Evangelical leaders speaking at the 19th annual convention of the National Association of Evangelicals, held in Grand Rapids April 10–14, conveyed the feeling that the NAE has come of age and that the time is opportune for the organization to present a positive front on church and world issues, rather than to be known in the public mind as merely an anti-Liberal, anti-Catholic, and anti-Communist movement.
Dr. Carl F. H. Henry, editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, struck the keynote when he said the evangelical movement “must face the theological, social, political, and economic trends before us, rather than seeming to be resigned forever merely to react to the world’s initiative” in these areas. And, speaking on “theological trends facing the evangelicals today,” he challenged the NAE to promote a “comprehensive evangelical exposition of three great concerns—the problem of religious authority, the mission of the Church, and the nature of the Church.”
The twentieth-century battle against the enemies of the Christian faith will either be won or lost at the level of the local churches, the convention was warned by Dr. Henry Bast of Western Theological Seminary.
“There must be a basic return to an emphasis of Christian fundamentals in the local churches,” Dr. Bast said. “This means the emphasis must be placed on Gospel preaching, the sincere proclamation of the Word of God.” He said that too many church leaders of the day are “running around with a great deal of concern about the church in general, overlooking the church in particular.”
Liberal leaders in the modern Protestant ecumenical movement have surrendered and sacrificed scholarship and objectivity in their effort to build one great world church, said Dr. George L. Ford, NAE executive director.
“It is going to be up to evangelical scholarship to return objectivity to the study of theological matters,” he said. “There is a demand from the grass roots for clearly stated, easily understood treatments of the matters of authority, the nature of the church, the place of the Word of God and the mission of the church in today’s world. There is a concern on the part of evangelical scholars for the communication of their beliefs and convictions. I am recommending to the Board of Administration of the NAE that we do something about this, beginning with the setting up of a study commission on theological trends.”
Actions Of The Convention
Delegates to the National Association of Evangelicals Convention adopted a resolution urging the organization to make a positive approach to the problem of Communism with a “dynamic presentation of the Gospel rather than engage in the investigation and exposure of individual Communists.” Support was given governmental investigatory functions as necessary for national security.
Other resolutions endorsed (1) tax exemption for church and institutional activities provided such were not of a secular enterprise nature, (2) an appeal to the National Association of Broadcasters to clean up TV films, and (3) church efforts to accelerate educational information on the evils of liquor traffic.
The convention created a new NAE organization post, that of director of information. W. Stanley Mooneyham was appointed to the post. Mooneyham is editor of United Evangelical Action, the NAE magazine, and will henceforth serve in a dual capacity.
Building of a new headquarters building in Wheaton, Illinois, at a cost of $100,000 was approved. It is to be ready for use early in 1962.
The United States and the West cannot snatch the initiative from Communists surging through a large part of the world without developing a positive, aggressive diplomacy, with firmness backed up by military strength and force, Dr. Harold John Ockenga of Boston told a public rally at the convention.
Dr. Ockenga, pastor of Park Street (Congregational) Church in Boston, said that much of the Communist gains must be attributed to the vacillation and weakness of the free world.
The modern crisis demands a return to the Word of God, said the Rev. Thomas F. Zimmerman of Springfield, Missouri, NAE president. “It is not surprising that out of the deep pall of skepticism hanging over the heads of all who do not possess the authority of divine revelation has come a willingness to listen for answers which make sense in a scientific age, in a time of indecision, and an era of cold war,” he said.
“The times in which we live do demand a return to the Word of God,” he said. “Faith has been undermined because the authority of the Word of God has been questioned. What has been a growing concern with the leadership of the NAE has now become a gripping conviction—there must be a special emphasis on the study of the Word of God in the churches of America. The Bible must be returned to the heart of our churches and the nation.”
Among the statements made by the convention was a declaration including the following affirmations of delegates:
“We deplore the present national apathy in spiritual life, confusion in theology, rampant materialism in society, and laxity in morals. Recognizing the only remedy to be a spiritual awakening, we urge the spread of the Gospel with renewed effort and intensified vigor in accordance with our Lord’s command.
“We adhere to the historic American principle of separation of church and state, thereby to preserve liberty and freedom. We are unalterably opposed to a totalitarian state whether materialistic or religious in its tyranny.”
The address by Henry chided the NAE for failing to concern itself sufficiently with contemporary theological issues and for forfeiting the initiative in Christian social ethics. Excerpts:
“The National Association of Evangelicals has labored through many years with many fine practical achievements to its credit. But it seems to me to have fallen short especially in the intellectual arena whose neglect not only leaves any agency powerless against its competitors but breeds internal inconsistency and inconstancy which invite deterioration of any principled fellowship. That is why theological revival sooner or later must enliven NAE or theological decline will stifle it.
“Let me speak now of three important trends in theology. Each is a contemporary issue which stared NAE in the face already at the time of its founding many years ago, and which even provoked its organization in a measure, and yet the movement as such has not yet elaborated a comprehensive evangelical exposition and interpretation of these great concerns. They are: the problem of religious authority; the mission of the Church; and the nature of the Church. There is little point in comforting ourselves here that the inclusive ecumenical movements gather all divergent viewpoints, wheat and chaff alike, into one theological granary, welcoming each as a “witness” to the truth (irrespective of conflicts and contradictions), and then settling for an existential togetherness as the enduring common core of Christian faith. A movement may deplore the skeptical handling of truth, and even the deceitful manipulation of doctrine, as long as it has life and breath, but until it spells out an answer in terms of theological structure—and not simply in terms of evangelistic energy and ecclesiastical goodwill—the issues are not really faced in depth.
“Has there come out of the theological reservoirs of NAE as a movement any authoritative exposition of the form and content of divine revelation? Of the task of the Church? Of the mission of the Church? If these are the central concerns, have the movement’s ministers (not simply the theologians) been caught up by these issues, or have they been left to the theologians, and at that to theologians who are not really at this stage ‘NAE theologians’ after all? Is theology something that belongs off center, and only on the periphery of a movement like this, even if kept within shouting distance so that now and then it can be summoned to help plaster some sagging nontheological foundations?
“Why is it that, although more than half the foreign missions task force stands consciously outside the ecumencial movement, and although the integration of IMC and WCC is scheduled in New Delhi in November, the production of a comprehensive symposium on the theology of the Christian mission has been left to inclusive theological agencies, which will force even your missionary training centers to rely on their textbooks as the price of this neglect? Why is it, with the United States undergoing a social revolution involving greater reliance on centralized government and narrowing opportunities for voluntarism, NAE has been content mainly to condemn the quasi-socialist philosophy often expressed in Federal and National Council actions, but has bequeathed to ecumenical forces the opportunity of elaborating Christian social ethics from an objectionable point of view?” p. de v.
Protestant Panorama
• A plane crash claimed the lives of three clergymen of the Church of God last month. Found dead in the wreckage of their single-engine private plane near Woodland, Mississippi, were the Rev. Robert Mapes of Fort Wayne, Indiana, the Rev. Charles C. Kirby, of Troy, Michigan, and the Rev. M. B. Ellis of Detroit. They reportedly had been flying through a thunderstorm to Paragould, Arkansas, after a conference at Ellinsville, Mississippi.
• A Presbyterian minister, his wife, and their two children were killed this month when their single-engine plane crashed near Summersville, West Virginia. Killed were the Rev. Francis Barr Allan, 33, minister of the State Street Presbyterian Church in Schenectady, New York; his 30-year-old wife, Laurice; a 13-year-old daughter, and a 10-year-old son. The family was returning home following a visit to the minister’s mother in Kentucky.
• Merger proponents claimed an interim victory this month in litigation involving the Congregational Christian General Council and the Evangelical and Reformed Church. Federal Judge Edward J. Dimock refused a request by merger opponents to dismiss a “trial within a trial” being held to determine whether issues raised in a suit filed by the plaintiffs in 1957 have been already decided by a 1953 New York State Court of Appeals decision.
• A new seminary, to be known as the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, will be formed through consolidation of four schools which represent four merging church bodies. Exact location is not yet determined, but classes may begin by January, 1963, according to spokesmen.
• The Lake Drive Baptist Church of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, will soon begin construction of a new $125,000 edifice following a five-year legal battle over zoning restrictions. The state supreme court last month reversed a ruling of a Milwaukee circuit court which upheld a zoning ordinance prohibiting construction of the church.
• China Bulletin, a National Council of Churches publication devoted to religious news from behind the Bamboo Curtain, will henceforth appear less frequently because of a lack of information. The March 27 issue announced, “Due to the smaller amount of concrete news about the churches of China which is now reaching us, it has been decided to make the China Bulletin a monthly instead of a bi-weekly publication, beginning with April.” Edited by Francis P. Jones, the publication is issued by the Far Eastern Office of the NCC’s Division of Foreign Missions.
• Presbyterian missionaries were re-occupying certain stations in the Congo last month. Work was continuing in safety in Kasai Province and in the cities of Leopoldville and Elizabethville, according to reports received by the Board of World Missions of the Presbyterian Church, U. S.
• Lilly Endowment, Inc., is advancing $30,000 to Princeton Theological Seminary for preparation of a new bibliography of New Testament studies. Seminary President James I. McCord said the grant will make possible the early publication of the first such study in a century. Director of the project will be Dr. Otto A. Piper, professor of New Testament literature and exegesis.
• World Vision President Bob Pierce was a surprise guest on Ralph Edwards’ “This Is Your Life” television program this month. The well-known missionary evangelist is making final preparations for his Tokyo crusade, which begins May 6.
• Eleven of the 14 Lutheran bodies in Japan will merge at a constituting convention scheduled for October 31, 1962. Fixing of the date climaxes nine years of merger discussions.
• George Fox College, Quaker liberal arts institution in Newberg, Oregon, plans a major development program aimed at accommodating at least twice as many students. First of the new facilities will be a women’s dormitory and 12 apartments for married students.
Impact of Revival
A religious revival that would demonstrate its impact on society by curbing social evils was urged by the manager of the National Holiness Association’s 93rd annual convention in Chicago this month.
Despite steady increases in church membership rolls, Dr. Paul L. Kindschi asserted: “I don’t feel that a real, deep revival has hit American society.”
“If a religious revival really were upon us,” he said, “it would show up statistically in such places as FBI reports on crime. But crime keeps increasing. This is a disturbing thing.”
The NHA is a coordinating agency for 16 religious bodies aimed at promoting the Wesleyan evangelical tradition “on the infilling of the Holy Spirit as a work of grace experienced subsequent to conversion.” Some 1,500,000 church members are represented in its constituent bodies, which include the Wesleyan Methodist, Free Methodist, Church of the Nazarene, Pilgrim Holiness, United Missionary and Brethren in Christ denominations, as well as the Salvation Army and several Quarker conferences.
Welcome Home
A “welcome home” testimonial dinner for Ezra Taft Benson highlighted the 131st annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) in Salt Lake City this month.
Benson, a member of the Church’s Council of 12 Apostles, had been in Washington for the last eight years serving as Secretary of Agriculture in the cabinet of former President Eisenhower.
Increased youth participation was hailed as “the most encouraging progress” of the church during the last year in a message by Dr. David O. McKay, president. McKay addressed a capacity audience of 6,000 at Mormon Tabernacle. The message was relayed via loudspeaker to thousands of others standing outside in Temple Square and was carried over television and radio.
Leaving the WCC
The Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church of the Transvaal—biggest of the Dutch Reformed bodies in South Africa—voted in Pretoria this month to resign from the World Council of Churches.
The decision came within three weeks of similar action by the small Dutch Reformed Church of Africa. Both churches were represented at a meeting of churchmen held at Johannesburg last December under the World Council of Churches’ auspices to discuss the South African government’s apartheid policies.
The synod’s decision left only the Dutch Reformed Church of the Cape Province representing the World Council in South Africa, and there was strong feeling it also would leave the council.
The Kennedy Advantage
“It would appear that the so-called religious issue was an advantage to President Kennedy” in the 1960 election, Republican National Committee researchers concluded this month.
Among identifiable groups, a GOP report said, “the most obvious and dramatic switch found, when the returns of 1960 are compared with those of 1952 or 1956, is the switch among Catholic voters.”
From Loans to Grants
The Roman Catholic hierarchy apparently will press for direct federal grants for its schools, according to remarks made by Msgr. Frederick G. Hochwalt at the annual convention of the National Catholic Educational Association in Atlantic City this month. Hochwalt, director of the department of education of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, limited his initial testimony to an appeal for low-cost, long-term loans. Since then, an administrative legal brief has been made public which holds such loans unconstitutional in the same way as are direct grants.
Sequel on the Sand
A dramatic sequel to Billy Graham’s Florida evangelistic crusade saw some 10,000 college students crowd a Fort Lauderdale beach this month to hear him preach the Gospel.
A virtual afterthought, the rally was hastily arranged after an urgent plea reached Graham from the mayor of Fort Lauderdale, Edward Johns. It was the only meeting of the entire three-month campaign to be held directly on an ocean beach.
The audience was made up of many of the same students who had to be held at bay for days by local police. Hundreds were arrested for disturbances ranging from drunkenness to inciting to riot. They were part of a large number of college students spending their spring vacations at Florida beaches, a practice which is growing each year and which seems to be developing into a notorious American institution.
The students maintained quiet and order throughout Graham’s 40-minute sermon.
“Give yourselves to Christ,” Graham pleaded, “and it will have been worth coming to Fort Lauderdale to meet him.”
The customary invitation for decisions was not given because of the lack of counselling facilities.
Graham is seeking a few weeks’ rest before undertaking his gigantic North of England Crusade in Manchester late in May.
How Much Do Ministers Read?
Nearly 50 per cent of clergymen responding to a CHRISTIANITY TODAY sample survey indicate they are unable to read more than 10 books a year.
A random sampling of 100 Protestant ministers in large as well as small denominations were asked:
“How many books have you read thoroughly, cover to cover, within the past year?”
Out of the first 43 who responded, 23 said “more than 10” and 20 said “less than 10,” including 2 who declared that they had not read any books during the past 12 months.
In reply to a question as to how often they used their local public library, 16 said “rarely if ever” and 21 said “occasionally.” Only six claimed to use their local libraries regularly.
The ministers were also asked to make suggestions about public libraries. A number urged the addition of more books on religious topics.
“Does your local public library stock the right kind of books for you as a minister?”
Twenty of the responders (nearly 50 per cent), said no. Only 10 said yes, while another 13 were uncertain.
Several of the ministers polled wrote in suggestions to the effect that librarians ought to keep closer liaison with ministers as a means of learning which books to order.
Several others urged public libraries to promote their services to a larger degree and to undertake more effective education to get people to read.
All but two of the responding ministers declared that they thought CHRISTIANITY TODAY belonged in their public libraries.
The poll was taken in observance of National Library Week, April 16–22.
20 Years of USO
Two questions work on the minds of servicemen, according to Selective Service Director Lewis B. Hershey:
“Does anybody know I’m here? Does anybody give a damn?”
“The USO,” says Hershey, “is proof to them that somebody back home does give a damn.”
United Service Organizations, Inc., a federation of six volunteer agencies, claims to aim at meeting “the spiritual, religious, social, recreational, welfare and educational needs of those in the armed forces.” At times the achievements are, like the aforementioned description, crude.
Now embarking on its third decade, having been conceived early in 1941 with the great buildup of U. S. military forces, the USO displayed impressive statistical wares last month at an annual meeting of its 600-member National Council advisory board of prominent citizens in Washington’s Mayflower Hotel.
Played down was the basic religious character of the USO evident from the fact that:
—Five of the six agencies which go to make it up are religious groups, Young Men’s Christian Associations, National Catholic Community Service, National Jewish Welfare Board, Young Women’s Christian Association, and the Salvation Army (the other agency is National Travelers Aid Association);
—By definition it proposes to serve “spiritual and religious” needs;
—It looks to churches for financial help.
Core of USO activity lies with (1) some 200 “clubs” in the United States and abroad—centers where servicemen can eat, dance, read, write, sleep, play, and obtain counsel—and (2) with touring shows featuring singers, dancers, comedians, and athletes.
The club program has wide endorsement except for a few cases where Salvation Army officers have objected to sponsorship of dances. The big discontent with USO activity has always focused upon the touring shows’ persistence in smutty performances. In recent years public indifference has allowed off-color shows to continue.
Most chaplains now seem unconcerned, perhaps on grounds that servicemen’s morals are by and large even lower than the show standards. A few chaplains, however, still speak angrily of some USO entertainment, and charge that it works at cross-purposes with what chaplains are trying to do. They sense that the entertainers consider risque elements necessary to their routine.
Says one Army chaplain:
“The people responsible for producing and programming these shows remind me of my kid-brother who always knew how much deviltry he could raise around the house without getting his knuckles cracked. These people are masterminds at the brinkmanship of drawing that fine line between what will be overlooked and winked at and what will provoke an adverse reaction.”
The “brinkmanship” represents a changed approach in comparison with USO shows of earlier years.
A Navy chaplain recalls that during World War II the actors “were not good, not even ‘has-beens,’ but ‘never-would-be’s’ who were dodging the draft and getting paid to practice on a practically captive audience.… Our commanding officer finally got to the place where he would not book shows, saying that morally they were not worth the time and effort involved.
“Korea was a little different. Talent had profited by the practice of former years. Men would sit and drool at feminine pulchritude, and then stare with envy as some ‘high brass’ escorted the ladies off to officers’ country while they returned to chilly corners of their tents to change into dry clothing.”
The show troupes are known to be more prone to smut when they play in remote areas (an Army chaplain in the Arctic recently complained against the use of profanity, suggestive and provocative music and lyrics, and abbreviated costuming by female entertainers). But some troupes apparently have few qualms about use of ribald lines anywhere, even before servicemen’s wives and children.
Notwithstanding, the level of entertainment is probably no worse morally than that often found on Broadway. What irks concerned religious leaders is that church money is being solicited to pay for such irreligious activity. Last summer Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish experts on military chaplaincy services joined in voicing an appeal for religious groups to increase their support of USO. The appeal, geared to coincide with a USO program to raise an $11,000,000-a-year budget, came from Dr. Marion J. Creeger, executive secretary of the General Commission on Chaplains and Armed Forces Personnel, Msgr. Joseph F. Marbach, chancellor of the Roman Catholic Military Ordinariate, and Rabbi David M. Eichorn, director of field operations for the National Jewish Welfare Board’s Commission on Jewish Chaplaincy.
There has recently been an encouraging trend in the USO show program toward more cultural entertainment. A number of college choral and orchestral groups now make annual overseas jaunts under USO sponsorship. There is every reason to believe that these are as much appreciated, and certainly far more wholesome, than the entertainers who stoop to smut.
So much is commendable in the overall USO effort that evangelicals profoundly lament the black eye of the touring troupes. It is probably for this reason as much as any that evangelicals have had a minimum of interest in USO activities. There is virtually no evangelical influence discernible in the USO planning and programming, despite the great opportunities that exist for extending genuine Christian service to members of the armed forces through this medium.
Moral Re-Armament’s Bid
The Moral Re-Armament movement is making its most sustained bid for support in Britain, according to a comprehensive report of the group’s activities and philosophies by Ivan Yates of The London Observer.
Timing of the bid, made primarily through dozens of full-page newspaper advertisements, coincided with the appearance on the British scene of the latest MRA feature film, “The Crowning Experience.”
Yates’ report, which appeared in The Washington Post and Times Herald this month, said the film enterprise “displays many of the qualities that distinguished MRA: deep devotion ably exploited, a tendency to oversimplify and at the same time to exaggerate, a fondness for well-known names, a conspicious lavishness unusual in either religious or political life—all harnessed to high-pressure publicity.”
“No such publicity attended the birth of MRA, or the Oxford Group, as it is still legally known in Britain. Indeed, it is difficult to say just when or where it was born, partly because its founder, Dr. Frank Buchman, has himself given currency to different versions at different times, partly because the movement began as a body of men doing similar work in different places without an organization to bind them together.
“Even today, though its world-wide activities are organized with remarkable precision, it prefers to be known as an organism, not as an organization. It prides itself on having no paid staff, no hierarchy, no membership, no subscription, no badges. You cannot join or resign; you belong.”
Yates says MRA has “never burdened itself with doctrine and liturgy. It makes do with the four absolutes: absolute honesty, purity, unselfishness and love. The barrier to these is sin. Sin is washed away by ‘sharing,’ by confession followed by restitution. The barrier removed, the person is ‘changed.’ Thereafter he has one devotional practice and one duty. He must get ‘guidance’ in a ‘quiet time’ listening to God with pencil and paper—and he must seek to ‘change’ others.”
In recent weeks, 72 full-page MRA advertisements have appeared in British newspapers. Similar advertisements have appeared in the past in the United States. “This costly campaign represents MRA’s most sustained bid yet for support in Britain,” says Yates. “Yet, in spite of its extensive publicity, in spite of the large claims to influence and power made on its behalf, little is generally known of the real nature of MRA, its origins and development, its aims and achievements. Little has been revealed of the people who work for it and the source of their financial support.”
Yates asserts that anti-communism is today “the most strident feature, the staple,” of MRA propaganda.
Oxford Churchgoers
A survey conducted by the Oxford University undergraduate paper Isis concludes that the more highly educated a man is, the more likely it is that he will be a regular churchgoer.
Twenty-eight per cent of the students covered in the survey said they went to church at least once a week.
The figures indicate, therefore, that church attendance among Oxford students is much better than it is among the people of Britain as a whole.
Several recent surveys show that only about 16 per cent of the British population attends church regularly.
A Pastor’s Rights
A Methodist pastor in Maine found himself at odds with his district superintendent over right-to-work legislation this month.
The dispute occasioned the withdrawal from active support of right-to-work legislation of Philip Alward, local preacher at Belfast Methodist Church.
Alward had testified before a state legislative committee in Augusta in support of a right-to-work bill. His withdrawal came after a conference with the district superintendent, the Rev. Edward F. Allen of Augusta, a leading opponent of the right-to-work bill.
Allen said the bill is not in line with the Social Action Creed of the Methodist Discipline of 1960 which reads, “We stand for the right to organize for collective bargaining. We stand for the right of employees and employers alike to organize for collective bargaining; protection of both in the exercise of their right; the responsibility of both to bargain in good faith; the obligation of both to work for the public good.”
Alward apparently did not agree that the creed is to be interpreted as ruling out right-to-work legislation.
Ministerial Refund
The Rev. Ira Gallaway, pastor of the Kirkwood Methodist Church in Irving, Texas, returned money to the federal government last month in protest of what he calls “a dangerous trend toward the welfare state.”
Gallaway returned four Veterans Administration checks, endorsed to the U. S. Treasury, via Democratic Representative Olin E. Teague of Texas, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, asking that all further VA disability payments and VA life insurance dividends be stopped. One check was a $39 life insurance dividend, the others, each for $14.85, disability compensation. He received a wrist injury in World War II.
A congressional secretary, county judge, and oil company tax expert before entering the ministry, Gallaway told newsmen that “I’ve been taking those checks for years, but I became convinced that I don’t deserve anything from the government.”
He said he believed that if the government did not assume so many welfare functions more people would assume those responsibilities themselves.
“The government is making the shirking of responsibility easy. And the churches are partly the cause of this by not themselves taking seriously the call to practice charity and to show love toward all people.”
Flogging Probe
A Lutheran minister student says he was flogged by segregationists last month after he had moderated a human relations seminar in a church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
James David Fackler, a student at Concordia Seminary of St. Louis, was serving his vicarage (internship) in Tuscaloosa. He said he was seized one night outside the University Lutheran Church, blindfolded, and taken to a secluded swamp section where the abductors beat him severely.
They accused him of “bringing niggers into town and into the church,” Fackler reported. Three Negroes had attended the seminar.
Church officials transferred Fackler and his wife to New Orleans. The FBI, meanwhile, launched an investigation.
People: Words And Events
Deaths:Dr. James H. Franklin, 89, former president of Crozer Theological Seminary; in Richmond, Virginia … Dr. W. Aiken Smart, 77, noted Methodist theologian; in Atlanta … Dr. Francis deWitt Batty, 82, retired Anglican Bishop of Newcastle, Australia; in Sydney … Dr. Nicholas Louvaris, 74, professor of theology at the University of Athens and former minister of education and cults; in Athens.
Election: As president of the Council of Bishops of The Methodist Church, Bishop Paul E. Martin.
Appointment: As professor of Assyriology at the University of London, Dr. Donald J. Wiseman.
Quotes: “Christ sent us into a service of witnessing. The United Nations is as fine a forum as can be found for witnessing because all nations of the earth are represented there.”—Brooks Hays, in an interview in which he said he considered Southern Baptist Convention approval of his proposal to have an unofficial observer at the United Nations the most significant achievement of his administration as SBC president.
