secret.

Dr. Daniel A. Poling, editor of Christian Herald, noted that “national safety makes secrecy imperative on certain occasions, but it is just about established that beyond such there have been occasions—and recent occasions—when Washington has not only sought to mislead other capitals and has succeeded in doing so, but has misled and I believe deceived our allies as well as our own people.”

Poling said his disagreement was not in principle but in the application and abuse of principle.

“Secrecy and deception are bipartisan,” he added. “The present controversy reminds us that the U-2 fiasco with its boldface deception belongs to the Republicans.”

Former Congressman Walter H. Judd, who served as a Congregational medical missionary to China, asserted that it is justifiable and necessary for the government to withhold information during an operation or during the planning stage. He added, however, that deliberate deception is wrong.

“I cannot conceive of a situation in which even the practical benefits, discounting the ethical implications, would outweigh the destruction of confidence in government,” said Judd. “Falsehood damages our government more than any foreign adversary.”

Dr. Gordon H. Clark, noted evangelical scholar, observed:

“That it is legitimate in time of war to deceive the enemy about impending military movements is a point of general agreement. But there is no general agreement that it is right for a government to deceive its citizens in time of peace.”

“The voters,” said Clark, who is a philosophy professor at Butler University, “cannot preserve their freedom and judge the honesty and wisdom of their officials if these officials are evasive or secretive.”

Sylvester, former New Jersey newspaperman, might have more ethical grounds for the government’s “right to lie” than the criticism would indicate. But he seems unconcerned about seeking out those grounds diplomatically.

Few would insist that deception is always evil, regardless of the form it takes and the circumstances (a very common deception is to ward off prowlers by allowing the lights to burn when one is away from home). The ethical question probably focuses upon when deception is justifiable. Some maintain that it should be limited to military warfare. Others contend that the present cold war is as real an international conflict as any military operation ever was, and that deception is therefore justifiable.

Blake Merger Plan And The Scriptures

Cardinal Newman once said: “Living movements do not come of committees.” But in Oberlin, Ohio, the Consultation on Church Union (recognized more readily by the term “Blake-Pike proposal”) was moving ahead surely and steadily as if toward a rebuttal of the cardinal, who once moved from one church to another without benefit of merger.

It was only the second meeting of the consultation—the first took place a year ago in Washington, D. C., and the third is due a year hence in Princeton, New Jersey—and delegates voted this time to ask their respective churches for “authority to enter into the development of a plan of union when and if the Consultation decides that it is appropriate.”

Since the first meeting two church bodies—the Evangelical United Brethren Church and the Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ)—have joined in the talks with the original four—the Methodist, Episcopal, and United Presbyterian churches and the United Church of Christ. No further invitations to other churches to become participants are to be issued in the near future so that the consultation might be kept an “operable working group.” (The Polish National Catholic Church is still to act on an invitation.) But other churches had been invited to send “observer-consultants” to Oberlin, and 16 named representatives, including: the American Baptist Convention, Anglican Church of Canada, Standing Conference of the Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas, National Baptist Convention of the U.S.A., Inc., Presbyterian Church in the U.S., Reformed Church in America, Religious Society of Friends—Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and the United Church of Canada.

It was reported that a committee of representatives from the educational boards of the six participating denominations had been appointed to consider the feasibility of a common study course on the issues involved in church union.

In resolutions adopted at the closing session, the 54 delegates noted that the purpose of the consultation is to “explore the establishment of a united church” but stressed that they had “no desire to press for a premature decision” on the drafting of a union plan. “Nevertheless we are reminded that our very reason for being is challenged if we allow ourselves indefinitely to discuss unity in general.” Assurance was given that each delegation in securing from its church authority to develop a union plan would not thereby “be then committing itself to participation in the writing of a plan of union if the basis of the Consultation’s proposed plan were later judged unsatisfactory.”

The consultation is to move beyond the “exploration phase” to a plan of union just as soon as its members agree “that we have sufficient theological consensus to make such an effort promising under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.”

The Oberlin sessions revolved around three topics: “Scripture, Tradition, and the Guardians of Tradition”; “Analysis of Participating Communions”; and “The Worship and Witness of the Church.” Reports on each were adopted. Reporters applauded the opening of business and plenary sessions to the press, in contrast to the Washington meeting a year ago, but were not happy at being barred from discussion groups. During the irenic public sessions, the subject of Scripture and tradition engendered more discussion than any other, wherein a slight Presbyterian-Episcopal tension developed over the elevation of tradition relative to Scripture.

In neoorthodox terminology, the Scriptures are defined in the adopted report (see inset) as witness to God’s revelation but not as revelation themselves. They are declared inspired, but neither the nature nor the extent of the inspiration is delineated.

‘Scripture, Tradition and the Guardians of Tradition’

Here is the complete text of the report of the Consultation on Church Union on “Scripture, Tradition, and the Guardians of Tradition”:

The six churches represented in the Consultation on Church Union recognize and acknowledge that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments have a unique authority.

The Holy Scriptures witness to God’s revelation, fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and to man’s response to the divine revelation. They testify to God’s mighty acts of creation and recreation, judgment and mercy; they declare God’s saving purpose; they proclaim the gospel which is the power of God for salvation; they point to the glorious consummation of his Kingdom which has no end. They are the inspired writings which bear witness to the divine deeds in our history by which God has called into being and sustained his people and by which God calls all men to unite in his service and to share in his reconciliation of the world to himself.

Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, the living Lord and Head of the Church, is the center of the Holy Scriptures. In him, the promises of God are fulfilled; to him the apostolic writings bear witness. Because we confess Christ alone (solus Christus), in this way we affirm Scripture alone (sola Scriptura).

The churches represented in this Consultation affirm the Holy Scriptures to be canonical, that is, the norm of their total life, including worship and witness and teaching and mission.

The members of the Consultation are agreed that there is a historic Christian Tradition. Each of our churches inevitably appeals to that Tradition in matters of faith and practice. But the clearer delineation and characterization of that Tradition is a task still to be completed.

The members of the Consultation, however, are aware that our perception of the relation between the Scriptures and Tradition is taking on new forms and new dimensions. A new understanding of Tradition is making it increasingly clear that Tradition cannot simply be equated with “the traditions of men”—teachings and practices which obscure or corrupt rather than express the revelation to which the Scriptures witness. By Tradition we understand the whole life of the Church, ever guided and nourished by the Holy Spirit, and expressed in its worship, witness, way of life, and its order. As such, Tradition includes both the act of delivery by which the good news is made known and transmitted from one generation to another as well as the teachings and practice handed on from one generation to another. Thus the Evangelist writes: “inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered (traditioned) to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also … to write an orderly account for you …” (Luke 1:1–3).

In such a sense, the Christian Tradition antedated the formation of the New Testament canon. The New Testament canon appears not as separate from or opposed to the Christian Tradition but rather as an expression of it. Certainly it is the case that in the Church, Scripture and Tradition are found together.

There are at least three relations between Scripture and Tradition (understood as the whole life of the Church) which deserve consideration. (1) Scripture is itself included in the Tradition. The reading of and listening to the Scriptures in worship and the authority of the Scriptures over the teaching of the Church are essential in the life of the Church. (2) The Scriptures are interpreted in the light of the Tradition. The Church does not set itself above the Scriptures; but the Church reads and listens to the Scriptures as a community of faith. (3) The Scriptures are the supreme guardian and expression of the Tradition. This is what the Church intends by its acknowledgment of a canon of Scriptures.

The members of the Consultation are aware that we are confronted not only by Scripture and Tradition (understood as the whole life of the Church) but also by Scripture, Tradition and the traditions—those individual expressions of the Tradition which more or less characterize particular Churches and those customs of the Churches which have arisen in various times and places.

We have no doubt that such traditions must ever be brought under the judgment of the Scriptures. To bring its traditions under the judgment of the Scriptures is an inescapable obligation of the Church.

The Church acknowledges its responsibility for its continuing guardianship of the apostolic testimony to God’s act of reconciliation in Jesus Christ. For that guardianship, the whole Church is responsible. The Scriptures illuminated by the Spirit in the Church are the fundamental guardian as they are the source of new life and light.

The Consultation expects to explore further the role of symbols, such as creeds and confessions, and the role of the ministries which have special responsibilities for guarding the Church’s total life from distortion and corruption.

For further study on this subject we recommend The Christian Tradition and the Unity We Seek by Albert C. Outler (Oxford) and The Old and The New in the Church (Augsburg).

Tradition (with a capital T) is understood to mean something other than “the traditions of men,” which may corrupt revelation. Rather, it is described as “the whole life of the Church, ever guided and nourished by the Holy Spirit, and expressed in its worship, witness, way of life, and its order.” The Scriptures are termed “the supreme guardian and expression of the Tradition.” Episcopal objection to the word “judge” in place of “expression” was sustained.

Presbyterian Cary Weisiger ascertained that any tradition contrary to Scripture was thereby excluded from “Tradition” as defined by the report. A theological conservative, he later told CHRISTIANITY TODAY: “To some of us, the living Tradition of the Church as distinct from the traditions of men which may corrupt or obscure the Word of God is not a familiar concept. It is true that there was a Tradition of the Gospel, an apostolic deposit, which predated any of the New Testament Scriptures. From the Reformed viewpoint, this tradition was enshrined by inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament writings. It is also true that since the New Testament Scriptures were completed, the Holy Spirit has been guiding the Church. Insofar as this guidance is regarded as a Tradition in agreement with the Scriptures and under the judgment of the Scriptures, I recognize and rejoice in all that it signifies. The consensus at Oberlin has certain Scriptural safeguards written into it which should be carefully pondered.”

At close of the sessions, the merger plan’s originator, Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, stated clerk of the United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., had this to say to CHRISTIANITY TODAY: “Most interesting and important was the consensus on the strong statement of the authority of the Holy Scripture under Jesus Christ, the head of the Church. This was something I didn’t know we could get as strongly stated. So a measure of understandable evangelical fear of this movement is thus far allayed.”

Certain evangelical fears would doubtless arise from the ambiguities of some theological language. The problem was described by Episcopalian Massey H. Shepherd, Jr., of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, California, in a background paper prepared for the consultation: “The assertion is constantly made and defended, especially in Protestant circles, that the Scriptures provide a norm for testing the truth and authenticity of worship no less than of doctrine and ethics. This appeal to Biblical authority, however, can be ambiguous. To the fundamentalist, who holds a view of verbal inspiration, it means one thing; to those who accept the modern historical, critical approach to Biblical interpretation, it means another. In some traditions, the interpretation of the ‘truth of the Bible’ is subject to the Church’s magisterium, however that supreme teaching office is institutionalized; in others both Church and Bible are under some prior authority—whether conceived as some indefinable ‘Word of God’ or more precisely spelled out in canons of confessional orthodoxy. And in many of our Churches there are an increasing number who find the norms of Biblical authority by an inductive method of historical inquiry combined with subjective evaluations of inherent rationality and moral integrity. (An essential task for ecumenical discussion is the question of the authority of the Bible, especially among those who reject verbal inspiration, the use of proof texts, and the like, and who accept historical, critical methods, and the concept of ‘progressive revelation.’ The revolution in Biblical studies of the past century makes it impossible to approach the authority of the Scriptures in exactly the same way as did the Protestant Reformers … or the Fathers of the ancient Church.)”

F.F.

The Merger Road

Representatives of The Methodist Church and the Evangelical and Reformed Church formed five new committees last month to develop a plan of union for the two denominations.

The committees were set up by a Joint Commission on Church Union after its members agreed at a meeting in Cleveland that there were no insurmountable obstacles to the proposed merger.

Organized were the Committees of Faith and Ritual, Ministry, Ecclesiastical Program and Organization, Relations Outside the U.S.A., and Institutions and Property.

According to the present schedule for union, the committees are expected to prepare a basis of union for submission to the 1964 Methodist General Conference and the 1966 EUB Church General Conference.

Spring Thaw For Baptists

In Chicago springtime is always welcome. This year its cautious approach provided a setting for a conference on biblical evangelism at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, hopefully standing on the threshold of a springtime of its own.

Founded in 1913 by men concerned over “the tendency of pastors and seminaries to eliminate the Bible as the source of belief and preaching” and over “naïve beliefs in the inevitability of man’s progress,” Northern became a vigorous center of evangelicalism. From its doors the military services claimed more chaplains than from any other Baptist seminary in the country, North or South. Graduates in the pastorate number more than a thousand, those in higher education 200—more than a dozen of whom are college and seminary presidents.

Chicago today boasts more theological students than any other metropolitan center in the world, but Northern’s growth has recently been hindered by aging facilities set in a crime-ridden area. Merger with a sister American Baptist seminary was proposed, which would have meant departure from Chicago. Largely credited with saving the seminary as an independent entity is its popular president, Dr. Benjamin P. Browne, currently president also of the American Baptist Convention. His quiet dynamic was behind a move southwestward within the greater Chicago area. In Oak Brook a two-million-dollar campus is being designed and built by Harry Weese, whose American Embassy in Ghana won international acclaim.

While looking ahead to building completion by next September, the seminary’s conference on evangelism recalled also the biblical imperatives which formed its motivation and dynamism through the years. The conference was widely interpreted as raising the seminary’s standard against the doctrine of universalism, a subject currently agitating the American Baptist Convention. Implicit in addresses and discussions was an evangelical uneasiness over possible universalist severing of the delicate nerve of evangelism. This was coupled with a disapproving frown toward a phenomenon which the seminary’s founding fathers had earlier opposed: “the substitution of social action for evangelical preaching.”

Conference addresses combined heartwarming devotional spirit with militant stress upon the urgency of the evangelistic task. Keynoter was Dr. J. Lester Harnish, pastor of the fast-growing First Baptist Church of Portland, Oregon: “It is when the servant of God is filled with the love of Christ to the point that he is constrained with compassion for the lost that his ministry becomes flaming with an evangel otherwise not known. It is then that the preacher appears not as a captain of a little company of people, not as a petty organizer or denominational leader or executive of an institution or a psychiatric counselor, but as a seeker after souls for Christ’s sake.” Societal and individual problems were referred to the Gospel, “which is adequate for the problems of race, class, family, moral control, lusts of the flesh, self-mastery, and the social, political, ethical headaches of all mankind. These find their answer in Christ.”

Andover-Newton Seminary’s Culbert G. Rutenber, speaking on the doctrine of man in biblical evangelism, pointed to man’s radical sickness, apart from which the Gospel is superfluous. “Man is lost now because of sin, which means that he will be lost in the hereafter. He is thus a fit subject for a power beyond himself to do what he cannot do—this is the will of God in the Gospel.”

Asked by President Browne whether he could harmonize this view with the universalism taught by his Andover-Newton colleague, Nels Ferré, Dr. Rutenber replied, “I do not harmonize my view with his.” He added his conviction that fellowship should not be broken over differences at this point. “If I believed in universalism, it would affect my evangelism. Though some of my friends tell me it does not affect theirs, and I believe them. On the other hand there are some who oppose universalism but who are not doing much about it in the way of evangelism.”

In the background of the conference a controversy shaped around the figure of Jitsuo Morikawa, director of evangelism for the Home Mission Societies of the American Baptist Convention. Many Baptists feel that under his leadership historic Baptist views on evangelism are undergoing change at the official level. They complain of the leaven of Barthian theology and universalism, and of a shift in emphasis from primary concern for individual salvation to preoccupation with economic, political, and social issues.

Pointing to racial segregation and prejudice in the Church, Dr. Morikawa told the convention in 1959: “The Church, as we are, does not merit the right to be heard. And the kind of gospel for which we stand is not worth proclaiming to the world.”

Continuing exchanges are seen in denominational journals. In the American Baptist newsmagazine Crusader, the Rev. A. Scott Hutchison of Philadelphia’s Third Baptist Church declared, “Dr. Morikawa states that man, until his decision for Christ, ‘was like an acquitted prisoner living in prison, unaware of his new freedom.’ The Bible says, ‘He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already’ (John 3:18). Unregenerate man is not a prisoner who has been pardoned, but a prisoner still under sentence!”

Dr. Morikawa replied: “The crux of the theological problem here is whether we understand the good news of the gospel as gloriously unconditional or restrictively conditional.

“One way to frame the Christian message is: ‘If you will respond, God in Jesus Christ will love, accept, forgive and redeem you, but if you do not He will reject and damn you.’

“Another way to proclaim the gospel is: ‘God in Jesus Christ loves you, has redeemed you, has already accepted and forgiven you, therefore respond to Him in joyous gratitude and faith.’

“Both recognize the urgent importance of decision. The one is made out of the threat of being rejected and damned unless you respond. The other is made out of liberty and freedom of joyous gratitude. Both involve repentance. The one is repentance in order to be given the status of a son. The other is repentance of a son who has dishonored his father.”

Editor John C. Slemp of Missions, 159-year-old convention magazine, has challenged the universalist concept that all are saved whether they know it or not: “The new life in Christ is not ours whether we know it or not.… Salvation does not come automatically, with or without our consent. It requires human response—an act of the mind, the heart and the will in joyous surrender, in full commitment, to Christ.”

One observer who has recently traveled among American Baptist churches commented that among pastors the universalist controversy is pressing toward the explosive stage. Only two of the convention’s state executive secretaries are said to favor Dr. Morikawa’s retention as the convention’s evangelism director. Said a Chicago pastor: “Signs indicate the pendulum may be swinging back to a biblical evangelism. But the universalist issue could bring about the biggest split our convention has ever suffered. We cannot afford another exodus like that of the Conservative Baptists.”

As for Northern Seminary, her conference on biblical evangelism had clearly recorded her opposition to universalist tendencies both inside and outside the American Baptist Convention.

F.F

Henrietta C. Mears

Dr. Henrietta C. Mears, 72, whose career was one of the most remarkable of any woman in the field of Christian education, died last month following a heart attack.

During the time she served as Christian education director at Hollywood Presbyterian Church, Sunday school enrollment grew from 400 to more than 6,000, largest in the denomination.

In 1933, Dr. Mears founded Gospel Light Publications, non-denominational publishing firm. In 1938 she founded Forest Home Christian Conference Center in the San Bernardino Mountains.

Dr. Mears died in her home in Bel-Air, suburb of Los Angeles. She never married and leaves no close survivors.

Freedom And Order

Father Hans Küng, boldest young reformer in Roman Catholicism, made his American debut last month with a plea for freedom.

The 35-year-old German theologian proposed that his church abolish its index of forbidden books, its advance censorship of religious publications, and all secret inquisitorial proceedings.

His remarks won an ovation from the crowd of 3,000 persons who had come to hear him at Jesuit-maintained Boston College. Among those on the platform were Richard Cardinal Cushing, Archbishop of Boston, and Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Athenagoras of Canada.

He said that in contemporary times the church must avoid “even the appearance of authoritarianism, totalitarianism or absolutism.”

Since the Reformation, Küng declared, Protestants have advocated “freedom in order” while Catholics have stressed “order in freedom.”

“We challenge our Protestant brethren to meet us courageously in working out the defenses of the two concepts,” he added.

Küng was one of the four leading Catholic figures banned from participation in a lecture series at Catholic University this spring. University officials explained they did not want to appear to be taking sides on issues facing the recessed Second Vatican Council.

Role Of The Campus

The Danforth Foundation is launching an exhaustive study of church-related colleges to define their distinctive function in a predominantly secular culture and educational system. The study will run for two or three years.

Mail And The Court

Mail continues to pour into the Supreme Court Building as the U. S. citizenry awaits the court’s decision on the constitutionality of Bible reading and prayer in public schools. The court has been getting as many as 50 letters a day on the topic.

This is an extraordinary amount, according to court spokesmen, who declare that it is quite improper to try to influence the court by ordinary mail. Any citizen may file an argument on any case as amicus curiae—“friend of the court,” but such an argument is considered only when it meets technical specifications (for example, it must be printed, must run at least ten pages, and must be introduced by an attorney who is a member of the Supreme Court bar). The idea is to point out to the court facts and points of law which might be otherwise overlooked. Sheer argumentation is out of order because the judiciary, unlike legislatures, makes decisions on determination of fact and interpretation of law, not on public opinion.

In the two Bible reading-prayer cases argued before the court in February (Murray v. Curlett, Maryland; and Abingdon Township v. Schempp, Pennsylvania), a brief amicus curiae favoring the exercises was filed jointly by the attorneys general of 19 states. Significantly, not a single Christian organization availed itself of the opportunity to file. Six organizations¹ argued against the exercises.

Another religion-in-public-schools case (Chamberlin v. Dade County Board of Public Instruction) has been submitted to the Supreme Court and is awaiting initial action. It appeals a 7–0 decision of the Florida Supreme Court holding Bible reading and Lord’s Prayer recitation constitutional.

In Baltimore, meanwhile, a city judge refused to issue a warrant for assault against a minor charged with heckling one of the principals in the Supreme Court case, 16-year-old William J. Murray III. Murray sought the warrant against another 16-year-old, Brent McCully. Judge Howard L. Aaron ruled that heckling was not a crime.

An Impossible Bridge?

Speaking to biblical scholars at Princeton Theological Seminary last month, Dr. William F. Albright rejected publicly the theory of Dr. Cyrus H. Gordon that the Minoan and Eteocretan dialects of Crete and southern Greece are Semitic (CHRISTIANITY TODAY, March 15, 1963, p. 575).

“Professor Gordon has performed a real service, pointing out that the Greek world must be considered in Old Testament scholarship,” Albright conceded, but “Gordon’s translation of Linear B … [and] the mixture of biblical Hebrew are impossible.” The remarks came in response to a question following an address by Albright, professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University and a world-renowned Bible scholar and archaeologist.

In the earlier lecture, striking for clarity and breadth of scholarship, Albright pictured present Old Testament biblical scholarship as in a state of suspended animation. The cause, he affirmed, is four dominant fallacies of the last 20 or 30 years of Old Testament research: the theory of late origins, the assumption that the consonantal text of the Pentateuch has not changed since Ezra, the interpretation of the Old Testament from the perspective of philosophical idealism, and the rejection of the possibility of any early Hebrew theology. These errors, Albright believes, are now being refuted by momentous discoveries in the fields of archaeology and linguistics.

In observations of interest to conservative scholars, Albright listed as irrefutable the conclusions that many parts of the Pentateuch are older than 1300 B.C. and that biblical Hebrew was no longer written after the sixth century B.C. These conclusions do much to confirm traditional dating of Old Testament books. Many scholars maintain that some of the Psalms and other parts of the Old Testament were composed centuries after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.

Princeton also played host last month to Heidelberg’s professor of New Testament, Dr. Guenther Bornkamm, currently on world tour. Addressing himself to “The Epistle to the Romans as Paul’s Last Will and Testament” the German scholar rejected efforts to view the epistle as Paul’s anticipatory dealings with the problems of the Roman church. He said that the epistle is correctly understood only as a summary of the Pauline theology, based on the experiences of Paul during his far-reaching missionary activity.

Cuban Tribulation

Some 12,000 Bibles were destroyed by Cuban authorities following a recent seizure, according to an account given Missionary News Service.

The MNS report quotes a Christian correspondent in Havana who said he was writing “to inform you of the actual tribulations that are being suffered in Cuba.” His name was withheld to protect him against reprisal.

“A few days ago a great shipment of Bibles was received from Mexico, England, and Canada,” the correspondent wrote. “The majority of these have already been taken to the national paper factory and there they have been ground up, and taken to be converted into cardboard, to be used in making posters and notices, with which they plan to convert the minds of the Cubans to Communism. So far, 12,000 Bibles have been destroyed.”

Meanwhile, the Cuban government arrested several missionary families, charging they had engaged in anti-government activity. Eleven of the group were subsequently ordered out of the country and flown to Miami.

The Rev. Floyd Woodworth, veteran leader of Assemblies of God missionary work in Cuba, was reported to be confined in a Havana prison as of the end of March. His wife and two children were among those deported.

Several Jehovah’s Witnesses missionaries also were returned to the United States in the same plane.

Among charges leveled at the Assemblies of God personnel was that they had trained counter-revolutionaries at a Bible school in Manacas Las Villas, that they failed to teach Cuban history, and that they refused to fly the Cuban flag (the missionaries said they could not obtain rope).

Biblical Baseball

Venezuela is known for baseball fever. It was hardly surprising that newspapers made a big play over major leaguer Felipe Alou. What astonished fans and reporters alike was that he showed up not only with bat and glove, but with a Bible.

Thus the Spanish-speaking Alou’s visit a few weeks back provoked the same question everywhere:

“Why have you come to Venezuela?”

To which the agile San Francisco Giant outfielder replied that he was there to take part in a Scripture distribution program of the Pocket Testament League. He said he wanted to point out that there is no basic conflict between playing big-league baseball and living a consistent Christian life.

A native of the Dominican Republic, Alou is that country’s first and greatest contribution to the majors.

“When I left my country to come to the States to play baseball,” he said, “a Christian friend gave me a Bible. I carried it with me but did not take seriously the importance and necessity of a definite decision to take the Christ of that Bible as my personal Saviour.”

Alou recalled that during spring training in 1958 he met a pitcher “who knew the Lord, loved him, and wasn’t ashamed to talk about him.”

“I knew he had something that I had heard about but didn’t have for myself. I started to read my Bible and the light began to dawn.

“On my first day in the majors, in a hotel room in San Francisco, I knew a decision had to be made. I opened my Bible and began to read. God did something for me that day. I received Jesus Christ into my heart. My whole life has taken on a new and higher purpose. Christ is first in my life.”

It is a matter of record that Alou had his best season last year. He was one of the top hitters in the National League and led the Giants in batting. During the World Series Alou so impressed Ralph Houk that the New York Yankee manager cited him as one of the best outfielders he had ever seen perform in Yankee Stadium.

At the invitation of PTL, Alou spent eight days in Venezuela. He took part in rallies which drew from 3,000 to 10,000 persons. He held numerous baseball clinics and spoke at several military installations.

The project was part of a five-year effort by PTL to distribute 5,000,000 Scriptures in connection with a continent-wide campaign of preaching missions. Thus far more than a million Scriptures have been handed out in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela. A PTL team climaxed the Venezuelan effort last month and is now moving into Bolivia.

Radio Evangelism

Evangelicals in El Salvador are building a new 5,000-watt radio station facility. Transmitters are located on the campus of an Assemblies of God school in the suburbs of San Salvador. Participating in the project are technicians from Latin America Mission, and Central American Mission, as well as personnel from American Baptist and Church of God missions.

The Uniting Church

Merger of Australia’s Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregational churches moved an important step toward reality last month with issuance of a 90-page report by the churches’ joint Commission on Church Union. The merged body would be known as The Uniting Church in Australia and would have a membership of more than 2,000,000.

The 21 members of the commission recommended merger, but were sharply divided on proposals to create bishops and to enter into a concordat with the Church of South India, which has bishops.

A majority recommended that the projected Uniting Church appoint presbyters (a term used in preference to the more general word “minister”), who would be ordained by the laying on of hands by a bishop and at least three other presbyters. It was suggested that presbyters, in turn, could be appointed bishops, who would fulfill a function slightly different from that of bishops in Roman Catholic and Anglican churches and be answerable to a church council. Moreover, the Uniting Church also would move or transfer bishops as it wished.

One-third of the commission—three Presbyterians and four Methodists—recorded themselves opposed to the proposals for a concordat and creation of bishops.

The majority opinion said the role of the Uniting Church with the Church of South India should be “more than the cooperation of separate churches in particular activities, and less than a merger of the two churches.”

It added that such a concordat would hasten unity with the 3,700,000-member Church of England in Australia.

A final vote on merger may still be five years away.

The Devil’S Advocates

Evangelist Eric Hutchings, who held a campaign in Brighton last year, called the town a “center of demon worship throughout the whole of Britain” and opined that “worship of this kind is almost invariably accompanied by sexual malpractices.” Authenticated occurrences of organized Satanism in modern England are comparatively rare, probably because devotees are careful in their choice of time and location and afterwards remove all evidence of macabre goings-on.

This makes all the more surprising a discovery made at the lonely ruined church of St. Mary, Clophill, near John Bunyan’s Bedford. The bones of a 22-year-old surgeon’s wife, who died of smallpox in 1770, were taken from her tomb in the churchyard and arranged symbolically around an iron spike crowned with her skull. Five other graves, all of females, had also been opened. On the inside walls of the tenth-century church there was painted in red at two points a cross within a circle—sometimes regarded as the Mark of the Beast. On what was formerly the church altar were found the remains of what could have been a sacrificial cockerel (the remains of a fox’s meal, say local sceptics). Police called in to investigate reckon that it must have taken six men to remove even one of the heavy stone slabs in the graveyard.

Some have seen in this evidence of a Black Mass, a blasphemous celebration in honor of the devil, usually enacted by an unfrocked priest. This is a police idea, apologetically explains the local rector, the Rev. Lewis Barker, who spent some years in Africa and remains unexcited by the national interest in his parish. As he brought the bones down from the old to the new church about 11 P.M. one Saturday he said, “It’s the first time in my life that I’ve been out late at night with another man’s wife under my arm.”