Key Theologian’s Exit Jars Roman Church

For Roman Catholics everywhere, the thundering departure of British theologian Charles Davis last month was one of the rudest shocks of the Vatican II era.

Geoffrey Moorhouse, Catholic writer for the Guardian, said it was as important as John Henry Newman’s conversion from Anglicanism to Rome a century ago, and perhaps even more important. Ann Kimmel wrote in America’s National Catholic Reporter, “British Catholics are shattered by the decision of their best known and most respected theologian to leave the Church. For many who lived for and worked toward the renewal of Catholicism in Britain, Father Charles Davis was their last hope.”

Davis, 43, decided to make the break on the Sunday three weeks before Christmas, while working on a paper for the next ecumenical meeting between Roman Catholics and Anglicans. In a subsequent press conference and article, he lambasted the Roman church, and in particular the papacy, more severely than most Protestants have during the ecumenical era.

The situation was complicated by Davis’ December 14 engagement to Miss Florence Henderson, 36, an American who is studying theology at Bristol University. But Davis said that if he had just wanted to get married, he would have left the priesthood and stayed in the church. It was reported that Miss Henderson plans to leave the church also.

Davis’ two main gripes were what he called Rome’s “concern for authority at the expense of truth” and “impersonal system that often crushes people.”

In an article for the London Observer, he said, “The more I have studied the Bible, the less likely the Roman claims have become.… There is simply no firm enough biblical basis on which to erect so massive a structure as the Roman Catholic claim requires … political and social factors of its historical development are much more to the point than any biblical data.”

On the doctrines of papal primacy and infallibility as set forth by Vatican I and repeated by Vatican II, Davis says they are more likely explained as not “the unfolding of a revealed dogma, but the misguided absolutizing of a transitory historical structure.”

“Morever,” he went on, “the two papal dogmas concerning Mary, the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption, have rendered the notion of development suspect.” The Marian dogmas are further discredited, he said, by “the new thinking on original sin, death, and Resurrection,” and Rome’s “institutional faith is, in truth, incompatible with biblical criticism and modern theology.”

John Courtney Murray, a key thinker among Catholic reformers, said Davis’ decision has “significance” only to Davis himself. But Davis, like Murray, was a theological expert at Vatican II, and his criticisms of the council’s work may be of particular importance.

Davis believes the council concentrated on “internal problems of the Church” rather than such central problems of humanity as race, the disparity between rich and poor nations, and birth control. On the latter, Davis virtually calls Pope Paul a liar for saying in October that the teaching of the church on contraception is not in doubt. And Vatican intransigence on the issue, to Davis, shows “bureaucratic insensitivity to people and their suffering.”

Davis said the third chapter of the council’s Constitution on the Church is “remote from the New Testament, dominated by an excessive stress on institutional arrangements of relative value, and spoilt even at that level by an obsessive concern to preserve Papal power intact. That world of juridical functions owes, I suggest, more to fossilized feudalism than to the Gospel message.”

He then asks, “When, in fact, has the Church ever entered into conflict with established authority to bear witness, even at the cost of its institutional position?”

Besides his work at Vatican II, Davis had since 1960 edited Clergy Review, an intellectual monthly for priests. In 1965 he became a theology professor at Heythrop College, the noted Jesuit center at Oxford.

Now that the break has been made, Davis says he feels “mentally and spiritually cleansed and free, with a peace and joy I have not known for years.” Besides marriage, his plans are indefinite. He said he is still a Christian but is not joining any other church. “No church seems to present to me the answer to my present problem,” he said. “I see Christians working together, expressing their Christian commitment.… But the actual churches do not seem to be relevant to this.”

‘Creative Misuse’ Of Bonhoeffer

The biographer of Dietrich Bonhoeffer says the martyred German theologian was a revolutionary Protestant thinker, but was not responsible for the death-of-God theology sometimes attributed to him.

According to Dr. Eberhard Bethge, most of the death-of-God theologians realize they are not heirs of Bonhoeffer, although some admit they make “creative misuse” of his theology.

It was to Bethge that Bonhoeffer wrote from prison the famous letters that are having an unusual influence upon Protestant thinking more than twenty years after he was executed by the Nazis for his part in a plot on Hitler. The biographer told an audience in St. Paul, Minnesota, last month that the rare combination of being a martyr, a great theologian with a great vision, and a precise writer made Bonhoeffer famous.

He is popular today both in this country and in Communist-controlled countries because he gives people “a kind of courage to try anew when present structures are breaking down,” Bethge said.

Bonhoeffer advocated a “religionless Christianity” and attacked the privileged structure of the churches. But according to Bethge, one sentence in Bonhoeffer’s writings, “Before God, we have to live today without God,” has been distorted by some theologians to say, “We have to live today without God.”

The original sentence is consciously paradoxical, Bethge explains. Bonhoeffer meant a particular human concept of God must disappear, not God. He believes Bonhoeffer’s thought has been “distorted” in popular discussions of death-of-God theology over the past year. Some modern theologians were “pushed forward by some of Bonhoeffer’s sentences, but then went their own way. I want to keep the heritage of Bonhoeffer,” he said.

In Europe, Bonhoeffer is seen as “another variation of Bultmann,” but Bethge believes the “anti-church atmosphere in colleges” has accounted for his image in the United States, where he is “taken too easily as anti-church.”

Bonhoeffer rejected the Church as “the guardian of man. Christ was not a guardian—he freed man, by joining humanity totally. The proof for this is the cross,” Bethge said.

The Bonhoeffer letters were “hidden” in Bethge’s desk and unknown to the world until he edited them and they were published in the early 1950s. Since then, there has been considerable interest in them, fed in part by other books, such as Honest to God by Bishop John Robinson of England. Bethge, who married a niece of Bonhoeffer, has completed a biography of Bonhoeffer that is to be published early this year in Germany and later in England and the United States.

Bethge said he is sometimes asked why he gives all his energy “to a man who has never matured.” Bonhoeffer died on April 9, 1945, at the age of 39 in a prison at Flossenburg, in northern Bavaria, a few days before American troops arrived there.

Bethge was himself arrested by the Nazis in 1944 and was the only one of five imprisoned members of his family to escape execution. He is now director of the Pastor’s Institute of the Church of the Rhineland in Westphalia, West Germany. He has been teaching at Chicago Theological Seminary and this year will be visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary, New York.

Signing And Resigning

Because the board of Mississippi College in Clinton voted to reject all federal aid, President R. A. McLemore announced at the last student chapel before Christmas vacation he would resign as of August 31.

At issue is the aid requirement that the college sign compliance with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Although official application requirements make no mention of race, the college has always been all-white.

In November, the Mississippi Baptist Convention, which owns and operates the college, passed a resolution that said in part: “We suggest that our institutions not make applications for, or accept, federal money.”

William Carey College, a Baptist school in Hattiesburg, signed the civil-rights pledge and enrolled a few Negroes this year. But the president of Mississippi College’s board, millionaire poultryman B. C. Rogers, said his school will not sign as long as the state convention opposes federal aid.

McLemore, 63, admits he resigned to “dramatize” the problem and will reconsider if the board takes the steps he considers essential for the college’s future. He thinks the board will change its mind this year. If not, he’s already gotten five other job offers, although the lifelong Mississippian drawled, “I’m pretty well grounded in this ol’ state.” McLemore, who gets fringe benefits from the college as well as a $19,000 salary, draws outside income from several high school history texts he has written. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Vanderbilt.

Before passage of the civil-rights bill, the college had drawn $600,000 in federal student loans, which are now being repaid. If reinstated, the school would stand to get about $500,000 for loans in 1967–68. Race policies could cut off 300 students with G.I. Bill loans. McLemore would also like to permit federal money for faculty research, although he thinks construction needs can be met by private donors. He said 9 per cent of the college’s $2.4 million operating budget comes from churches. After the college board rejected federal aid, it switched $100,000 from operating funds to a student-loan fund and rejected McLemore’s plea to spend a similar amount to renovate buildings.

McLemore was raised a segregationist, and is no racial radical. But he favors a “gradual transition” and believes Negroes should attend his college if they meet academic requirements and can pay the fees, which are three times those at a nearby all-Negro state college. He would like to keep promising Negroes in Mississippi, rather than have them migrate to northern universities.

Population Outpaces Church Growth

Church growth is not quite keeping up with population growth, according to figures in the 1967 Yearbook of American Churches, published this month by the National Council of Churches.

The data covers mainly calendar 1965, or denominations’ fiscal years that ended in 1965. In this period 124,682,422 Americans belonged to some religious group, an increase of 1.4 million over the previous year. But in roughly the same period, the U. S. population grew by 2.5 million, to nearly 195 million. Church membership increased by 1.1 per cent, while the general population grew by 1.3 per cent.

The rankings of major religious groupings were similar to those in the previous count:

The ranking of the largest non-Catholic communions also contained few surprises. The biggest numerical gains were posted by two conservative congregational groups, the Southern Baptist Convention and the Churches of Christ (the latter’s figure, however, is a rough estimate at best). Large denominations losing membership over the year were, in order of losses: the American Baptist Convention, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The American Lutheran Church, and the Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ).

More startling is the fact that three of the top fifteen groups have actually lost members since 1956, despite the huge population increase: the ABC, the Disciples, and the United Church of Christ.

In 1956, the National Baptist Convention of America reported the same figure it gives in the 1967 Yearbook, highlighting again the fact that the volume is no more reliable than the 251 denominations that supply the data. Another problem with figures is that Roman Catholics and other groups tally baptized infants, while the rest count only confirmed or adult members.

The Yearbook also reports a poll shows regular churchgoers have dropped slowly but steadily, from 47 per cent of the population in 1961 to 44 per cent in 1965.

Last month, the U. S. government added another Baptist school, Anderson College in South Carolina, to the list of those denied federal student-loan funds. Its board refused to sign the civil-rights form. At another Carolina school, independent Bob Jones University, officials last month asserted the segregated, fundamentalist school will not sign, is getting no U. S. aid now, and will seek none in the future.

Evangelical Methodist Forum

A journalist-turned-preacher plans to publish next week a pilot issue of a magazine to rally evangelicals in The Methodist Church. Editor Charles W. Keysor says in his opening editorial, “We have dared to dream that evangelical Methodists might be united in fellowship across the church.”

If support develops, Good News will come out quarterly, but Keysor has no plans yet for any organization. The magazine will be “strongly Methodist-centered,” not schismatic.

In the lead article of the first issue, Bishop Gerald Kennedy of Los Angeles, who favors an inclusive church, says it is “shocking” to see that “some of those who have been most outspoken in favor of the ecumenical movement seem to be most unsympathetic with anybody disagreeing with them in The Methodist Church.” He says Methodism “cannot afford to lose the evangelicals. It would be a sad day indeed if they should feel unwelcome and go somewhere else.”

Keysor, who is 42, earned a B.S. in journalism from Northwestern. He became a Chicago adman and first managing editor of Together, largest of Methodism’s seven national magazines. While he was managing editor of the David C. Cook Publishing Company, he says, he was converted to Christ and decided to enter Garrett Theological Seminary. He is now pastor of the 300-member Grace Methodist Church in Elgin, Illinois.

Keysor registered his complaints on behalf of the evangelical “silent minority” in Christian Advocate last summer and got about 100 letters of support. This was the stimulus for Good News. Keysor wrote that evangelicals are “not represented in the higher councils of the church” and that their traditionalist theology is “often abhorrent to Methodist officialdom.” As an index of conservative strength, he noted that 10,000 congregations shun denominational education material. Keysor said conservatives believe in the virgin birth, substitutionary atonement, Christ’s physical resurrection and coming return, and the inspiration of the “whole Bible.”

Besides the Kennedy piece and fourteen other articles, the forty-eight page first edition (2,000 copies will be printed free in offset by a layman) will include two new hymns and several book reviews.

Football: Faith And $400,000

The Heisman Trophy winner had just finished one of his “worst” games in three years as quarterback for the University of Florida Gators. He had completed only fourteen of thirty passes for 160 yards and had run another fifteen yards. And he hadn’t scored a point.

But Steve Spurrier had called enough right plays to upset favored Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl, 27–12.

The outspoken son of a Presbyterian minister immediately began talking about demanding $400,000 or more to sign for the New York Giants professional football team. Such a contract figure would be the highest ever offered an athlete.

Just a few months ago, while watching his son hobble around the spring practice field at Gainesville, the Rev. J. Graham Spurrier commented: “He is coming upon a stage of life when money and the will of God will determine his future.”

The Rev. Mr. Spurrier moved his family from Johnson City, Tennessee, to High Springs, Florida, to be near Steve during his senior year on the gridiron, which brought him All-America recognition and the trophy designating him as the nation’s outstanding college football player.

“Steve has talent and ability that will bring him before the public eye,” his father had said. “I’ve told him he’s not to usurp that talent and take it for his own honors.”

Indications are that the 21-year-old blond athlete has heeded his father’s advice. Although he is not at all reticent about his accomplishments, Steve doesn’t let his fame change his personality. He’s still a team man, well-liked by other members of the squad, and likely to make funny quips about almost anything except the price he asks for playing pro ball and his personal faith.

Spurrier doesn’t talk much about his faith on a personal, individual level. But on Christmas night, as a Christmas present to his mother-in-law, Mrs. Nellie Starr, he took time out from the busy schedule of the Orange Bowl team to go to Fort Lauderdale’s First Presbyterian Church and speak to sixty junior and senior high school kids of the Westminster Fellowship.

He told them that accomplishments in life don’t “just happen” but come as the result of determination and concentration. He explained that while he was a three-letter man in high school, he was best at football so he decided to concentrate on that sport in college.

In fact, Spurrier said he feels that football is his calling and vocation, so “I must do the job the best that I can.” To that end, he said, “I don’t pray that I will make this touchdown or field goal—I don’t think that’s making the best use of my faith. I pray that I might have the strength to do and play the best I know how.”

Jerri, his bride of four months, adds: “I think Steve’s father also wants him to feel the religious attachment of playing for God.”

That feeling is heightened by Steve’s role in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He’s secretary of the Gainesville chapter, whose president is Bill Carr, the All-America center who snaps the ball to Steve. Carr is a preacher’s son also; his father is a Baptist minister in Pensacola.

Spurrier never has considered the ministry. “I don’t think he’s cut out for that kind of life,” observed Jerri. “He’s a very good speaker, but as a life work, that’s just not for him.”

Jerri, also a Presbyterian, said that their faith “is a big part of our lives” but that “it is for ourselves.” Still, they’re willing to share it in the way they feel Steve should—as a successful athlete giving his testimony whenever he can.

ADON TAFT

In Defense Of ‘Christian Homes’

Harold George Martin, president of the Quebec-based Christian Homes for Children, charges that an adverse report made by Canada’s Income Tax Appeal Board has been “taken out of context” (see Dec. 9, 1966, issue). Martin was recently denied an appeal by the board, which is claiming taxes on $350,402 on the basis of a report that accused him of “sumptuous living and sustained tax evasion.” Martin called this “misleading, slanderous, and irresponsible.” He said that the federal government was using the tax board as an instrument of punishment because of pressure by the Province of Quebec, which is predominantly French Roman Catholic.

As a result of a 1961 article entitled “How to Make a Million in the Charity Game,” Martin says he is suing Maclean’s magazine for $850,000.

To mark Canada’s centennial in 1967, Martin says he will “travel coast to coast … thundering the same Gospel.”

Soviet Chief To Visit Pope

President Nikolai Podgorny of the Soviet Union has scheduled a private audience January 29 with Pope Paul VI in Vatican City. The historic confrontation will be the first meeting between a pontiff and a Soviet head of state since the Russian Revolution.

Last April, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko talked for forty-five minutes with the Pope, with world peace as the announced topic. Just a year ago, Podgorny sent the Pope a New Year’s message that affirmed Soviet support for North Viet Nam’s terms for settling the Vietnamese war. These include withdrawal of all U. S. troops before negotiations can begin.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.