One autumn day in 1830 Charles G. Finney rode a mule-towed barge along the Erie Canal into the young city of Rochester, New York, where his Gospel preaching spurred one of the most famous revivals of the nineteenth century. This month, 130 years later, both the evangelist and the canal are gone. The canal’s empty ditch is about to become a freeway in downtown Rochester. But as some 8,000 delegates to the 53rd Annual American Baptist Convention gathered in the city’s War Memorial Building, Finney’s voice seemed to be feeding back on the microphone, and Rochester once again felt the stirrings of spiritual awakening.
From the invocation June 2 until the benediction five days later, a spirit of unity prevailed, due in great measure to the gifted congeniality of the presiding officer, Dr. Herbert Gezork, head of Andover-Newton Seminary, and the background work of the young general secretary, Dr. Edwin Tuller. Just enough controversy was present, as one delegate expressed it, “to keep the steam up.” And a French-born woman delegate added, “People don’t understand us Baptists; they think we’re fighting when we’re only expressing ourselves. That’s the Baptist way!”
One crucial issue was quickly settled on the third day as, by an almost unanimous vote, the convention agreed to proceed with erection of its proposed modern $8,500,000 headquarters and publishing plant (Judson Press) on 55 scenic acres along the Pennsylvania Turnpike at Valley Forge.
The other major issue at the convention was a Kansas revolt, led by the 4300-member First Baptist Church of Wichita, against further ABC participation in the National Council of Churches. The NCC was charged with advocating UN recognition of Red China, socialized medicine, federal aid to education, uncontrolled immigration, cooperation with Roman Catholics. It was accused of opposing right-to-work laws, of issuing pacifist pronouncements on UN disarmament, and in general of being “too close to socialism” and “trying to legislate a watered-down Christianity.” Leaders of the Wichita group declared that scores of Baptist churches in the Midwest supported their stand.
Dr. Edwin T. Dahlberg, Baptist president of the NCC, did not take part in the debate, but expressed the majority view one evening when he said, “the Christians of America are coming together and intend to stay together.” After a substitute motion was defeated, an overwhelming majority approved a General Council recommendation “reaffirming our participation” in the NCC, but preserving the right of local churches to dissent and to withhold NCC financial support. Individual churches disaffiliating from NCC shall have the right to be so listed in the annual ABC yearbook.
Convention Retains Social Stand
The characteristic American Baptist position on social issues was strongly maintained in resolutions adopted by this month’s convention.
Sex and violence in mass media were deplored, along with gambling, alcoholic beverages, and continued nuclear testing. A comprehensive statement on race relations called for “complete integration of all Baptist organizations.”
The attitude toward Roman Catholicism was ambivalent; a pre-convention critique by Paul Blanshard in Rochester had roused ire in the local Romanist press, and the convention itself warned against use of public funds for parochial schools. Further, delegates insisted that candidates for public office clarify the relation of their religious beliefs to “issues of American life.” On the other hand, they said that distinctions of creed, race or gender should not affect one’s right to aspire to such office. A friendly reference to Roman Catholics was made in an “official” address by NCC President Edwin Dahlberg, an American Baptist pastor.
Dahlberg’s message, entitled “The Last Farthing,” contained in mimeographed form an extended defense (not delivered in person to the convention) of the 1958 Cleveland NCC World Order Conference stand on Red China.
The ABC gave thumping support to the South’s sit-down demonstrations.
Sixty hands were raised in opposition; newsmen broke for the telephones; and the convention settled back for the home stretch. One correspondent at the press table recorded the debate on tape: Dr. Carl McIntire of the Christian Beacon.
Delegates unanimously elected as their new president a layman, C. Stanton Gallup, former head of the Baptist Men and a lumber and utility executive in Plainfield, Connecticut.
The real issues facing American Baptists, deeper than any which reached the floor for debate, were nonetheless everywhere evident at Rochester. There was the concern about growth: the ABC membership has stood still in recent years, while other Baptist groups have expanded as much as 34 per cent. Another concern was the drift toward centralization of authority and away from local autonomy; some churches are now being encouraged to place title to their property in the hands of the state conventions.
The basic theological dilemma was aptly expressed in a statement prepared for the delegates by the Baptist Union of Rochester and Monroe County, which read in part: “Our own understanding of who we are as Baptists has become fragmented and confused since the sturdier days of our fathers.… We are reluctant even to raise the question of a common confession, lest such unity as we have be lost.… We have moved to many forms of church government and to little or no discipline. From a clearly understood sense in which Scripture was the final authority for the church, we have come to an implicit recognition of multiple authorities and to serious disagreement concerning any sense in which Scripture is authoritative at all.”
Occasional voices from the rostrum called delegates back to their source of Baptistic strength.
Still a key force in any spiritual awakening that might come to America, still interested in soul-winning and revival, with a lively church conscience, yet evidently increasingly dependent on the techniques of social engineering, American Baptists were uncomfortably aware at Rochester that their early-day thrust was flattening out. So while the leaders preached about discernment, lectured about stewardship, and debated about autonomy, there were Baptists present who prayed for genuine revival in the land, America, and who kept one ear open to heaven, listening for the rustling of the Holy Spirit.
Protestant Panorama
• The Universalist Church of Rhode Island, which reverted to an “affiliate” status with the state council of churches two years ago, plans to apply for readmission to full constituent membership. The council recently adopted a Trinitarian preamble, but did not specify that members must subscribe to it.
• Groundbreaking ceremonies were held in San Antonio May 25 for the Southwest Texas Methodist Hospital, said to be the world’s first which can function under nuclear attack. Two floors of the $20,000,000 hospital will be underground, protected by a 26-inch concrete wall and equipped to accommodate 1,200 people.
• Cameras will begin rolling in Germany next month for a film depicting Christianity’s struggle under communism. Tentatively titled “In My Father’s House,” the film will be produced by Lutheran Film Associates and Louis de Rochemont Associates, which also collaborated on “Martin Luther.”
• Chaplain (Captain) John D. Zimmerman will serve as principal liaison representative between the Jerusalem See and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States following his retirement from the Navy June 30.
• Union Theological Seminary is creating a “Reinhold Niebuhr Professorship of Social Ethics” in honor of Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr, retiring vice president and senior faculty member.
• The Foundation for Reformation Research will apply two newly-received grants totalling $20,000 toward a program to film sixteenth-century books and manuscripts. One gift of $10,000 came from the Lilly Foundation and another from Concordia Publishing House, which plans to donate $50,000 over a five-year period.
• The Independent Faith Mission is launching a new Italian-language newspaper with a popular, evangelistic appeal. Vero (True) will use a modern, dressy format and the rotagravure printing process to compete with slick secular papers.
• The $1,750,000 Park Place Church of God in Anderson, Indiana was dedicated this month. It is the largest in the Church of God denomination, which has headquarters in Anderson.
• The Rev. David Koto, Anglican bishop of Tokyo, reports that he is encouraged at the response of U. S. Episcopalians to his plan for a $500,000 cathedral. The cathedral would be located opposite the world’s tallest television tower, which has turned into a tourist mecca.
• Conservative Protestant churches in the South Bend, Indiana, area are spearheading the establishment of a Christian high school. Classes will begin this fall.
• The Rev. William H. Jordan was consecrated as a missionary bishop by the Reformed Episcopal Church at its annual council in Philadelphia last month. The church has some 70 congregations in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and in South Carolina. It supports 11 foreign missionaries.
• Concern, news magazine of Methodist Youth, was merged this month with Contact, social action periodical published for three Methodist boards.
• The Lutheran World Federation says its mediators have helped to heal a factional split in the 209,000-member Gossner Evangelical Lutheran Church of northeastern India.
• The Congregational Christian home missions board is giving college scholarships to 82 Indian and Spanish-speaking youths in the United States under a program begun in 1954.
• Representatives of the Danish Ministry of Education say they have reached agreement with bishops of the state Lutheran church on a program of released time religious instruction for pupils about to be confirmed.
• The Newcastle synod of the Anglican Church in Australia wants New South Wales school authorities to withdraw a text which allegedly contains passages “repugnant to the truth and to the Church of England.”
Race and Theology
A racial dispute triggered by Negro sit-in demonstrations broke out at Vanderbilt University Divinity School last month. Eleven professors resigned, including Dean J. Robert Nelson, three new graduates said they were returning their degrees, and fourteen students threatened to withdraw. All described their action as a protest of the university’s refusal to readmit the Rev. James M. Lawson, 32-year-old Methodist minister and former missionary to India who was expelled from the Divinity School for his “commitment to a planned program of civil disobedience” in connection with segregated lunch counter demonstrations in Nashville this spring.
Nelson’s resignation is scheduled to take effect in August. The resigning faculty members said they would remain to the close of the next academic year. Were they to leave immediately, the Divinity School would be left with only four professors.
Vanderbilt Chancellor Harvie Branscomb said he would refer the resignations to university trustees.
Lawson was arrested during the rash of sit-in demonstrations and is awaiting trial on a charge of conspiracy to disrupt trade and commerce. Meanwhile, he has enrolled in the Boston University School of Theology and hopes to complete requirements for a bachelor of sacred theology degree during the summer session.
Vanderbilt offered the post left vacant by Dean Nelson’s resignation to Dr. Walter Harrelson, who is now leaving another theological school controversy, having been dean of the University of Chicago Divinity School during its years of tension as part of the soon-to-be-dissolved Federated Theological Faculty. Harrelson not only turned down the offer but resigned a professorship he had already accepted before the controversy began. He was to have begun teaching at the Vanderbilt seminary this summer.
Branscomb, in refusing to readmit Lawson, cited these considerations: “that in this emotionally charged situation, it would be impossible to deal with Mr. Lawson on the same basis that one would deal with any other student; that to readmit him would initiate a conflict as long as he would be on campus; that he had the alternative … of attending Boston University, which … had agreed to give him his degree by the end of the summer term; and that in these circumstances and the best interest of the university I would not approve his readmission.”
The Uneasy Congo
U. S. mission boards maintained a steady alert on the eve of Belgian Congo independence.
Missionary News Service reports that a “pall of uncertainty” surrounded Congolese affairs as the territory moved into its last month under Belgian rule. The first session of the new Congo Parliament opens June 30.
Most missionary agencies apparently have adopted a wait-and-see policy. Some were fearful of what might happen. Others were optimistic. Most agreed that missionary personnel should stay put pending the governmental changeover, and one board flatly decreed that there would be no travel in or out of the Congo after June 15.
A missions official just returned from the Congo said Africans stressed that there was no animosity toward foreign missionaries: “We were assured that (the missionary) is loved and respected among the people, that their earnest desire is for him to remain, and indeed, that more missionaries are needed.”
Still there was anxiety. “Not that the missionary himself would be the target,” the missions official said, “but that he could be caught in the welter of confusion, possibly violence, that might accompany a chaotic period following the elections.”
Informed observers were watching the movements of Congo’s new strong men, including Patrice Emergy Lumumba, Otetela tribesman who once was expelled from a Methodist mission school, and Abako leader Joseph Kasavubu. Lumumba came out of last month’s election with the likely control of about one-third of the seats in the Chamber of Representatives.
There are approximately 2,150 foreign missionaries now serving in the Congo. They represent groups such as the Disciples, Methodists, Presbyterian Church in the U. S., Mennonite Brethren Church of North America, Conservative Baptists, Salvation Army, Christian and Missionary Alliance, and the Evangelical Free Church.
A Judge’s Reversal
In Medellín, Colombia, public indignation is said to have prodded a judge to reverse himself in the case of three children seized from their Protestant father.
Juvenile Court Judge Arturo Tobón originally had issued a warrant for the children to be taken from their father and given over to the care of their Roman Catholic uncle. Nine days later they were returned, again by order of Tobón.
“The abrupt reversal of orders from the judge,” says James Goff of the Evangelical Confederation of Colombia, “resulted from public indignation over the ‘legal kidnapping’ as well as from intervention by the Ministry of Government in Bogotá, the Governor of Antioquia, and the Mayor of Medellín.”
The children had been baptized in the Roman Catholic faith, but the father, a widower, has since been converted.
Losses in Chile
Religious News Service reports that Protestant churches, schools, and parsonages in Chile suffered heavy losses in May’s earthquakes and tidal waves.
Many national church workers were among the 5,000 victims, but no U. S. missionaries are known to be missing or dead.
Among groups which sustained serious church losses were the Methodist, Southern Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Christian and Missionary Alliance, Seventh-day Adventist, and Four Square Gospel.
Church Battleground
A German Lutheran church taken over by Roman Catholics following World War II became a battleground in Zielona Gora, Poland, last month. Authorities, who want to use the building for concerts, sent workmen to remove furniture only to have them expelled by angry Catholic women. A riot ensued with thousands of townspeople joining in. Four persons were seriously hurt as police resorted to nightsticks and tear gas to dispel demonstrators.
Tracing ‘Terrorism’
The Christian Century, undenominational weekly, issued a blistering rebuke this month of proposals to arrest liberal trends in the Southern Baptist Convention.
In a June 8 editorial, “Do Southern Baptists Fear Liberty,” the Century took strong issue with SBC President Ramsay Pollard, who urged the convention last month to seek out unbelieving seminary professors.
The editorial sought to identify Pollard’s orthodox stand with anti-intellectualism and oppression.
“It is not an accident that the quality of literature exhibited at a Southern Baptist Convention is lower than that seen at the convention of any other major religious body in America,” the Century said. “The intellectual and spiritual poverty there exhibited is not due to lack of ability of Southern Baptist writers and publishers to enter more creatively into the dialogue of our times. Rather it is traceable to the terrorism which is exerted over writers, publishers and booksellers by self-appointed censors. By demagoguery they inspire a fear which inhibits mental activity, blunts legitimate expression, throttles ideas in their cradles.”
The editorial was viewed as one of the severest criticisms of denominational leadership to appear in the Century in recent years. The 51-year-old journal, chronic critic of theological conservatism, has pursued a softer line of late, presumably in the interests of ecumenicity.
Recent “theological and ecclesiastical earthquakes which threaten the strength and solidity of the Southern Baptist Convention … cannot be ignored,” the Century said.
“Tyranny of this kind is as blinding as it is subtle, cruel and anti-Christian.”
Sticking to the Gospel
Dr. Carl F. H. Henry, Editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, asserted before a nationwide television audience this month that Christianity has no program to assure survival to an unregenerate world that seeks its solutions outside of Christ.
Henry appeared on a panel discussion with Dr. A. Dudley Ward, general secretary of the Methodist Board of Social and Economic Relations. The discussion was a feature of NBC’s “Frontiers of Faith” and revolved on the question, “Why Don’t the Churches Stick to the Gospel?”
“Some do and some don’t,” Henry observed, “but all the churches ought to.” Ward retorted that to give such an answer is “to beg the question” … of the definition of the Gospel.
Ward maintained that it was necessary for the corporate church to concern itself with social welfare. “We must become involved,” he said, “or we are irrelevant.”
Henry said the pulpit has divine authority to preach revealed doctrines and moral principles, and that the church’s primary task is evangelism and missions. He deplored “lack of social conscience,” but also criticized the manner in which the corporate church propels itself into particular socio-political programs.
Ward disputed the Bible’s final authority, insisting that the church must shape its message also in view of tradition and the social setting.
Commentator Lisa Sergio, a convert from Roman Catholicism to the Episcopal faith, moderated the discussion.
Life and Death
The effects of a disaster are not always disastrous.
“I know of at least three persons who have accepted Jesus as Saviour following the tornado,” said the Rev. R. L. Phillips, pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church in Wilburton, Oklahoma. The twister hit one evening last month while Phillips and 24 of his parishioners were gathered in the church for a dinner. The church was demolished and five of the guests were killed.
Arguments Forthcoming
The U. S. Supreme Court will hear arguments this fall on the constitutionality of the Connecticut law which prohibits dissemination of birth control information. The resulting decision will mark the first time the nation’s highest tribunal has ever ruled on the question.
Some Protestants say that the birth control laws in Connecticut and Massachusetts favor the Catholic population. Catholics say the laws were enacted by Protestants who long ago were largely opposed to birth control.
Visitor’s Impressions
A noted Salvation Army evangelist, just returned to his native England following a five-month speaking tour of the United States and Canada, says he was impressed with “the freedom given for preaching the Gospel over radio and television.”
“May that freedom be carefully guarded,” declared Major Allister Smith.
He added that although he found Salvationists in America “fundamental and evangelical,” “the Army realizes that, like other churches and missions, it needs a revival and a return to the fire and power of its early days.”
Pilot Project
Six days of discussions about the Bible climaxed a pilot project among ministers and laymen in Buffalo last month. The project, initiated by the American Bible Society, was the first of its type in the United States and drew from both Protestant and Orthodox congregations. It was said to be aimed at determining what “God has to say to the people of today through the Bible.”
The project began several months ago with a clergymen’s seminar conducted by such Bible expositors as Dr. John H. Gerstner, Dr. James Sanders, Dr. John Schmidt, Dr. James R. Branton, Dr. George W. Birtch, and the Very Rev. Alexander Schmeman.
ROME REAFFIRMS POLITICAL ROLE
L’Osservatore Romano, Vatican City daily, called attention last month to the hierarchy’s “duty and right to guide, direct and correct” Catholics in politics.
In a prominently-positioned editorial entitled “Firm Points,” the newspaper spelled out the far-reaching implications of Roman doctrine. It was the most official and definitive Church-State policy statement to come out of the Vatican in many months.
Though ostensibly aimed at the Italian situation wherein many Catholics lean toward communism, the editorial’s principles apply to Catholics everywhere. Vatican sources described the message as “authoritative.”
Some effort was made to temper the effect of the editorial. The day after it appeared a high Vatican source was reported as having said that the writer (unidentified) did not have in mind U. S. Senator John F. Kennedy, Democratic presidential aspirant. Nearly two weeks later L’Osservatore Romano carried another editorial saying that the first one did not “hinder or contradict the autonomy of political action” as long as it was undertaken in keeping with the church’s teaching and with the “refusal to allow any split in conscience between the believer and the citizen.”
Catholic Data
• The newly-released Official Catholic Directory reports a record constituency in the United States of 40,871,302.
• The National Catholic Welfare Conference says enrollment in Roman Catholic elementary and high schools for the 1959–1960 academic year topped five million, also a record.
• Richard Cardinal Cushing, Archbishop of Boston, says Knights of Columbus advertisements attracted 3,660,182 inquiries during the first third of 1960.
• One of two secretaries established for the forthcoming Ecumenical Council by Pope John XXIII is being assigned the task of enabling non-Catholics to follow the work of the council and to arrive at “unity.”
“The Church’s teaching is directed towards the free conscience of the citizen so that with well-inspired will power he can make a choice which is not contradictory to faith.”
The second editorial was written by the newspaper’s new editor, Raimondo Manzini, and had less of an official character than the first, according to Religious News Service.
Kennedy’s Reply
Roman Catholic Senator John F. Kennedy declined direct personal comment on L’Osservatore Romano’s Church-State editorial, except to say (two weeks later) that he understood the Vatican to have issued a subsequent statement which declared that the editorial “did not apply to the United States.”
Kennedy’s press secretary had issued this statement the day after the original editorial appeared:
“The American office holder is committed by an oath to God to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, which includes Article I providing for the separation of church and state.
“Senator Kennedy has repeatedly stated his support of the principle of separation of church and state as provided for in the United States Constitution. He has stated that this support is not subject to change under any condition.”
Editorial Excerpts
Following are excerpts from an editorial which appeared in the Vatican City daily newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, on May 18:
There is a tendency to separate Catholics from the Church’s hierarchy, restricting the relationship between them to the sphere of a simple sacred ministry and proclaiming the full autonomy of the faithful in the civic sphere.
Thus, an absurd distinction is made between a man’s conscience as a Catholic and his conscience as a citizen, as though the Catholic religion were a special and occasional phase of the life of the spirit and not the driving idea that binds and guides the whole of man’s existence.…
The Church, constituted with its hierarchy by Jesus Christ as a perfect society, has full powers of real jurisdiction over all the faithful and thus has the right and the duty to guide, direct and correct them on the plane of ideas and of action in conformity with the dictates of the Gospel in what is necessary to attain the supreme end of man, which is eternal life.…
A Catholic can never depart from the teachings and directives of the Church. In every sector of his activity, his conduct, both private and public, must be motivated by the laws, orientation and instructions of the hierarchy.
The political-social problem cannot be separated from religion because it is a highly human problem and as such has as its basis an urgent ethical-religious need that cannot be abolished. And, by the same token, conscience and the sense of duty, which have a large role in such a problem, likewise cannot be abolished.
Consequently, the Church cannot remain indifferent, particularly when politics touch the altar, as Pope Pius XI said. The Church has the right and the duty to enter also this field to enlighten and aid consciences to make the best choice according to moral principles and those of Christian sociology.
Outside of these principles and of the dutiful discipline of the laity toward the hierarchy, anyone can see what a vast field of special responsibilities, courageous initiatives and fruitful activity is open to the civic activity of Catholic lay people so that they may offer their contribution of opinions and discussions, experiences and accomplishments, to promote the progress of their country.
The problem of collaboration with those who do not recognize religious principles might arise in the political field. It is then up to the ecclesiastical authorities, and not to the arbitrary decisions of individual Catholics, to judge the moral licitness of such collaboration.…
It is highly deplorable … that some persons, though professing to be Catholics, not only dare to conduct their political and social activities in a way which is at variance with the teachings of the Church, but also take upon themselves the right to submit its norms and precepts to their own judgment, interpretation and evaluation with obvious superficiality and temerity.
475 Riverside Drive
A new chapter in the ecumenical movement unfolded with the May 29 dedication of the Interchurch Center, 19-story office building overlooking the Hudson River from Manhattan’s Morn-ingside Heights.
Built as a home base for U. S. ecumenism at a cost of $21,000,000 (including $2,000,000 working capital), the building houses National Council of Churches headquarters and assorted denominational and church-related agencies. Ownership rests with a tax-exempt, charitable corporation formed in liaison with NCC leaders.
More than 2,000 persons witnessed a solemn dedication service in neighboring Riverside Church. Following the sermon by German Bishop Hans Lilje, they formed a procession to the main entrance of the gray limestone edifice at 475 Riverside Drive for equally solemn ribbon-cutting ceremonies.
Interestingly enough, the interdenominational Riverside Church had been the scene of another ecumenical procession just a few days before. The earlier procession, which had no official tie with the Interchurch Center dedication, was part of a service commemorating the golden anniversary of the first World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh. Although originally projected in the interests of missionary cooperation, the Edinburgh conference held 50 years ago this month is now looked upon as having provided stimulus for the ecumenical movement.
How does U. S. Protestantism react to the Interchurch Center as the “tangible symbol of the growing unity of the churches”? Denominational leaders, including avowed ecumenists, have showed surprisingly little interest in a common headquarters building. Some have been openly opposed. Only one denomination—the Reformed Church in America—has located headquarters offices in the Interchurch Center. Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Disciples do not have as much as a desk to represent them.
To be sure, the Interchurch Center’s 461,000 square feet of office space could not begin to accommodate all denominational headquarters. But even this limited opportunity for geographic ecumenicity is being widely ignored, for already the Interchurch Center has been obliged to rent rooms to a number of non-religious groups such as the Association on American Indian Affairs and the College Entrance Examination Board.
Tenants of the Interchurch Center have been moving into their new quarters since last fall, a year after President Eisenhower had laid the cornerstone (a piece of marble from ancient Corinth). NCC offices take up four floors, United Presbyterian and Methodist agencies each occupy three floors. The International Missionary Council and the U. S. Conference of the World Council of Churches have adjoining suites.
The center’s functional motif, most noticeable in its well-appointed interior, contrasts sharply with the flamboyancy of Riverside Church and the more reserved traditional look of nearby Union Theological Seminary. A 500-seat chapel on the ground floor boasts a strikingly backlighted alabaster window said to be the largest in the world. Instead of a cross, an eight-foot gold mosaic Chi Rho (a Greek monogram for Christ which dates back to the Catacombs) will be hung from the ceiling.
Site for the building was donated by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who also gave $2,650,000 toward construction. Another million dollars was donated by individuals, while church groups contributed $500,000 and invested $4,500,000 in second mortgage bonds. A first mortgage loan of $12,650,000 from the New York Life Insurance Company is to be repaid from rentals over a 30-year period.
NCC Hails ‘New Era’
“Hold to Christ and for the rest, remain uncommitted, or you will cumber the earth with your ‘efficiency,’ ” the General Board of the National Council of Churches was told at its semiannual meeting June 1–2 by Dr. Leslie E. Cooke, associate general secretary of the World Council of Churches, at the Interchurch Center in New York.
Despite sober reminders that the newly-dedicated skyscraper was merely “servants’ quarters for the churches” and not intended to give its tenants “a false sense of permanence,” the 250-member board found little difficulty adjusting to its impressive new surroundings. And soon it was covering the earth, if not ‘cumbering’ it, with resolutions and recommendations on issues ranging from atomic waste to the Pakistani refugees of Calcutta.
Reverberations of the recent Air Force manual controversy were still echoing. General satisfaction was expressed over the outcome, especially the strong support given NCC in congressional speeches and in American mass media generally. Exulted James Wine, associate general secretary and a key figure in the controversy, “Our principal detractors are in a state of desperation … at last they are now being found out for exactly what they are—purveyors of half truths, perverters of fact, and willing tools.… The apparent conspiracy has been broken, an era is ended.” Public decency and fairness, he predicted, “will drive these people into the black holes of oblivion.”
Speeches by some board members, however, reflected a less sanguine view. It was reported that at grass roots the NCC is subject to continuing criticism and unpopularity in some areas and churches. General Secretary Roy G. Ross took an optimistic view, suggesting that the Air Force manual’s charges of Communist infiltration in NCC churches had actually demonstrated the solidarity of the denominations as they united to resist the accusations.
A change is manifest in the outspoken anti-Communist emphasis of the current utterances of NCC leaders. What is said to have been formerly assumed and taken for granted on the inside—and correspondingly misunderstood on the outside—is now a heartily verbalized policy, and the air is much clearer.
The NCC board handed its faith and order advisory committee a knotty practical problem to unravel during the next two years: the relationship of local, state and national councils of churches to the historic Church. Before it can initiate deep theological discussions on such subjects as the nature of ministry, intercommunion and other doctrinal questions, the NCC has a mandate to clarify the ecclesiological status of the councils.
The board received a study commission report calling upon the FCC to withhold licenses from TV and radio stations which persist in “offending the public interest.” The report spanked mass media for their “pathological preoccupation with sex and violence.” The FCC was asked to set up local boards of review and to hold public hearings to evaluate radio and TV stations’ performances where complaints have been raised. “We recognize that this is symptomatic of a moral disease in our society,” the report said. At the same time it expressed its distaste for censorship and the Roman Catholic “Legion of Decency” approach to films. The report called on religious broadcasters not to “pretend to a false unity, nor conspire to water down the content of the Gospel to a least common denominator.”
Among other actions the board:
• Hailed nuclear energy as a gift from God to the human race, and called for its increased use for peaceful purposes.
• Adopted a six-point proposal of ways in which world peace prospects could be improved, involving disarmament, raising of living standards, inter-communication, and promotion of moral principles and human rights. The proposal called on the United States to be ready to confer with all nations (Communist China was not mentioned by name).
• Adopted after minor changes a resolution applauding sit-in demonstrations by students and others in restaurants and libraries of the South as efforts to bring “laws, customs and traditions into conformity with the law of God which recognizes the dignity and worth of each and every person.”
• Recommended that the Syrian (Orthodox) Church of Antioch (which claims to have been established between 37 and 43 A.D. with Peter as its first Patriarch) be approved as a member communion of NCC at the General Assembly in San Francisco next December.
• Reported that Church World Service had rushed emergency aid to stricken Chile.
• Welcomed a bearded official visitor, His Holiness Vasken I, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, from Etchmiadzin, Armenia, U.S.S.R., who brought “greetings of Christian love” to the Christians of America from hit church.
S.E.W.
Nile Mother
Highlight of an Assemblies of God Sunday School convention, held last month in Minneapolis, was an honor breakfast for Miss Lillian Thrasher, who was instrumental in the establishment of one of the world’s largest orphanages in Assiout, Egypt, 50 years ago.
Miss Thrasher, 73, known as the “Nile Mother,” is one of the most highly regarded missionaries in the Middle East. Among her mementoes is a personal letter from United Arab Republic President Gamal Abdel Nasser expressing appreciation for her work with the orphans. Nasser personally intervened for Miss Thrasher last fall when she encountered difficulty in importing an automobile for the orphanage.
Mission Decisions
A total of 85,543 decisions for Christ were recorded last year by the 272 members of the International Union of Gospel Missions, it was reported at the group’s 47th annual meeting in Charleston, West Virginia, last month.
IUGM members reported they had served 7,366,116 meals and conducted 66,264 religious services which were attended by 3,298,780 persons, Temporary lodging was provided for 2,190,198 persons. In addition, assistance was given 21,628 families in 1959.
The figures were made public by C. E. Gregory, IUGM president and superintendent of the Cleveland City Mission. Gregory was an accountant before he joined the mission 12 years ago.
In addition to 260 U. S. members, the IUGM has missions in Canada, Cuba, Japan, France, and England.
People Words And Events
Deaths:Dr. David Hugh Jones, 98, pastor emeritus of the First Presbyterian Church of Evanston, Illinois; in Evanston … Dr. John Z. Hodge, 88, former secretary of the National Christian Council of India, Burma, and Ceylon … Dr. Ida S. Scudder, 90, founder of the Vellore American Medical Mission; in Kodaikanal, Madras, India.
Resignations: As president of Eastern Baptist College and Seminary, Dr. Gilbert L. Guffin (effective May, 1961, to return to Howard College in Alabama as dean of the religious program) … as editor of the Link, National Sunday School Association publication, Dr. Edwin J. Potts.
Elections: As moderator of the American Unitarian Association (to be merged next year with the Universalist Church of America) Dr. James R. Killian, Jr.… as president of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, Dr. Nathan Bailey … as president of the Christian Medical Society, Dr. William Johnson.
Appointments: As president of Gordon College and Divinity School, Dr. James Forrester … as president of Scarritt College, the Rev. D. D. Holt … as dean of Conwell School of Theology (to open this fall in Philadelphia), Dr. Aaron E. Gast … as professor of systematic theology and Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary, Dr. Edward W. Bauman; as professor of pastoral care, Dr. Tabor Chikas; as pastor of Christian worship, retiring Methodist Bishop W. Earl Ledden … as professor of church history and practical theology at San Francisco Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. William J. Sweeting … as pastor of City Temple in London, England, Dr. A. Leonard Griffith of Chalmers United Church in Ottawa, Ontario.
W. E. Sangster
Dr. W. E. Sangster, 60, home mission superintendent of the English Methodist Church and a noted preacher and evangelical leader, died in London last month.
Sangster had been in poor health for many months, having suffered from a muscular illness.
A CHRISTIANITY TODAY Contributing Editor, he was author of more than 10 books and known especially for his writings on the practical outreach of the Church. In 1950 he was president of the Methodist Conference of Great Britain.
Preliminary Study
Steven C. Rockefeller, son of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, will enroll this fall for “preliminary study” at Union Theological Seminary, New York.
Rockefeller, whose marriage last year to Anne Marie Rasmussen, the family’s Norwegian housemaid, drew world-wide attention, is “anxious to learn more about the faith and the ministry” before making a definite commitment regarding the ministry as a career, according to Union admissions chairman Robert Handy.
