Special Report
Amid Burma’s changing political scene, an alert Christian minority, predominantly Baptist, is today probing new opportunities for evangelistic witness. A leisurely 75-minute flight from Bangkok, which brought visiting World Vision speakers to Rangoon just 146 years to the day after Adoniram Judson’s arrival, contrasted with the tedious route of many delegates, some fording treacherous streams and coming by river boat, others trekking days on foot through rugged mountain passes until at last they reached Insein. There Karen Theological Seminary opened its new centenary memorial auditorium July 13–17 in advance of dedication to accommodate 815 delegates and 300 additional unregistered workers from Rangoon who shaped Burma’s most representative meeting of Christian workers not only racially but geographically and denominationally. Burma Christian Council sponsored the four-day conclave, and featured the ordination of John Thetgyi, its erstwhile lay associate secretary, with Dr. Paul Rees speaking.
General Ne Win’s Burma army, in power since the fall of U Nu’s government in October and pledged to free elections, in a gesture of good will entertained World Vision speakers and national Christian leaders at a 10-course dinner, invited the entire conference to tea and a command performance of Burmese singers and musicians seldom seen outside the royal court, and procured the large turtle dome of Rangoon University’s engineering college for a final evangelistic rally. In the absence of Dr. Bob Pierce, Dr. Richard Halverson, who has labored six summers with Pierce in Asian conferences, addressed the congregation of 2500, some 200 responding to the call for decision and dedication.
Burma’s army has improved government efficiency, reduced bribery and corruption, cleaned up the towns, checked profiteering and vigorously opposed communism in a semi-socialist state. Although Burma was first to recognize neighboring Red China in 1949, it supported U.N. intervention in Korea, pursues studied neutrality between East and West, and aims to maintain constitutional government. While the nation is dominantly (85 per cent) Buddhist, with widespread animism in the hill country, the army recently has encouraged gatherings of entrenched religion to denounce communism and promises them all fair treatment. The present government senses the spiritual nature of the clash with communism. The new constitution gives Buddhism special place in the life of the state, although not as a state religion, and grants freedom of worship. There is liberty to preach anywhere, and to teach the Bible in Christian schools. Even government schools permit Bible teaching if enough Christian students are enrolled.
In the face of this situation Christian leaders voice dual concern. Aware that the Christian movement lags in exploiting prospects, they are eager to materialize opportunity without reducing churches to instruments of government.
Many fear that when the country returns to normal party government the gains in honesty and discipline achieved through military compulsion will evaporate slowly through lack of spiritual dedication. Whether Buddhism as a unifying tradition, with its emphasis on moral law and order, carries sufficient vitality to contravene subtle Communist influences also remains to be seen. Burma owes her social institutions, economic development, and civil liberties to Britain more than to Buddha.
In a land about the size of Texas, left in shambles by World War II, 13 million Burmans, 3 million Karens, 1 million Shans and smaller groups of Chins and Kachins are the indigenous groups with 800,000 Indians and Pakistanis and 300,000 Chinese contributing to the 11 main language groups with 126 subsidiary dialects. Burman is the language of the public schools, and three in four non-Burmans understand it; the educated use English (dating from British conquest) almost interchangeably.
The Christian movement represents but three per cent of the population, and includes only 10,000 converts from Buddhism. Most converts come from the hill country where animism prevails. The language barrier and limited training of many workers doubtless levelled some of World Vision’s challenge. Whereas half the delegates to the Malayan pastors’ conference understood English, only 10 per cent in Burma did, and those who did not understand Burmese required a second translation. The sessions saw Bibles open in 30 languages.
The pastors’ conference daily schedule began with group prayer meetings from 5:30 to 6 a.m. Then at 7:30 came Bible study led by Dr. Carl F. H. Henry; 8:40–9:40, Dr. K. C. Han of Korea, on effective preaching; 9:50–10:50, Dr. Rees, on stewardship. After lunch came the 1:30–2:30 hour with Bishop Enrique Sobrepena of the Philippines, on evangelism. After tea came the afternoon discussion hour, and after dinner, the evening meeting, addressed by Dr. Halverson or Dr. Rees. The team schedule was so rigorous in Burma weather that World Vision marimba soloist Jack Conner (with Xavier Cugat’s orchestra before his conversion) suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized. Arriving as lay helpers to the team were Jack Johnston and William Yinger of Oklahoma.
In most of Asia Christianity is denominationally diverse, but in Burma the Baptists predominate much as do Presbyterians in Korea. Baptists outnumber other Protestants 20 to 1 and outnumber Roman Catholics 2 to 1. With 200,000 baptized church members, the Baptist community is estimated at 400,000 to 500,000. Rangoon has 23 Baptist churches. Burma Divinity School (Baptist) has an enrollment of 109.
Despite favorable prospects in Burma, Protestantism does not fully rise to the opportunity. Christian schools lack adequate Bible teaching. Some centers open to Gospel preaching are neglected. Some pulpits neglect Bible teaching, and theological roots need deepening. Evangelistic and pastoral concern needs to be sensitized. Backsliders have drifted from the churches due to lack of follow-up. Moral life has slipped in some churches in the aftermath of World War II. Drinking, gambling, border smuggling, opium growing and trading, bribery, sub-Christian home life, and even sexual laxity have cropped up here and there as social vices which Christian leaders now challenge with fresh earnestness.
World Vision leaders spurred Burma’s workers to deeper devotion to the Word of God; to fuller understanding of stewardship, including the stewardship of time; to new evangelistic concern in the face of Burma’s special opportunity; to deeper self-discipline and sanctification; and to a fuller look at the divergence between Christian and Communist views of life. The Burma churches presented World Vision with a sacrificial offering of $1,000 to help support 12,000 orphans it assists in Korea. Christian workers began to talk hopefully of an evangelistic crusade in Rangoon. The Christian task force in Burma, if set aflame in its mission, could help count decisively for Asia’s destiny.
C.F.H.H.
Gains And Losses
Alcohol And Law
Should use of alcoholic beverages be restricted aboard commercial planes?
The question had the attention of both the executive and legislative branches of the government this month.
A House subcommittee held hearings on proposed legislation which would ban liquor from commercial flights entirely, then favorably reported one of 10 similar bills now before Congress.
The Federal Aviation Agency, meanwhile considered adoption of a ruling which would restrict consumption of liquor in flight to the limited amount served by hostesses and stewards. The ruling would impose civil penalties on persons who drank from their own supply and on airlines which served a passenger who “either is or appears to be intoxicated.”
‘The Son Of God’
A New York corporation plans to spend an estimated 30 million dollars on a film to portray the life of Christ.
William Free, board chairman of newly-organized Parliament Pictures Corporation, has been working for eight years on a script. The cast will number 50,000, with 150 principal parts.
Free said the cast and director have not yet been chosen. But the actor who is to play Christ, he explained, will remain anonymous.
The four-hour film, titled “The Son of God,” is to be premiered simultaneously in six countries during Christmas week, 1960.
It presumably will be the most costly film ever produced. Free said one-third of the profits will go to religious and other charities.
He added that many denominational leaders, Catholic and Protestant, have acted as advisers in script preparation.
Amish Appeal
A group of Amish leaders are appealing to the federal government for exemption from social security taxes. They petitioned the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in Washington last month after having been told that a bill to grant them such an exemption has little chance of passage during this session of Congress.
“Our faith has always been sufficient to meet our needs as they came about,” the petition said, “and we feel the present social security laws are an infringement on our responsibilities.”
People: Words And Events
Deaths: Dr. Charles Tudor Leber, 60, general secretary of the Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., in Sao Paulo, Brazil, while attending the General Council of the World Presbyterian Alliance … the Rt. Rev. Henry St. George Tucker, 85, former presiding bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in Richmond, Virginia … Dr. Arthur William Klinck, 59, chairman of the department of historical theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis … Dr. Isaac Halevi Herzog, 70, chief rabbi of Israel, in Jerusalem … the Rev. George Bolton, pastor and director of Christian Herald’s Bowery Mission, in New York.
Resignation: As president of the San Francisco Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. John Dunkin.
Appointments: As president of California Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. C. Adrian Heaton, head of the department of Christian education at Eastern Baptist Seminary … as associate pastor of Bream Memorial Presbyterian Church in Charleston, West Virginia, the Rev. Robert B. McNeill.
Election: As president of Gideons International, H. S. Armerding.
Quotes: “Sin may be an old-fashioned word, but we need more plain talk about God, the Bible and Christian conviction.”—Methodist Bishop Arthur J. Moore, addressing a regional laymen’s conference at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina … “It would be an invaluable asset to be able to send throughout the world colored church leaders, missionaries, teachers, doctors and administrators to the colored peoples-men who already because of the color of their skin, preach the Gospel of equality before God.”—Dr. N. Arne Bendtz of Augustana Theological Seminary, addressing a missionary conference in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Religious Assemblages
Gideons In Dallas
More than 1,000 persons attended the annual convention of the Gideons International in Dallas, Texas, July 21–26. The Gideons, who number some 19,000 in the United States and 47 other lands, are dedicated to Bible distribution. In the 60 years since the founding of their organization, they have placed some 42 million Bibles in hotels, motels, schools, colleges, hospitals, prisons, and military establishments.
‘New Approach’
At Pacific Grove, California, the General Convention of the New Jerusalem in the U. S. A. (Swedenborgian) voted at its annual meeting last month to make a “new approach” to the National Council of Churches. The convention had previously considered joining the NCC, but plans never materialized.
11Th Congress
Youth for Christ International held its 11th World Youth Congress in Mexico City this month. More than 3,000 delegates and visitors were on hand for an opening rally. An evangelistic thrust characterized the two-week congress. Plans were made to send out teams of workers for gospel crusades in at least a score of Mexican cities.
Evangelical Methodists
The fourteenth annual General Conference of the Evangelical Methodist Church drew a record number of more than 500 registrants. Held at Salem, Virginia last month, the conference voted to employ a full-time youth director, the Rev. Everett Ashton.
A Happy Ending?
The World Presbyterian Alliance went on record at its 18th General Council as favoring the drawing up of a new statement on the Reformed faith “articulated in the language of our day.”
Delegates to the July 26-August 6 meeting in Sao Paulo (where concurrent celebrations marked the centennial of Brazilian Presbyterianism) pledged support of a statement which “while remaining loyal to the Holy Scriptures and the faith of our fathers,” also should have reference to the “false teachings of our age.”
The 400 delegates and observers from 53 nations made the council the largest in the 84-year history of the alliance, a Presbyterian-Reformed fellowship said to be the oldest world-wide confessional organization in Protestantism with 45 million constituents.
Delegates (1) doubled the organization’s budget to allow for expanded activity; (2) reaffirmed a statement adopted by the 1954 council expressing willingness to subordinate their own interests to those of the ecumenical movement; and (3) received as the 77th member of the alliance the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea.
Dr. Ralph Waldo Lloyd, president of Maryville (Tenn.) College, was elected president of the alliance. The only other candidate was Dr. Joseph Hromadka, who withdrew his candidacy.
Hromadka, a World Council of Churches leader and wartime lecturer at Princeton Theological Seminary, is dean of the Amos Comenius Theological Faculty in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He has frequently been labeled an apologist for the Communist regime in his country.
Hromadka denied before newsmen in Sao Paulo that he was a Communist. He said that although communism’s atheism “weakens” the authority of the church, it also challenges churches to “purify themselves.” He added:
“The Communists say that religion is the expression of obscurantism and reaction. But, in their contact with me, they say: ‘How is it possible that you, being a religious man, are not a reactionary?’ Our methods of action are causing confusion among the Communists who are trying to revise their attitude towards religious people. It will be a long, slow process, but there will be a happy ending as far as we are concerned.”
Coptic Concern
Leaders of the state Coptic church in Ethiopia view with concern signs of growing cooperation between their government and the Soviet Union.
They wonder if a new joint trade and economic pact between the two nations may result in a possible change in the Ethiopian government’s traditionally pro-Christian outlook. The state Coptic church proudly connects its history with the conversion of the eunuch recorded in the book of Acts.
Missionaries in Addis Ababa, Ethiopian capital, say they are still “as free as ever” to preach the Gospel and report that a strong evangelical church is growing under national Christian leaders.
Foreign Tours
Probing Marxism
Upon their return home last month from a four-week tour of Russia, Czechoslovakia, and China, six Australian Protestant clergymen issued a statement which was promptly branded by fellow churchmen as unduly optimistic.
The visiting clergymen included a Baptist, two Methodists, and two Presbyterians, plus a Churches of Christ educator.
The statement said “there seems to be a genuine conviction on the part of Christian people that it is possible to be a believing and practicing Christian in a Communist state.”
In all three countries, the statement said, there was evidence that the church “appreciated the efforts of the state to improve the lot of the common man.”
The statement was challenged by Dr. Malcolm Mackay, Presbyterian minister and master of Besser College in the University of New South Wales. Mackay suggested that the churchmen, in making the visits, had played into the hands of the Communists, “who want to exploit the churches’ enormous desire for peace, brotherhood, frankness and understanding.” He urged that Australian Protestants set up a special commission to investigate “all aspects” of the situation of the Christian churches in Communist countries.
Queen At Church
Queen Elizabeth, expecting her third child, attended worship services on four of the six Sundays she and Prince Philip spent in Canada.
Plans for the Queen to attend a Sunday service at the Anglican Cathedral in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, were cancelled when she suffered what was described as a “stomach upset.”
The royal couple spent Sunday, July 12, at a mountain lake retreat in British Columbia. Anglican Dean James C. Jolley flew from Kamloops to hold an informal service in a lodge dining room.
Both missed church on Sunday, July 5, while travelling from Port Sound, Ontario, to Chicago.
They attended Sunday morning services on June 21 at St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Gaspe, Quebec, and on July 26 at St. Mark’s Anglican Church in Port Hope, Ontario. On June 28 they attended a late afternoon service at Sydenham Street United Church in Kingston, Ontario.
