Christians and Communists: The Vague Encounter

For more than two years, Christian clergymen have been meeting with disciples of Communism in a vague sort of dialogue in various places across Europe. The talks have blown hot and cold and until recently were little publicized. But they will probably attract a surge of new interest now that the Soviet Union has awarded Martin Niemöller, a president of the World Council of Churches, the Lenin Peace Prize.

Chief initiator of the talks has been a Roman Catholic organization, the International Paulist Society, which started in West Germany.

Until this spring, significantly, all the talks have been held in non-Communist countries. The first one in a Communist land was held last month in Marienbad, Czechoslovakia, and Religious News Service reported that it ended on a discordant note.

Father Erich Kellner, founder and president of the Paulist group, was asked by a foreign journalist to send a telegram to the Czech government asking details about three Catholic bishops reportedly held in jail. Kellner replied that the question was out of order, holding it was a matter for the proper ecclesiastical authorities to take up with the Czech government. In any event, he added, he had no personal evidence that the bishops had been, or still were, imprisoned by the Communist state.

Kellner then asked a representative of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Mrs. Olga Kadiecowa, who was serving as translator, if she had any knowledge of the bishops in question. She rebuked him sharply by saying: “This matter is a strictly political one, and of no concern to the church. This is another example of church interference in politics.”

During the entire conference, RNS said, the official Czech government newspaper failed to take any note of the dialogue in Marienbad.

In one of the final lectures in the session, attended by more than 260 scholars, scientists, theologians, and Marxist ideologists from many countries in Western and Eastern Europe, Professor Johannes Metz of Münster, Germany, called on Christians to “break from the chains of tradition.” He said “Christianity today is no longer merely a question of personal salvation. It has broadened to include the social and economic progress of peoples.”

A Marxist philosopher, Dr. Michael Prucha of the University of Prague, said that “the task of Marxists is to make Christians aware that religion, by emphasizing the supernatural, enchains mankind.”

More such “dialogues” are on the way. In England, Communist party officials are to hold talks with Christian representatives at York next month. Another Christian-Marxist consultation has been scheduled for London for October.

The meetings in England have been encouraged by the British Communist Party’s theoretical journal, Marxism Today, which has carried regular articles by Christians and Marxists.

The Communists’ chief promoter of dialogue with Christians has been a Frenchman, Roger Garaudy. His book From Anathema to Dialogue was issued by Herder and Herder last year and probably was the first volume ever written by a Communist and published by a Roman Catholic publisher. Last year Garaudy toured the United States to promote his views (see January 6 issue, page 26). Temple University has reportedly offered him a visiting professorship next year.

Garaudy has improved significantly upon the old Marxist cliché that “religion is the opiate of the people” by saying that “religion is becoming the yeast of the people.” He has admitted in a public forum, however, that no true dialogue can take place between the Marxist, who believes Christianity is a man-made projection, and the biblical Christian, whose view of life rests on God’s revelation and miraculous saving acts in history.

Upheaval In Greece

The military junta that took control of Greece in April moved this month to revamp the Greek Orthodox Church. The primate of the church, 86-year-old Archbishop Chrysostomos was dismissed, along with the twelve archbishops who have executive powers.

Replacements were to be chosen by the government, not the church, unless King Constantine intervened.

Interior Minister Stylianos Patakos explained the military’s displeasure: “There were very many things wrong in the church. They were all fighting with each other.”

A church dispute with the previous democratic government over appointment of bishops had only recently been resolved. The Greek government traditionally has considerable power in church affairs.

An N.C.C. For Free Thinkers?

The Unitarian Universalist Association this month ordered a one-year study of the possibility of closer ties with other religious liberals, perhaps through a National Council of Free Religious Societies comparable to the National Council of Churches. The UUA is not a member of the NCC, which requires belief in the divinity of Jesus.

A recent poll of UUA attitudes showed members feel the most affinity with Quakers, Ethical Culturists, Reform Jews, and Congregationalists within the United Church of Christ.

The UUA will also study a controversial proposal to merge its seminaries. The current separation appeals to the diversity-minded free-thinkers, but Chicago’s Meadville (the only one with full accreditation) has only twenty-three students, and Berkeley’s Starr King has eighteen. The Unitarian-leaning seminary at Tufts University has thirty-seven students.

Optimism Over Cuba

The Rev. and Mrs. Clifton Fite returned to Waynesboro, Georgia, believing the Cuban government will “deal kindly” with requests to release their missionary son David from prison.

The elder Fite also reports that another jailed Southern Baptist missionary, 63-year-old Herbert Caudill—who is David Fite’s father-in-law—is regaining sight rapidly after an eye operation by an American doctor, who was flown in.

The Fites had tried to see their son since he was imprisoned two years ago on charges of currency-exchange violations. They finally succeeded, through the Cuban ambassador in Mexico. Officials “listened with reverence and responded with courtesy” during the fifty-one-day stay in Cuba, Fite reported.

Paisley In Canada

Carrying his anti-ecumenical crusade to Canada, Northern Ireland’s Ian Paisley this month urged 2,000 persons, mostly elderly, at the meeting of the small Canadian Council of Evangelical Protestant Churches to boycott the World Council of Churches. He was accompanied by Carl McIntire and General Edwin Walker and confronted by two dozen protesters.

High-Rise Social Action

As a man who finagled an interview with Pope Paul last year, the Rev. Kenn W. Opperman shows a knack for surmounting red tape. The 41-year-old Toronto pastor, a former missionary to Peru and a staunch evangelical, is now putting his leadership gifts to a much more daring test. At a cost of more than $20,000,000, Opperman wants to establish the world’s biggest evangelistic and social service center in downtown Toronto. It would be built around an office-apartment complex with three buildings—one rising twenty-seven stories.

“Evangelicals,” says Opperman, “often give the impression of being interested only in the soul of man. We need to give attention to the whole man, spiritually, physically, intellectually, and socially.”

To this end, plans for the new center include facilities for 775 senior citizens, a geriatric center, low-rent apartments, shops, a nursery school, classrooms for adult education programs, a public library, a gymnasium, and Toronto’s biggest indoor swimming pool, as well as three chapels, a 350-seat theater to show Moody-type films, and a Christian bookstore. All facilities are to be open to the public with no sectarian restrictions, but the intention is to “create the kind of atmosphere which will make people want to inquire about Christ.”

Opperman says the Canadian centennial-year project has the unanimous support of his 412-member congregation, the Avenue Road Church of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, which has already invested $20,000 to pay management consultant and architectural fees. The first big hitch is whether city fathers will grant forty acres of surplus property for the site. To encourage favorable consideration, the church has engaged the services of Canada’s former finance minister, Donald Fleming.

The church will need to raise six million dollars and will depend on federal, provincial, and municipal grants for the rest of the required initial outlay. Once the center gets going, it’s expected to pay its own way, with much of the revenue coming from offices leased.

Opperman was born in Saskatchewan of American parents and trained at Canadian Bible College, Regina, operated by the Alliance. In the Avenue Road pulpit he is successor to former evangelist Charles Templeton and the late A. W. Tozer. One of Opperman’s first activities at the church was to oversee development of an evangelistic coffeehouse in a beatnik neighborhood.

Opperman made local headlines by divulging the outcome of his papal encounter. He asked the pontiff whether he believed in the necessity of personal conversion (“Absolutely”) and whether he himself had experienced it. Paul recalled two experiences for Opperman but was not so positive in response to a third question about personal destiny. “I deserve to go to hell,” Opperman quoted the Pope as saying. “I hope to go to purgatory.”

Opperman says he got an invitation to return and hopes to see the Pope again in September.

Evangelism In Sand And Snow

Because the Christianity of so many of us is not a robust and rugged thing, we lose many opportunities for evangelism. For example, 22 per cent of the five million British tourists who go abroad this summer will go to the Costa Brava, Spain. There are no churches, the beaches are too crowded to build a sand pulpit, and the Spanish authorities have laws about holding meetings in the open air. Is our Christianity robust and flexible enough to do something there?

The Commonwealth and Continental Church Society is continuing its mission to the sun-worshippers in Spain this summer after the success of last September. The Society has had an established work with Barcelona’s English and American community, and in September the present chaplain, the Rev. Brian Moore, was able to obtain permission from the Roman Catholic bishop of Gerona to hold Sunday services in the hotels of certain resorts (Callela, Blanes, Loret de Mar, and San Feliu) and to publicize these activities. In order to make this a team enterprise, a villa was rented to house the team members, who had the task of trying to make their friendships count for God. British people are easy to contact and talk to on holiday. They have time, they are relaxed, and many appreciate the opportunity—often the first they have ever had—to talk personally to someone about Jesus Christ.

The real problem is finding people who can talk about the faith in a natural way; who give the impression that they are living on top of the pile of life’s problems rather than under them; who can say, without embarrassment or a holier-than-thou attitude, that they would prefer Coca Cola when the person with whom they are discussing Christ offers them a gin and tonic or a cigar.

Flexibility counts. For example, it was great to have a small music group of Christian fellows who could see an evangelistic opportunity in this invitation: “We want your group to join us on a cruise for about 140 teen-agers. You’ll each be given a free bottle of champagne and then we’ll finish up on a secluded beach with girls guaranteed.” It was certainly already an opportunity for the devil; it would be an opportunity for God only if these Christian fellows moved in.

This summer the society will again be organizing training sessions for those who wish to join the teams in August and September.

From February 5 to 18, 1968, Grenoble in the south of France will be host to the tenth Winter Olympic Games and to three-quarters of a million guests. Plans are now well under way among the Commonwealth and Continental Church Society, the Église Réformée, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, the Navigators, World Wide Pictures, and the local committee of churches to set up the first International Christian Witness Team. Ten main teams will be recruited from various countries to create what the French are calling “a Christian Olympic presence.” Their main task will be to contact people of their own language and publicize the many Christian activities. These will include the showing of the Billy Graham films in four languages, sing songs, and discussions—all in all a unique international Christian aprés-ski atmosphere.

PETER GOODWIN HUDSON

Missionaries Face Ouster

“The Africanization of cadres in the Catholic and Protestant Churches in Guinea must be completed by the first of June,” thundered President Sekou Toure in a May Day harangue. In Marxist terms, it appeared to mean that all foreign missionaries may be deported. African Christians fear Toure’s denunciation of “apprentice spies” may apply to them as well as to the missionaries and be an advance warning of repression by the Communist-leaning regime.

Touré, president of the nation of 3.5 million since it won independence from France, expelled a French-born Roman Catholic bishop in 1961 when he balked at nationalization of church schools.

Tensions In Jewry

The largest Reform Jewish congregation in the world has withdrawn its membership from the oldest organization of synagogues in America in a dispute over Viet Nam.

The congregation, New York City’s 3,200-family Temple Emanu-El, voted to leave the Union of American Hebrew Congregations because of criticism of U. S. policy by Union President Rabbi Maurice N. Eisendrath.

Congregation President Alfred R. Bachrach charged in his statements Eisendrath had assumed the role of spokesman for the entire Reform movement and that “such a position is unauthorized and impossible.”

In defense, UAHC’s board chairman, Irwin Fane, said Eisendrath spoke only for himself, then added: “But does a large and important reform synagogue withdraw into isolation every time a Jewish leader says something with which they disagree?”

In another Jewish split, two Orthodox organizations have withdrawn from an interfaith conference on “The Role of the Religious Conscience” for fear of connection with the “ecumenical movement.”

The groups, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations (Orthodoxy’s national body) and the 900-member Rabbinical Council of America, were to participate this month in the conference, sponsored jointly by the National Council of Churches, the U. S. Catholic Conference, and the Synagogue Council.

Explaining the move, Rabbinical Council President Pesach Z. Levovitz said: “The Jews, as a distinctive faith community, have no part in such ecumenism.”

Even though Christian operations in Israel are minimal, a move for stricter limitations is growing. The Interior Committee of the Knesset (parliament) is investigating mission activities amid charges that missionaries are taking advantage of Israel’s economic recession to tempt people in need with promises of help.

The Ministry for Religious Affairs estimates that 1,200–1,400 Jewish children attend Christian schools, while Christian educators say the figure is half that.

In Haifa, the Beit-El Children’s Home, a Christian institution that accepts Jewish children, lost its first appeal of government refusal of a license unless it accepts only Christian children. Some Christians fear this is part of a new strategy to close all missionary institutions by legal means. Groups that run boarding schools that accept Jewish and Muslim students include Baptists, the Church of Scotland, Anglicans, and Pentecostalists. A public council has been formed in Haifa to combat “missionary” activities.

A study of conversions ordered by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol showed that since 1950, only eleven Jewish children became Christians, while 200 Jews in all became either Christian or Muslim. In the same period, 407 Christians, Muslims, or others converted to Judaism.

DWIGHT L. BAKER

From Oberammergau To Britain

Oberammergau, Austria, is famous for its Passion play. Now a condensed version of this play that has been called “one of the glories of Europe’s spiritual and artistic heritage” has been presented to audiences in several British cities.

Semi-professional and amateur actors compose the cast of one hundred, twenty-eight of them Germans or Austrians who have appeared in the Oberammergau or Thiersee productions. Christ is portrayed, appropriately enough, by a carpenter, Matthias Kaindl; Mary, the mother of Jesus, by Marion Schwombeck, an unmarried actress (it is a rule of the play that the actress portraying Mary must not be wed); and Judas by an abstract sculptor.

One of the big problems with a touring company that performs in different countries is, obviously, the language. In this country it was decided to make an English recording, with English actors saying the words the performers were to mime. The actors chosen included well-known stage and television personalities Tony Britton (as Christ) and Alfred Burke (as Judas).

But it is this idea that prevents the production from becoming the outstanding success it deserves to be. At times, overloud music makes it impossible to follow the words. But more upsetting is the sight of an actor mouthing words that only too obviously come from somewhere far removed from him. Not only that—few members of the cast have managed to perfect this admittedly difficult task of mouthing recorded words.

Yet one still can say, as a considerable compliment to the performance, that this glaring defect does not detract excessively from the beautiful and moving production.

For two hours we are taken through episodes in the life of Christ. The language used is a mixture of the King James Version and modern English. Whether this is ideal or not, the gospel message is presented forcefully in a way that modern man can comprehend. (Perhaps this points to the need for more Christian drama.) And Christ, portrayed as loving and gentle but not weak, inspires men to become his disciples.

Certain moments of the production are particularly memorable, most of them in the latter part. During the Last Supper and Christ’s prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane, there is conveyed to us something of the awful agony he endured, and of the desolation and fear the disciples felt as they realized that their Master would soon be leaving them. In the Garden, a somewhat hoarse-voiced devil, accompanied by the clash of cymbals, tempts Jesus to deviate from his chosen path. Darkness envelops the Savior. As the devil is defeated, light radiates round the victorious Christ.

The trials before Caiphas and Pilate are imaginatively performed. So, too, the crucifixion. After Christ’s scourging (blows and cries in total darkness), he carries his cross down the aisles and through the audience, attended by dozens of Roman soldiers and a jeering mob.

When the nails are driven through his hands and feet, the hammering is done naturalistically to the taped sound of blows. Yet there is no sign of pain, not even a slight movement, from Jesus. Surely there should have been some response to the pain.

Christ speaks his words from the cross. Then darkness falls. The body is taken gently from the cross, which is bathed in light as the final words of Jesus on earth are spoken: “And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

DAVID COOMES

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