CHRISTIANITY TODAY
NEWS
Australia And Asia
“It was the Lord’s doing,” said Billy Graham. “I am only his messenger.”
By the “Lord’s doing” the evangelist meant the attendance at the final meeting of his Melbourne crusade March 15.
Estimated between 135,000 and 150,000, the crowd at Melbourne Cricket Ground presumably represented the largest number of people ever to gather for a Christian evangelistic service.
Graham’s own previous crowd record had been the 120,000 who jammed Wembley Stadium in London in 1954. In 1957, the evangelist drew 100,000 at Yankee Stadium in New York.
The Melbourne crowd was the equivalent of nearly 10 per cent of the city’s population or roughly the number of people who live in Charlotte, North Carolina, Graham’s home town.
A phenomenon in its own right, the Melbourne crusade was all the greater in view of adverse circumstances under which the meetings were held. First there was Graham’s eye ailment, which for a time threatened to jeopardize the entire evangelistic undertaking. Then there was rain, which discouraged large turnouts a number of times. And finally there was the lack of adequate meeting places—rallies were held at four different locations.
Yet the 25 meetings of the four-week Melbourne crusade drew an aggregate of 719,000. Of these, a total of 26,400 made decisions for Christ, including 4,100 at the last Cricket Ground service.
President Eisenhower sent personal greetings. “I am delighted to learn of the warm reception that you have encountered in Australia,” he told Graham. “I am not at all surprised at the traditional hospitality that the people of that country are showing. Please convey to the citizens of Australia the good wishes of all American citizens including myself and Mrs. Eisenhower.”
For the final rally, crowds began arriving at the stadium (the site of the 1956 Olympic Games) early in the morning. Special trains and hundreds of buses brought thousands from country districts, some from 300 miles away. Although special mobile police squads tried to control the great volume of traffic, cars were jammed for about two miles on streets leading to the five-acre arena.
Graham spoke from a platform in the center of the playing field. It was a perfect autumn day, warm and sunny. A white-clad choir of 2800 voices sang and Governor Sir Dallas Brooks, of Victoria State read the Scripture lesson.
Graham said later that he was “very grateful for the prayers of people all over the world that have made possible the tremendous spiritual demonstration we have seen in Melbourne.”
“I believe this is only the beginning of what we are going to see in Australia,” he added. “I am convinced we can see a genuine religious awakening in Australia that could have an impact on the thinking of the entire world. We appreciate the continued prayers for all people.”
Before he left, Graham even won praise from Roman Catholic priests and journalists. A Jewish journal also lauded him.
As usual, he took no credit. “I am only a spokesman for the churches,” he said. “Without the support of the churches, we would not have drawn a corporal’s guard to our meetings.”
After the record Sunday meeting in Melbourne, Graham flew to Tasmania for two meetings, one in Hobart and the other at Launceston.
At Launceston, some 20,000 people crowded into a park to hear Graham. A total of 925 made decisions for Christ.
The evangelist then flew back to Australia, to Queensland’s Gold Coast for a two-week rest. His ailing eye was reported slightly improved.
This week the Graham team was scheduled to begin a crusade in New Zealand. The campaign in Sydney, the largest city in Australia, starts April 12.
Dr. Leon Morris, CHRISTIANITY TODAYcorrespondent in Melbourne, gives his own personal appraisal of the four weeks of meetings there:
Although responsible opinion in Melbourne was for the most part solidly in favor of what had been done, some opposition remained. Some humanists took exception to Graham’s whole approach. Some who object to mass evangelism as a method were confirmed in their opposition. Some whose theology is to the left of Graham’s took exception to his acceptance of the Bible as authoritative. Some stout protagonists of social reform complained that the evangelist had not uttered pronouncements to reinforce their hand.
But through the churches as a whole there ran a note of thanksgiving. Graham himself made it clear from the beginning that he expected a good deal of follow-up would be needed. He insisted that “inquirers” were no more than “babes in Christ.” Most people were ready to agree that on this level Graham has accomplished much. There are many more people now in the churches than when he came to Melbourne. How long they stay there may depend, at least in some measure, on the vigor of church life in the city. But they are there now. And most people see in this evidence that the crusade is a gigantic effort which has taken place under the hand of God.
“If the follow-up is carried out with as much prayer and zeal as the campaign itself, nothing but good can come of Graham’s campaign,” said the Most Rev. Frank Woods, Archbishop of Melbourne.
“The very great responsibility will rest on the local churches of nurturing and educating in the faith those who have made decisions or reaffirmed their consecration vows,” said the Rev. N. Elliot, Methodist conference president.
The president of the Baptist Union of Victoria, the Rev. A. E. Smith, said, “This crusade is the most wonderful thing that has happened to Melbourne in its history. It will mean a return to the church for very many people.”
From R. Geyer, president-elect of the conference of the Churches of Christ in Victoria and Tasmania, came this comment: “The days of the crusade have been wonderful days for this city of Melbourne. But the most wonderful days lie ahead. Christians have been revived and stimulated for service. The really outstanding results of the crusade will not be seen until all this potential for service becomes factual in the life of men and in the life of the Church.”
Such comments might be multiplied. Church leaders are clear that the crusade has already accomplished much, both in what it has done in the churches, and what it has done in outsiders. They are likewise agreed that the stimulus it has given to church life will be in evidence for a long time to come.
Swindle Sentence
Korea’s most controversial sect leader, Park Tae-sun, was sentenced this month to five years in prison for fraud, medical malpractice and falsification of his academic record. His trial lasted two months.
An excommunicated Presbyterian who claims a following of 100,000 in his faith-healing, millennial sect, the “Olive Tree Church,” Park has been discredited in religious circles for more than two years. He was arrested in December when a disillusioned follower charged that his “praying message” had resulted in the death of seven people. Police claim he has swindled his followers of more than $300,000.
The court ruled that Park’s religious claims were beyond its competence to judge. Park asserts he is the Olive Tree of Revelation 11:4–13, that his veins are filled with the blood of Christ, and that even his bath water can cure the sick who drink it. All who turn over their material possessions to him and enter his “heavenly village” near Seoul, he promises, will live to see the Second Coming.
S. H. M.
Protestant Panorama
• The Soviet Government reportedly has closed down a number of churches and “prayer houses” in the Western Ukraine. An Eastern Orthodox monastery was also said to have been closed.
• Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia will add a course of study leading to the doctor of theology degree. The program will become fully operative in the fall of 1960.
• A high administrative court in Rome ruled this month that the Rev. Graziano Cannito and his Baptist congregation can proceed with their church building program which had been challenged by local authorities (see CHRISTIANITY TODAY News, October 27, 1958).
• The FBI crime index for U. S. cities rose eight per cent last year over 1957. Number of arrests remained steady, although under-18 age arrests showed a 6.5 per cent increase.
• Youth for Christ International officials say they expect 12,000–15,000 delegates for a “Capital Youth Convention” December 28–30 in Washington, D. C.
• Lutherans dedicated New Guinea’s first theological seminary last month. It is located at Logaweng on a hill overlooking the sea.
• The 1960 General Conference of the Methodist Church will be asked to require each of the denomination’s 40,000 churches to establish a commission on Christian social relations. Such local church groups are optional now, although each congregation must have commissions for membership and evangelism, education, missions, and stewardship and finance.
• The independent Union Church of San Juan, Puerto Rico, is hoping to move into a new sanctuary this spring. Workmen are putting finishing touches on a $400,000 physical plant which also includes a parish hall and a two-story church school. Pastor of the English-speaking congregation is the Rev. Alfred J. Penney, a member of the Brooklyn-Nassau Presbytery.
• “Forward Together” is the theme of the 17th annual convention of the National Association of Evangelicals, meeting in Los Angeles April 6–10.
• A Spanish evangelical quarterly, Certeza (Certainty), begins publication in April. The International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, which will underwrite the magazine for the first two years, is the foreign equivalent of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.
• Religious News Service says a meeting of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Archbishop Makarios in London was welcomed by both as an opportunity of renewing friendly relations between the Church of England and the Church of Cyprus. The meeting followed the signing of an agreement over the future of Cyprus between the governments of Britain, Greece, Turkey, and Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
• Weakened by heavy snows, roofs collapsed on two buildings at “Word of Life” summer camp grounds, Schroon Lake, New York, this month. A $40,000 assembly hall was described as a “total loss.” A dining hall was also damaged.
• Some 250 Christian leaders and workers are expected to attend a CHRISTIANITY TODAY recognition banquet in Los Angeles April 3. Editor Carl F. H. Henry will be special guest. Proceedings will be taped and broadcast over station KPOL on Monday, April 6, from 8:30 to 9 p. m.
• A “Civil Defense Religious Affairs Course (No. 7)” will convene May 18–21 at the Staff College, National Operational Headquarters of the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization at Battle Creek, Michigan.
• The Young People’s Church of the Air has been granted an ultra high frequency television license. Facilities purchased from WKDN at Camden, New Jersey, will be utilized to broadcast on Channel 17 nine hours daily.
• The National Council of Churches plans to publish a paperback hymnal for newsstand sale within a year.
United States
Louisville Reconciliation?
Hopes ran high this month for a “reconciliation” at Louisville’s Southern Baptist seminary, where 13 professors were fired last June in a dispute with the administration. Groundwork for a settlement was laid by a special committee of former Southern Baptist Convention presidents, who met with disputants, then called for a showdown meeting March 30 with the seminary’s board of trustees, administrative officers, and its dismissed professors (one of whom was subsequently reinstated).
A Stipulation: Doctrine
The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod stands ready to talk merger with other Lutheran bodies provided that “doctrinal discussions are a primary item on the agenda,” President John W. Behnken said last month.
Behnken made the remark in a letter to Dr. Paul C. Empie, executive director of the National Lutheran Council, which expressed “surprise and regret” at its annual February meeting over an earlier message from the Missouri Synod head. (See CHRISTIANITY TODAY News, March 2, 1959.) The NLC had labelled his position as a “roadblock to unity,” whereupon Behnken drafted the new letter to Empie.
Behnken said he regretted the interpretations given his earlier correspondence. “I want to assure you that these interpretations do not express my intentions,” he added. If Empie would express willingness to make doctrinal discussion essential, Behnken went on, the proposal could be referred to a special Missouri Synod committee on doctrinal unity.
Referring to phrases in his previous letter on “state of flux” doctrinal positions, Behnken admitted they “can be and have been interpreted as unwarranted judgement” of other Lutheran bodies. Asserting the statements “were not so intended,” he withdrew them.
The President’S Breakfast
For lack of more accurate yardsticks, the depth of a president’s spiritual experience is invariably measured by his church attendance, his reference in speeches to Christian principles, and his attitudes toward religious functions. The more dedicated U. S. citizenry keeps a continual watch on the chief executive’s personal habits, cherishing signs of his reliance on divine wisdom and strength. Thus there was reason for disappointment this month when the leader of the free world passed up the “Presidential Prayer Breakfast” for the third consecutive year.
The Berlin crisis was blamed for President Eisenhower’s latest absence from the breakfast which annually launches a Washington conference of International Christian Leadership and its world-wide affiliate, the International Council for Christian Leadership. He chose instead to begin his March 5 workday by calling a National Security Council meeting. A year ago he was suffering from a cold. Two years ago a cabinet meeting took priority. He last attended in the election year of 1956.
The 1959 breakfast, which drew 105 Congressmen and 15 foreign diplomats among more than 500 guests, had been put off several weeks on the advice of Eisenhower aides. Why it was finally scheduled for Thursday morning, when the National Security Council normally meets, was not clear. Secret Service men, anticipating that the President would attend the breakfast, made a security check of the Mayflower Hotel and cleared names of expected guests.
In his absence, Eisenhower sent “best wishes and greetings” to the breakfast assembly. Later in the morning he found time to receive at the White House representatives of the United Christian Youth Movement, an agency of the National Council of Churches. In the afternoon, he delivered a political pep talk to a group of Republicans. Dr. Edward L. R. Elson, minister of the church the President attends, said that in view of the serious international situation, he would have advised Eisenhower to forego the breakfast.
Comments from Dr. Frederic Fox, a Congregational minister who is on the White House staff, suggested the possibility of another factor in Eisenhower’s decision to absent himself from the breakfast. Fox said he took exception to efforts which attempt to “glamorize” functions by tacking on the term “presidential.” Some observers feel the President may likewise resent such strategy, but Fox refused to disclose whether the President shared his view. Fox was not at the breakfast, either.
The “Presidential Prayer Breakfast” is not a prayer meeting in the accepted sense of the term, but it does reflect to the world that men high in echelons of government are seriously interceding in the midst of week-to-week duties. This year’s gathering began with an invocation by Judge Boyd Leedom, chairman of the National Labor Relations Board and ICL president. Following the serving of breakfast, Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson read the 46th Psalm and Army Secretary Wilber M. Brucker read Matthew 16:13–27. Democratic Senator A. Willis Robertson and Republican Representative Alvin M. Bentley addressed the assembly as leaders of Congressional breakfast prayer groups. Vice President Richard M. Nixon, who was the closing speaker, paid tribute to soloist Fague Springman, who sang “How Great Thou Art,” by relaying a remark from Benson to the effect that Nixon was in a “tough spot to have to follow something like that.” Republican Senator Frank Carlson of Kansas, ICCL president, presided.
After Nixon’s address, guests were asked to rise and recite together a prayer prepared by hotel executive Conrad N. Hilton. Dr. Abraham Vereide, founder and executive director of ICL, added a spontaneous benediction.
Worth Quoting
Heard at this month’s International Christian Leadership conference (see also page 22):
“In our great Christian tradition we are interested in others, not because we need others but because of humanitarian reasons.”—Vice President Richard M. Nixon.
“Our generation’s leisure time can be a great blessing. Or it can be a horrendous curse. If it is used in debilitating idleness and ease, it will blast us. If the layman learns to commit leisure time to God and to redeem it, it will be his greatest work.”—Howard E. Butt, Jr., Texas businessman and layman preacher.
“There is a growing recognition among business leaders that techniques are not enough. Logic, science and organization are necessary in complex economic enterprise: but they are not enough. The frustrating problems are in the field of human relations and the remedies for these are spiritual. Techniques are solving their problems. The advance of technology is wonderful, but the headlines scream forth the failure of modern man to bring social peace. This is the realm of religion. The adequate voice in this field is the voice of God in Jesus Christ.”—Dr. Dwayne Orton, educational consultant, I.B.M.
The Trails’ Start
Tourists in Boston need never be concerned about seeing the Hub’s more important points of historical interest. City fathers gladly provide an organized approach. One merely follows the “Freedom Trail,” which starts with a visit to Park Street Church.
For a century and a half now, Park Street Church has meant for thousands the start of another “freedom trail” as well, this one better known as the Way of the Cross.
Says Dr. Harold John Ockenga, Park Street’s Chicago-born pastor since 1936 who was educated at Taylor University, University of Pittsburgh, and Princeton and Westminster seminaries:
“If we computed only 1,000 people attending each week for 150 years, we would have at least 8,000,000 people who have sat in Park Street sanctuary and listened to the Gospel.
“The actual number at the evening services, prayer meetings and special services we hold would be several times that number. All have heard the Gospel.”
Last month Ockenga’s church observed the sesquicentennial of its founding with a banquet at the Statler-Hilton Hotel in Boston. Most eye-catching symbol of the commemoration was a half-ton iced fruit cake, an exact-scale, eight-foot replica of the church donated by the Herbert Marshall family of Belmont, Massachusetts. A state police escort and a $3,000 insurance policy brought the cake from Marshall’s Food Shop in Lexington, where two men took three weeks to produce it (with other ingredients) out of 680 eggs, 470 pounds of fruit, 85 pounds of flour, and 68 pounds of sugar.
Among the banquet’s 1600 guests, many of them distinguished personalities (e.g. Republican Senators Frank Carlson of Kansas and Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts, President Bob Pierce of World Vision, Editor Edwin D. Canham of The Christian Science Monitor) was Dr. Dana McLean Greeley, president of American Unitarian Association, who said:
“Let us recognize a fact: one of the greatest churches in the land. And let us recognize another fact: one of the greatest religious leaders in the land.”
Greeley’s tribute glowed with irony for it was while a tide of Unitarianism was sweeping Boston that 22 Trinitarian-minded Christians met in a Boston home to found Park Street Church. Construction of the church building was begun soon after and a continuing renovation program has kept the edifice in good repair ever since. The cornerstone was inscribed with the words: “Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord. This church formed February 27th and this foundation laid May 1st, 1809.” Housed in this, one of the purest of Colonial structures anywhere, is a foremost congregation of U. S. Protestant evangelicalism.
Organized under doctrinal standards of Congregationalism, the church is still a member of the Association of Congregational Christian Churches. It is refusing to unite with the denomination and the Evangelical and Reformed Church because “to grant authoritarian control to an ecclesiastical organization that has no doctrinal standards as a test of faith of the members who belong to it would be intolerable for an evangelical and biblical church such as Park Street.”
The church’s archives are replete with data significant to American history. Among founders were the fathers of two illustrious Americans, Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, literary artist. Here the hymn “America” was sung for the first time. Here worshipped Ray Palmer, who wrote “My Faith Looks Up to Thee.” Here spoke William Lloyd Garrison, Charles Sumner, Charles G. Finney, and Dwight L. Moody.
Today, Park Street Church stands with a Christian witness even greater than ever before. Its 2,167 members and countless friends support 120 missionaries with annual gifts totalling some $250,000. Its spiritual influence reaches around the world.
Gordon Loses Prexy
Among speakers at Park Street Church’s 150th anniversary banquet was Dr. T. Leonard Lewis, president of Gordon College. It was one of his last public appearances. The man who piloted Gordon from its Boston campus to a larger suburban location with new buildings and a vastly expanded budget suffered a fatal heart attack after shoveling snow in front of his home.
Lewis, 53, has been president of Gordon since 1944. He was a graduate of Wheaton College, Moody Bible Institute and the Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he later became professor of systematic theology.
Funeral services were held at Tremont Temple, Boston, March 15. In lieu of flowers, the family requested contributions be made to the Gordon Memorial Science Building fund. The lack of a science building has been Gordon’s chief barrier to full accreditation.
Latin America
Partnership Programming
Gospel radio is entering seriously into an era of “partnership” on the foreign field. Whereas until now evangelical radio stations overseas have largely been operating on foreign funds and personnel, YNOL in Managua, Nicaragua, represents a move to establish and sustain a broadcasting program owned and operated by national Christians.
YNOL began operation this month with a 500-watt transmitter. Officials hope eventually to step up power to 2,000 watts. The whole project enjoys the support of all of Nicaragua’s evangelical groups.
Technicians from the Latin America Mission are coordinating the effort. A number of other mission boards also are making YNOL a true “partnership” project by offering to channel funds to the fledgling station and to cooperate as they can. The American Baptist Home Mission Society made available a large tract of land and the Central American Mission loaned a program director.
Castro And Evangelism
Cuba under Fidel Castro represents the greatest opportunity for the spread of the Gospel that the country has ever had, according to an on-the-spot evangelical observer.
CHRISTIANITY TODAYasked television cameraman-reporter Keith Leslie, a Presbyterian deacon, to prepare an analysis of the new Cuba in view of his familiarity with recent developments there. Leslie and a fellow cameraman from station WTVJ in Miami were the first U. S. newsmen to land in Cuba after Castro’s rebels got the upper hand.
Leslie herewith explains a plea for immediate evangelistic efforts to meet the challenge of unprecedented receptiveness:
Fidel Castro is a secular evangelist. He is a man on fire with conviction, determined with the tempering of two years of guerrilla warfare to remake Cuba into a new nation. He is a man of tremendous idealism, albeit a man who is well aware of his personal power. Castro is a master at the art of public relations, of swaying public opinion solidly behind him. And he commands a corps of men who would die gladly, if not for Castro himself, for the ideals of clean government he represents.
Cuba has been riding on the crest of an emotional wave which cannot be comprehended by anyone who has not observed it first hand. If you saw a part of the television transmission showing a million Cubans in the Palace Square of Havana, endorsing Castro’s directive that the diabolical killers of brother Cubans should die, you can appreciate a part of that feeling.
Castro is the only man I have seen at close range who is able to speak with the power, authority, and dedication that I have observed in our foremost evangelists. Of course, Castro’s message is not of God, but of man, and therefore incomplete in content.
Because of the events which have taken place, there seems little doubt that the people of Cuba are now, as they have never been before, receptive to the Word of God.
From one end of the island to the other, Castro has preached of the new liberties and freedoms the people were now to enjoy: freedom of speech, assembly, press. But freedom of religion was not mentioned. Primarily, I believe, this was because Castro, as a Roman Catholic in a Roman Catholic nation, gave freedom of religion little thought. But I am certain Castro would be receptive to the inauguration of a nation-wide evangelistic campaign. A number of trusted “Fidelistas” are in a position to be of invaluable service in arranging such a campaign.
While Cuba is emotionally receptive, or perhaps even vulnerable, if the term can be used in such context, there is no time to waste. Unless such a campaign is set up immediately, this emotional receptiveness may fade. And the Cubans who are so desperately searching for a new life of freedom may settle for a materialistic compromise that leaves Christ out in the cold.
Indeed, the country could conceivably drift back into the traditional and historical government by graft which has been its heritage for virtually every year since the Spaniards landed centuries ago.
There have been sporadic attempts to form a government based on honesty and integrity, but they have failed as their dedicated leaders have passed on. The people themselves must be infected with this permanent desire. And what better foundation can freedom and liberty have than Christ himself?
Marking Freedom
Venezuelan evangelicals marked the 125th anniversary of their country’s freedom of worship declaration with a public ceremony last month. Wreaths were placed on Caracas monuments of Simon Bolivar and José Antonio Paez, the nation’s liberators.
Commensurate with the observance was the establishment of the Comité Nacional Evangélico de Cooperacion, a national committee to represent the evangelical community before the government and the public at large. All major Protestant denominational groups in the country are included, as well as those set up by so-called interdenominational “faith” missions.
W. D. R.
Near East
Sea Archaeology
The first underwater exploration in biblical archaeology will begin along Israel’s Mediterranean coast this summer. Sponsor: the America-Israel Society, an inter-faith, non-political organization “dedicated to advancing mutual [U.S.-Israeli] understanding.”
Concentrating in the area of Caesarea Harbor, the expedition will investigate the remains of the port built by Herod the Great in the first century B.C.
Preparations for the venture are being made by Dr. Benjamin Mazar, president of Hebrew University, and Professor Charles Fritsch, an archaeologist from Princeton University. Appointed leader is Edwin A. Link, noted American inventor of the Link Aviation trainer and an underwater enthusiast. Advisory participants include: Dr. Yigal Yadin, archaeology lecturer at Hebrew University; Dr. Nelson Glueck, president of Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion; and Dr. William F. Albright, professor of Semitic languages at Johns Hopkins University.
Arab Education
What is the official attitude of the United Arab Republic toward Christian schools? The question has been uppermost in the minds of missionaries to Egypt, particularly since enactment of a new education law last year.
Slowly the interpretation is unfolding. Last month the U. A. R. Ministry of Education rescinded a month-old order which had closed Jesuit schools in Cairo pending elimination of certain texts.
Earlier, the ministry gave various foreign schools and organizations an opportunity to comment on the new law. In acknowledging one comment, officials promised teaching freedom to foreigners as long as basic cultural subjects are presented in Arabic.
Holy Land Campus
Many religious observers feel that Israel’s developing stature is leading up to a fulfillment of prophecy. One Christian editor calls a recent book on the rebirth of Israel an “absolute must for any serious student of Bible prophecy.” If so much can be said of a book, how much more of actually studying the situation firsthand in Israel itself?
But there is more to study: archaeology and historical geography, the problems of integrating people from seventy nations, the developing of Jewish thought because of these events, Near East problems, and others.
On the Street of the Prophets in Jerusalem, the Israel-American Institute of Biblical Studies opens its Holy Land campus in August. Here American theological students will see for themselves.
Biblical and exegetical subjects will be taught by American seminary professors (for the first semester Dr. Arnold Schultz of Northern Baptist Theological Seminary and Dr. G. Herbert Livingston of Asbury). Israeli specialists will teach Modern Hebrew, historical geography of Palestine, development of Jewish thought, and history of holy places.
Seminarians from Pennsylvania to California are applying for admission. A selected group leaves August 1 via a conference on the Near East in Sweden and a tour of Rome. Classes start late in August. Upon return of this group in January, replacements will be on their way. Each semester a new group will be seeing for themselves, and an instructed group will be back at home interpreting their Near East experiences.
Dr. G. Douglas Young, dean of Trinity Seminary of the Evangelical Free Church of America, is head of the new institute.
People: Words And Events
Deaths: Dr. T. Leonard Lewis, 53, president of Gordon College (see page 30) … Dr. Orman L. Shelton, 64, president of Christian Theological Seminary at Butler University, in Indianapolis … Dr. W. Plumer Mills, 75, retired Presbyterian missionary to China, in New York.
Appointments: To the chair of Christian education at Colgate Rochester Divinity School, Dr. John Charles Wynn … as editor of The Churchman, quarterly journal of Anglican theology, Dr. Philip E. Hughes.
Election: As Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All-Ireland, Dr. James McCann.
Inauguration: As president of National Methodist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri, Dr. Don W. Holter, scheduled April 7.
Resignation: As president of California Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Don Cole.
Grants: To the following, faculty fellowship awards from the American Association of Theological Schools for study (mostly abroad) under gifts from the Sealantic Fund “to stimulate theological scholarship and teaching”: R. F. Aldwinckle, McMaster Divinity College; A. O. Arnold, Augustana Theological Seminary; J. W. Bachman, Union Theological Seminary, New York; H. H. Barnette, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; I. W. Batdorf, United Theological Seminary; R. M. Bost, Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary; R. H. Boyd, Luther Theological Seminary; R. M. Brown, Union Theological Seminary, New York; R. J. Bull, Theological School, Drew University; C. E. Carlston, Theological Seminary of U. of Dubuque; W. A. Clebsch, Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest; W. K. Clymer, Evangelical Theological Seminary; A. B. Come, San Francisco Theological Seminary; W. Fallaw, Andover Newton Theological School; F. B. Gear, Columbia Theological Seminary; R. E. Gilmore, Wesley Theological Seminary; W. K. Grobel, Vanderbilt University Divinity School; J. M. Gustafson, Yale University Divinity School; M. T. Judy, Perkins School of Theology; H. C. Kee, Theological School, Drew University; H. T. Kerr, Princeton Theological Seminary; R. H. Klooster, Calvin Theological Seminary; C. Lacy, Divinity School of Duke University; J. W. MacGorman, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; R. C. Miller, Yale University Divinity School; M. L. Newman, Protestant Episcopal Seminary in Virginia; F. E. Rector, Christian Theological Seminary; J. H. P. Reumann, Lutheran Theological Seminary, Phila.; J. M. Robinson, Southern California School of Theology; L. C. Rudolph, Louisville Presbyterian Seminary; W. P. Schilling, Boston University School of Theology; K. Stendahl, Harvard Divinity School; O. K. Storaasli, Luther Theological Seminary; B. Vassady, Lancaster Theological Seminary; J. A. Wharton, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
