A fortnightly report of developments in religion
The long-awaited Second Vatican Council, which opens in Rome October 11, has already produced some marked effects upon thought and action throughout Christendom.
Speculation over what the council may do is only part of the picture. There is a new air of independency in some Roman Catholic circles which finds expression in many ways. The overall strategy still seems to be geared to creating a climate whereby the “separated brethren” might more easily return to the Church of Rome (see editorial, page 27). But some evangelical leaders feel that current trends are to be welcomed nonetheless.
Dr. Clyde W. Taylor, public affairs secretary of the National Association of Evangelicals, says Pope John XXIII’s call for the council is having a “beneficial” effect on Protestant-Catholic relations. He credited the present pontiff with having done much to bring about such an effect.
Taylor made the remarks to newsmen in Detroit last month where he delivered an address at the annual meeting of the Conservative Baptist Association of America.
He said that in the eyes of Protestants, “Pope Pius (XII) was a pugilist, but Pope John is a jolly, good-natured fellow.”
“Pressure has gone off of Protestants in Colombia and conditions changed remarkably,” Taylor added. “And things have even softened a little in Spain, and mild opposition (to Protestant missionaries) has been withdrawn in other countries.”
He said that a number of NAE pastors have asked the organization to send observers to the council, but that NAE officials turned down the idea.
As for Spain, there may be pressures from within Roman Catholicism for more tolerance toward Protestants.
The Danish Roman Catholic paper Katolsk Ugeblad, in a sharp criticism of the Spanish government policy, has said that “arguments intended to prove the freedom of the Protestants in Spain rebound upon the person advancing them. Compared with Danish conditions, they do not testify to tolerance, but rather to the contrary.”
Even Martin Luther seems to be gaining respect in the new climate. Catholic scholars no longer regard him as the villain they once did, according to a Jesuit professor of church history, the Rev. Edward D. McShane of Alma College, Los Gatos, California.
Vatican View Of Marilyn Monroe
Osservatore Romano, the Vatican City newspaper, asserted last month that American film producers passed the “last boundary” in directing actress Marilyn Monroe to appear nude in a motion picture scene.
The actress was subsequently discharged from the picture, “Something’s Got to Give,” for failure to appear for work. She claimed she was suffering from colds.
Osservatore noted that the film director had reproached Miss Monroe for catching cold while wearing a “five-ounce dress” during her appearance at a birthday celebration for President Kennedy in New York.
Said the newspaper: “The unbelievable part is that neither the directors nor the producers had the slightest suspicion that the sequence of colds may have been caused by the bath without even that five-ounce dress.”
In Boston, the archdiocesan newsweekly The Pilot also chided a public figure, but for different reasons. The target was former President Eisenhower, who, in defending a cabinet official said:
“They can kill me on a cross and drive the nails into my hands and the spear into my side if …”
The Pilot said that “the unconscious remark” contained “nearly blasphemous implications.”
“He appears more as a seeker for religious conviction who became in turn a catalytic agent for real reform within the church,” McShane said in an address to the American Society of Church History last month.
Another important development in American Catholicism has been the emergence of a more powerfully influential laity. This move has been taking definite shape and substance during the first six months of 1962, according to Religious News Service.
Msgr. John Tracy Ellis, prominent priest-historian at the Catholic University of America, believes that the trend is already so marked as to have created a theology of the lay movement. Theologians in recent years, he said in a commencement address at Carroll College, Helena, Montana, have refined this concept in a way which “suggests the revival of the part once played in the early Church by the deacon” in spreading Christian truths.
Ellis predicted that if the laity is going to assume a bigger role, care must be taken that the layman not overstep his bounds into realms which properly belong to the clergy, while at the same time the clergy must relax some of its accustomed control over the laity. He spoke of “symptoms that suggest an anticlerical sentiment hitherto unknown to American Catholics” and warned that this “virus” would spread unless clergymen ease some of their traditional control over the laity.
Another prominent Catholic professor, the Rev. John Walsh of Weston (Massachusetts) College has gone so far as to suggest a popularly-elected hierarchy for the church.
Perhaps the greatest stumbling block to better Protestant-Catholic relations in the United States is represented by church-state issues. Continued insistence upon public funds for parochial schools is a constant source of tension. Although they are rarely heard from, some leading Catholics do not want government aid, for they fear that such subsidy invites outside control or at least conformity.
Leading Catholic churchmen realize they must desegregate their schools, for instance, if they are ever to get federal funds. But the process is nevertheless slow. Desegregation has been ordered in New Orleans and Atlanta, although large parts of the South still have segregated parochial schools including the entire states of Alabama and Mississippi, the cities of Memphis and Chattanooga, Tennessee, and St. Augustine, Florida, and four of the seven dioceses in Texas.
How do current trends affect efforts to evangelize Roman Catholics?
Alert evangelicals feel that a more friendly climate will be advantageous to such efforts. Said one key evangelical observer a few days ago: “Good will is on our side.”
Reconsidering Taiwan
Church World Service has scrapped its plans for a gradual phaseout of its mass distribution program for U. S. surplus foods on Taiwan. Instead, the National Council of Churches overseas relief arm will continue the program until June 30, 1963, at which time a new system “that can be administered with integrity” is expected to go into effect. Disclosure of the change of plans came last month during a meeting of the policy-making NCC General Board.
CWS Director Hugh D. Farley said the decision to continue the mass feeding program had stemmed from previous commitments and the feeling that the program could not be reduced now in view of the need for food on the island. Lutheran World Relief, which cooperates with CWS on Taiwan, also announced that it would continue its part of the shipments.
On May 8 CWS and LWF announced they would discontinue mass food distribution and it was reported at that time that inequities and black market operations were factors in the decision (see “Problems with Food” on page 27 of the May 25 issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY). The latest CWS statement said that “subsequently there was an unauthorized leakage to the press of some of the information that had led to this decision, with a consequent public misrepresentation that CWS was taking a hasty and unilateral action.”
Farley also made public during the General Board meeting in New York a telegram to legislators in Washington protesting the proposed termination of aid to Poland and Yugoslavia.
Among other business which came before the board was a proposed pronouncement on mass communication media. The board recommended that NCC President J. Irwin Miller appoint a special commission to redraft the proposed pronouncement. The commission will represent the NCC Divisions of Christian Education and Christian Life and Work as well as the Broadcasting and Film Commission.
The board also authorized a first-time national study conference on church-state relations to be held in February, 1964, in Chicago. The conference, made up of representatives from NCC-member bodies as well as non-member churches, will deal with a broad range of church-state questions, including federal aid to parochial schools, religious practices in public schools, and tax exemption for church property. The conference was proposed by the NCC’s Department of Religious Liberty and the Division of Christian Life and Work.
The board noted with “gratification increasing evidences of warmer relations with the Roman Catholic Church in many parts of the world.” The note was in a resolution passed unanimously without discussion.
A wide range of moral and ethical problems were considered at the board meeting, but no pronouncements were issued. A staff committee was reported to be developing a “position paper” which would “explore in thorough manner the philosophical and ethical issues involved in the confrontation of Christianity and communism.”
Wcc And The ‘New Society’
Five more Soviet bloc churches are applying for membership in the World Council of Churches, among them the Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists of the U.S.S.R. This denomination, which purports to embrace virtually all Protestants in Russia, claims a constituency of 545,000 members and upwards of 5000 pastors.
Other churches to apply are the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia, the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Estonia and the Georgian Orthodox Church. Three of these denominations, whose combined membership totals almost six million, were visited by Dr. W. A. Visser ’t Hooft, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, when he was in Russia in 1959.
Almost simultaneous with the WCC announcement a twelve-man delegation of the World Council arrived in Geneva after a two-week tour of the Soviet Union, remarking that the “spiritual strength of the (Russian) people was particularly impressive.” They had been invited to visit Russia as guests of the Russian Orthodox Church, itself accepted into WCC membership at last year’s New Delhi assembly.
“A number of points of historical, cultural and national interest were visited,” the churchmen reported, “and the delegation was impressed with the strenuous efforts of the Russian people to build a new society.” The statement also noted that theological questions and world peace had been discussed with Russian leaders.
On another front, the Communist-sponsored Christian Peace Conference noted “with joy and attention” a report about negotiations between representatives of the CPC and the World Council that took place in Geneva this March.
Pampering The Church
Methodist Bishop John Wesley Lord of Washington warns that the church must voluntarily assume a fair share of the tax burden if it is to avoid a growing wave of anti-clericalism and regain its stature in the American scene.
“How often the church accepts the dubious role of the pampered darling of a sinsick society,” the bishop noted in an address at the 178th annual meeting of the Baltimore Methodist Conference. “Far from seeking favors from the state, already overburdened with the need for a new and higher taxation, the church must recognize that it has a corresponding obligation to the state. It must cooperate with the forces of good government to provide the good life for all the citizens.”
Lord challenged the delegates to righteous action. “If the churches as institutions in our land will seek no favors, accept no tax exemptions on other than property used for worship, they may once again in this dark hour which is passing over our nation, exert a power which is not of man but of God, for righteousness and peace throughout the nation.”
In a seeming demonstration of the sub-tilties of church-state problems, however, the following week witnessed the dedication of the Methodists’ new Sibley Hospital in Washington, where Lord paid tribute to House Speaker John W. McCormack, a Roman Catholic, for his sponsorship of some key enabling legislation. Congress gave the Methodists a section of public park land on which to erect the $9,000,000, 340-bed hospital and a nursing school, in return for which the hospital turned over to the government its old building and other church-owned land.
A church tax controversy cropped up. meanwhile, in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where the Upper Merion Township Board of Education announced its intention to seek an annual tax of $174,000 on the newly-constructed headquarters of the American Baptist Convention which has been assessed at $3,000,000. The board contends that the convention’s Judson Press has been publishing books and periodicals for profit, and that the building, or a portion of it, is therefore taxable.
“The important thing to us in this case,” observed Dr. Edwin H. Tuller, ABC general secretary, “is the principle that religious organizations, under the law, are tax exempt for those properties and activities that are necessary to the function of the church.”
Tuller denied that the convention’s printing operations placed the Judson Press within a profit making category. “Certainly we sell books that are printed by our presses, but they are not sold for profit. We just meet expenses and needs.”
While hoping to settle the disagreement without litigation, Tuller nevertheless expressed a willingness to go to court if necessary.
Tensions In Spain
Serious tensions were developing this month between the Franco regime and Roman Catholic leaders in Spain. The tensions are a result of hierarchy support of mass strikes in Spain in recent weeks.
Generalissimo Francisco Franco charged that the wave of strikes had been fomented by Communists and liberals and that “lay organizations of the Church” had encouraged them.
At the same time, he insisted that “relations between Church and State are in perfect harmony because both know who their common foe is.”
He accused foreign propaganda of having “set against our regime the excess of some Basque separatist priests or the clerical errors of some other exalted priests, none of which means anything in the framework of the great spiritual renaissance of our nation.”
The tension was nonetheless apparent, Franco’s remarks notwithstanding. Use of Spain’s national radio network to broadcast masses from Roman Catholic churches was forbidden by the Spanish Ministry of Information, reportedly because of a broadcast sermon delivered by a Jesuit priest from a Barcelona church. The exact nature of the sermon was not disclosed, but it was understood to have dealt with “social problems” and controversial problems centering on labor-management relations as pointed up by striking mining and industrial workers in the northern part of the country.
Five Spanish Roman Catholic bishops subsequently denied reports appearing in the foreign press that they supported the strikes, according to information disclosed in New York City by Spain’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations.
Following release of this information originally in Madrid, similar announcements were made by Spanish overseas offices to offset a growing impression that the church—particularly some members of the hierarchy—and the Franco regime are split on the strikes.
In Madrid, six priests were suspended for supporting the strikers. At the same time, however, a leading Roman Catholic paper urged Spaniards to follow church principles in labor matters.
Miracle In The Congo
Tribes which have been at war since 1959 came together in a miraculous reunion at the spring synod meeting of the Presbyterian Church of Congo, meeting at Bulape, deep in the Kasai Province.
Here is one missionary’s description of the delegates’ journey to the meeting as reported by Ecumenical Press Service: “Members of opposing tribes, who had not spoken to each other for two years, found themselves sitting side by side in the car for several hours of travel over rugged roads. The silence was awkward; everyone in the car was quiet, for they didn’t have much to say to each other.” Difficult problems faced the delegates. Many small tribes wanted their own presbyteries. One large tribe wanted its own synod. Political problems and mission-church relationships added to the meeting’s complexity.
At Bulape, “as the meeting progressed, there were tense moments and heated tempers at times. Yet far-reaching decisions were made for better administrative organization of the church, a committee was set up to consider the establishment of a General Assembly, and many other matters were discussed.”
The climax came one afternoon. “After the minutes had been read and approved, Congolese pastors and elders got up, one after the other, and confessed the collective sins of their tribe and some personal sins. You could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit. This was a truly great religious experience for all who were there. What we had been trying to do for months, the Holy Spirit did within a few minutes. To close the meeting we had a communion service with a Lulua, a Mukete, and a Muluba leading.
“After the meeting I couldn’t tell a Muluba from a Muena Lulua or a Mukete, they all seemed to be so happy to be together again.”
When the delegates left, their reconciliation was spread in local villages. A missionary wrote later, “it was a thrill to see the way the people of the different tribes greeted each other … Last April, a year ago, they were fighting each other and burning the villages and killing each other. Now they are together in one presbytery … Since I have been at Luebo, a miracle has taken place.”
‘Osagyefo’ The Provider
Methodist, Presbyterian, and Anglican leaders in Ghana sent a carefully-worded memorandum to the Ministry of Education last month. They outlined in no uncertain terms their reasons for disallowing “Young Pioneer” groups to be formed in their church schools.
The memo was in response to the ruling Convention People’s Party decree that the Marxist youth movement must be represented in every school.
The Protestant leaders’ anxiety over such a development is apparent in view of the Young; Pioneer catechism, which has passages such as these:
“Who gives us our daily bread?”
“Answer—Osagyefo Dr. Nkrumah.”
“Who gives us our clothes?”
“Answer—Osagyefo Dr. Nkrumah. Osagyefo will never die.”
“Osagyefo” is a traditional title meaning “redeemer, messiah, saviour.”
“Dr. Nkrumah” is Ghana President Kwame Nkrumah.
Obstacle To Unity
Ecumencial Press Service reports that proposals for church mergers in North India, Pakistan, and Ceylon have been rejected by the Calcutta Diocesan Council of the Church of India, Pakistan, Burma, and Ceylon. The council is a diocese of one of the bodies involved in the plan. Its action is considered significant because the Bishop of Calcutta is also the metropolitan of the Anglican body. The entire church is expected to act on the proposals at its General Council in 1963.
The mergers would result in the formation of the United Churches of North India and Pakistan and the United Church of Lanka (Ceylon).
The North India and Pakistan plan would be a union of the Anglican body, Methodist Southern Asia Central Conference, British and Australian Methodist Conferences, Church of the Brethren, Disciples of Christ, Council of Baptist Churches, and the present United Church of Northern India. In Ceylon the Lanka Church would combine Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists.
Convention Circuit
Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania—The oldest continuous denomination in America may soon lose its individual identity. The Reformed Church in America, convened last month for the 156th meeting of its General Synod, was confronted by 18 overtures pressing for merger with other churches. Thirteen came from the denomination’s classes and three from particular synods. Eight of the overtures sought possible union with the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (Southern), eight others with the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., one with the United Church of Christ, and one with the Christian Reformed Church.
The feeling of urgency for church union was apparent not only from the high number of overtures, but also in their edgy language. The overture from Classis Metropolitan Jersey declared, “If it be the policy of General Synod to continue aloof … the General Synod should clearly state that policy, enabling constituent congregations, ministers and members to plan accordingly.” The Classis of Ulster was even more plain-spoken: “If … a majority … prevent us again from merging in strength … why then should not (1) Synods …, (2) Classes … (3) Churches unite individually?”
The Standing Committee on Overtures reported that it had “grave doubts whether the ecumenical urge can again be thwarted with impunity.” The synod adopted a committee recommendation “to take steps looking toward merger” with the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. Earlier the Synod had adopted by a unanimous, standing vote a “Joint Resolution” that the two denominations explore 14 areas of common concern. The “Joint Resolution” had been drawn up by committees of the two churches, and had earlier been adopted by a unanimous, standing vote by the Southern Presbyterian General Assembly in May.
The synod also decided “to hold other union possibilities in abeyance.” It was felt that fruitful discussion could not be held at this time with United Presbyterians and the United Church of Christ since both are engaged in ecumenical discussion with three other churches.
Synod debates also had a historic flavor. Echoes of the 334-year-old denomination’s origin were heard as delegates spoke of King George I and the royal charter he had granted to the Collegiate Reformed Church of New York. Collegiate Church is part of the Reformed denomination but still operates under the British royal charter. Discussion centered on the charter’s provisions for the obtaining of ruling elders which conflict with the method prescribed by the denomination’s constitution as amended in 1960. Decision on this highly technical church-state issue was deferred for further study.
An overture from Classis of South Grand Rapids to withdraw from the World Council of Churches was rejected. The classis asserted that the theological position of the Orthodox churches was contrary to the faith of the World Council itself and to that of the Reformed Church, and that the Russian Orthodox Church admitted last year at New Delhi was “completely subservient” to Russian communism. The overtures committee countered that a completely subservient church would not still have its seminaries and churches closed and its bishops imprisoned, and that the admitted divergence of theological position was not such as to exclude such fellowship as obtains within the World Council of Churches.
The Rev. Herman J. Ridder presented a moving report on the denomination’s Preaching-Teaching-Reaching Mission. He declared, “Any evangelism that is not convicted of the fact that men are lost apart from Jesus Christ will die from lack of motivation.” Ridder informed the delegates that many ministers confessed that the impact of the church’s new PTR Mission had changed their view of their own ministry.
The General Synod urged “constant scrutiny” of right-to-work laws and affirmed “the necessity of preserving just collective bargaining.” It also voted “to stubbornly resist all attempts to deprive our children of the religious symbols of Bible reading and prayer in our public educational systems.”
In other action the synod declared that “adultery and desertion may be illustrative rather than definitive patterns through which the ‘one-flesh’ relationship is destroyed.” It urged study to discover whether modern life presents other such “involuntary breache(s) of the marriage ties.”
J.D.
Union Seminary And Accreditation
An emotional floor battle enlivened the twenty-third biennial meeting of the American Association of Theological Schools in Toronto last month.
The debate centered on 150-year-old Bangor (Maine) Theological Seminary, which has been unable to win complete accreditation because some 65 per cent of its students have no undergraduate degree.
An AATS Committee of Review sustained the decision of the Commission on Accrediting not to accredit the seminary.
Bangor President Frederick W. Whittaker appealed to the assembly for a reversal of the decision. The problem came into focus when it became apparent that proposed changes in the AATS constitution and standards of accreditation would make Bangor’s plight permanent.
Dr. Henry P. Van Dusen, president of New York’s Union Theological Seminary, fought vigorously for underdog Bangor. He declared on the floor that if the association adopted the provisions he dissented from he would ask the Union faculty to surrender its own accreditation in favor of an associate ATTS membership. He averred that he was in dead earnest.
Reactions to Van Dusen’s threat were mixed, but the adoption in principle of the proposed changes leaves a question as to whether he will make it good.
It was also announced at the AATS meeting that Meadville Seminary (Unitarian) has been placed on probation for two years following breakup of the Federal Faculty of the University of Chicago.
Toronto—A decision on whether to open formal conversations with the United Church of Canada was postponed for another year by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada.
The proposal from the Presbytery of Victoria for talks to “create better mutual understanding” between the two denominations was referred to a committee on inter-church relations which will report to next year’s assembly.
Both the United and Presbyterian churches in Canada are conducting exploratory conversations with Anglican theologians but not with each other.
Total giving for all purposes to the denomination last year amounted to a record $1,735,000, an increase of seven per cent over 1960. The denomination embraces about 200,000 members.
The assembly raised the basic minimum salary for some 400 ministers by $800 a year to $3, 900. This is in addition to a free manse and a small travel allowance.
In other action, the assembly referred a report on nuclear weapons for Canada to the Board of Evangelism and Social Concerns for study and presentation at next year’s meeting. The report said no nation has a right to resort to nuclear weapons.
Minneapolis—Delegates to the 66th annual conference of the Lutheran Free Church accepted terms of a proposed merger with the American Lutheran Church by a vote of 530 to 112.
The action climaxed several years of deliberation by the 90,250-member LFC on whether it should join the 2,365,000-member ALC, third largest unit of U. S. Lutheranism. It followed two hours of orderly debate in which 24 speakers were heard, 18 for the merger and six against. The opposition cited concern about administrative control over congregations in the ALC and charged modernist and neoorthodox inroads at the larger body’s Luther Seminary at St. Paul, Minnesota.
Augsburg College and Seminary of the LFC will be separated when the merger takes effect. The future of the seminary has not yet been determined.
The LFC originally took part in the planning and discussion that resulted in the formation of the ALC but withdrew from union negotiations after a congregational referendum in 1955 failed by 35 votes to gain a required three-fourths majority favoring the merger. A second referendum in 1957 lost by 15 votes. Approval of the merger finally came last fall when a third referendum resulted in a 32-vote surplus over a required two-thirds majority.
The LFC’s application for membership in the ALC will be presented to its general convention in Milwaukee in the fall. LFC President John Stensvaag said the certification of membership to the ALC will include all congregations, omitting only those that have taken definite action to sever their LFC connection.
Dr. Paul C. Empie, executive director of the National Lutheran Council, predicted that the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod eventually will come into a new Lutheran cooperative association.
Hendersonville, North Carolina—A report condemning corruption in government and degeneration of private moral standards was adopted at the 158th meeting of the General Synod of the Associated Reformed Presbyterian Church.
A request for a study program on physical healing through prayer was referred to a committee for consideration. The committee is expected to report to next year’s synod.
The denomination has some 28,000 members in 147 churches.
Belfast—The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland reaffirmed its membership in the World Council of Churches, although an amendment critical of the basis and policies of the WCC drew considerable support, particularly from younger ministers.
The assembly also reaffirmed a resolution passed last year which emphasizes the refusal to accept episcopal reordination in the interests of negotiations on union with other churches.
Dr. Austin A. Fulton, foreign mission convener, reported that the church has more missionary candidates for its work in India and Nyasaland than it has had in many years. A plentiful supply of ministerial students also was reported.
For the first time an official representative of the Irish Congregational Union was present at the sessions. Informal talks on church union between the Presbyterians and Congregationalists have been going on for some time. Other representatives at the assembly included top officials of the Church of Scotland, United Church of Canada, United Church of Northern India and the Presbyterian Churches in England and Wales.
At a foreign missions session the assembly received a report from the World Presbyterian Alliance urging that Presbyterian and Reformed churches “must undertake, or develop, discussions with the Roman Catholic Church.”
“The calling of the Second Vatican Council is an event which the Reformed churches cannot ignore,” the report declared. “Sympathetic and discerning theological study of the meaning of all these developments for Reformed churches, and for the ecumencial movement as a whole, is a responsibility which the Reformed churches must take seriously.”
Observing that ecumencial discussions are not limited to those churches within the movement, the report said:
“They should be pursued, in addition to the Roman Catholic Church, with those numerous groups, often very slightly organized in an ecclesiastical sense, which had undertaken an enormous amount of missionary work, and were extremely powerful in the countries where the younger churches were established.”
Recruiting Drive
The Church of England is lining up a full-time recruiting officer in a drive to enlist more men for the ministry. The Bishop of Guildford, Dr. George Reindorp, says local clergymen will be urged to preach on the need and that recruiting posters will be sent to every boys’ secondary school in the country.
The Faithful On File
The Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales is checking up on its 3,500,000 baptized members. A census conducted by the Newman Demographic Survey (officially recognized by the hierarchy) aims to cover every parish, and to get such details as educational standard, occupation, size of family and reading habits. Some 26 questions are asked in each interview. “Our inquiry is 100 per cent thorough,” said A. E. Spencer, director of the survey and a former Inland Revenue officer. “Every single household, whether it is known to be Catholic or not, is visited in the parish area. We even cover such places as lodging houses, hotels, and hospitals to be sure we miss no one.” There is a special five-question card for children.
When all the cards are completed for a parish they are sent to London for processing; then a copy is returned to the parish priest, who will pay anything from $200 to $550 for the data.
J. D. D.
An Invitation Declined
Some bellringers find the practice of their ancient art is thirsty work and take steps to remedy this—a fact which has been worrying the Anglican Bishop of Dunwich, the Right Rev. Thomas Cash-more.
Rededicating the bells at a service in Eye parish church, Suffolk, the bishop said: “In some churches bellringers enter the tower to ring the bells calling people to worship and then we see them leaving the church after proclaiming something of the Gospel through the bells. They slink off to the nearest pub to refresh themselves after their energetic action.”
The bishop felt this was like a clergyman who challenged people to come to church, but didn’t appear himself.
Suffolk bellringers, describing the remarks as “not true, uncharitable, unjust, and in rather bad taste,” added curiously: “A real attempt by the incumbent to reform these alcoholics or, alternatively, deny them the use of the bell, would at least indicate that some welcome interest was being taken in their activities.”
J. D. D.
Like A Mighty Army
The crowd at right is one of the largest ever assembled to hear the Gospel. It is a picture of Christendom united around the proclamation of the Word of God. The scene is Soldier Field, Chicago, on Sunday afternoon, June 17, at the final service of evangelist Billy Graham’s 19-day Greater Chicago Crusade. Stadium officials estimated the turnout at 116,000.
Under a cloudless sky the thermometer climbed to 95 at the gigantic stadium along Lake Michigan. The heat was tempered only by a 12-mile-an-hour breeze out of the southwest. Thousands sat under umbrellas, donned straw coolie hats or improvised newspaper headcovers.
Graham spoke twice during the two-hour service, first challenging church people to follow-up Chicago’s new spiritual opportunities, then evangelizing the multitudes. His sermon was based on King Agrippa’s poignant utterance to the Apostle Paul:
“Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian” (Acts 26:28 KJV).
High over the north end of the stadium hung a scriptural inscription, traditional decor at Graham meetings. It blew in the breeze as the evangelist spoke. Ten-foot letters suspended between two poles some 80 yards apart spelled out the Christian definition:
“JESUS SAID: I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.John 14:6.”
Graham drew a parallel between factors responsible for the downfall of the Roman Empire and conditions currently prevailing in America such as the sex binge, deficit government spending, lust for pleasure, reliance upon armaments, and the decay of religion into mere form.
The evangelist, described as “very tired” from having spoken as many as five times a day, recovered to exhibit a closing-day vigor which was unusual even for him. It was Father’s Day, but Graham, whose sermons ordinarily make a point of special occasions, ignored it in deference to the urgency of the hour.
Crowds began to arrive at 9 a.m. for the 3 p.m. service. Like a mighty army they filed into Soldier Field. They included sizeable delegations from as far away as Denver and Toronto. Halfway through the service stadium officials told the Rev. Walter H. Smyth, crusade director, that about 85,000 were then seated in the stands. Up to 5,000 were on the field. Other thousands, especially latecomers, chose to go under the stands instead of venturing into the end zone bleachers behind the platform where the only vacant seats were located. Some who set out for Soldier Field never got there because of traffic jams and lack of parking space.
Several hundred persons in the stands were overcome as a result of the heat. Only two, however, were hospitalized.
The audience at Soldier Field was the largest Graham has ever had in the Western Hemisphere. It eclipsed even his 1957 Yankee Stadium crowd which was estimated at 100,000. Only in England and Australia has he drawn attendances larger than the Chicago turnout (120,000 in London, 143,750 in Melbourne, and 150,000 in Sydney).
Graham’s crusade in Chicago produced an average attendance of 37,000 per service—another record—and an aggregate of 703,000.
The numerical success of the crusade was attributed to four major factors: “Operation Andrew,” a program under which persons interested in the crusade bring friends and neighbors (a spokesman estimated some 1,000,000 visitations in all); unprecedented press coverage; the facilities of McCormick Place, a strategically-located exposition hall the size of six football fields where all meetings but the last were held; and a great emphasis on prayer.
Of infinite more importance in crusade statistics are those who indicated a new commitment to Christ by walking to the platform at the close of a service. In Chicago there were 16,451 of these, including 1,729 who stepped forward at Soldier Field. They represented 2.34 per cent of the audience, compared with the 3.16 per cent average established in 260 weeks of crusades around the world.
The Chicago campaign was shorter than most conducted by Graham in major cities. It seems certain, nonetheless, that never before has a crusade had such an impact upon a metropolitan area. Virtually all sociological strata were penetrated. Teen-age gang members, for instance, attended by the score. The lone segment of the citizenry not significantly touched was the high-rise apartment dwellers, who are often sealed off from visitation efforts.
Among the converts were leading North Shore socialites, a beauty queen, and a youth gang leader. A divorced couple, neither having known the other was there, responded to the invitation at the same service. They plan to be remarried.
The teen-age son of a team member came forward to rededicate his life.
The converted gang leader, in acknowledging his new-found faith, handed over to his counselor a pistol, a knife, and a razor.
One boy met his probation officer in the counselling room.
Decisions were also being made outside the framework of crusade but as a direct result of it. The minister of a large Chicago church came to Graham with a confession that for years he had been preaching beyond his experience. He said he had been convicted of his shortcomings during the course of the crusade and that the Holy Spirit had made him “miserable.” Upon making a commitment he said he would face his congregation the following Sunday as a new man.
At a meeting with 1,400 ministers Graham had urged them to make it a point to preach evangelistically on the morning of the last day of the crusade and to extend an invitation at the close of the service. Some churches reportedly experienced their first such public invitation. At one church that morning a known gangster stepped to the altar and fell to his knees in repentance.
With its reputation as a capital of vice and graveyard of evangelism, Chicago’s spiritual heritage is meager. Little has been done in evangelism since Billy Sunday held his largest crusade there in 1918. The last attempt at a city-wide crusade was made in 1946 with a “Life Begins” campaign with Dr. Paul Rood, Dr. John R. Rice, and Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. The meetings attracted an average of 2,500 per night, with 9,000 present for the final service.
Theologically Chicago has been a center of liberal thought, whereas the city’s evangelical forces have been fragmented. Because of these and other factors, including the mass exodus to the suburbs and the changing population complex in recent years, some observers had been skeptical of a Graham crusade in the city proper.
There were other factors, however, which provided favorable conditions for the crusade. Moody Bible Institute and its radio station, WMBI, have long been champions of the evangelical cause in Chicago. Several other evangelical colleges and conservative seminaries also have been influential. Many evangelical leaders make their home in the Chicago area.
Opposition to Graham’s Chicago crusade came from right and left, although it was not so pronounced as during some crusades. Ministers of the General Association of Regular Baptists were the most aggressive in their opposition, sowing virulent attacks against the evangelist. Some Plymouth Brethren groups underscored a distaste for mass evangelism in general. Other evangelicals, dubious of contacts with liberals, were said to be “swallowing hard.”
In a few cases there was disagreement between laity and clergy over posture toward the crusade. One congregation reportedly demanded the resignation of its minister after he spoke against Graham.
The most outspoken liberal seminary professor was Dr. Gibson Winter of the University of Chicago Divinity School, who said the crusade had set back the church 50 years. Graham countered by saying that Winter had grossly understated Graham’s intentions, which were to carry modern theology back 19 centuries to that of Jesus and the Apostles.
A few liberal Baptist ministers seemed to be the only other vocal opponents although several denominational church groups had voted to stay aloof. Many ministers belonging to these groups cooperated with the crusade wholeheartedly.
The Church Federation of Greater Chicago, which had voted not to endorse the crusade, subsequently opened its offices to serve the effort.
Graham, often advised by physicians to adopt a lighter schedule, finds it hard to limit his speaking engagements to the nightly mass meetings of a crusade. He has more invitations than he can handle, but he is reluctant to turn them down because they frequently represent opportunities not normally available for the proclamation of the Gospel. The evangelist’s friends also make great demands on his time (“His friends,” says a source close to Graham, “are often his worst enemies”). In Chicago Graham appeared on college campuses, in prison compounds, at military installations, and before a variety of civic clubs and community centers. At times these activities are more productive of new spiritual awareness than the mass meetings. Two weeks after Graham spoke at the Chicago House of Correction, the chaplain was quoted as saying that 197 inmates and 7 wardens had come to him for counselling, while chapel attendance increased more than 25 per cent.
Perhaps the greatest impact of the Greater Chicago Crusade is yet to come. More than 167 television stations from coast to coast scheduled a series of five hour-long telecasts made at McCormick Place and Soldier Field. Each program closes with a plea by Graham for viewers to make decisions for Christ.
The scope of the Graham effort made a great impression on officials of the Church Federation of Greater Chicago. The Rev. Charles M. Crowe, a leading Methodist minister, hailed the crusade as having magnified the Protestant faith. He said Christ had been honored and the sordidness of sin held up in the clear light of the Word of God. He credited the Graham team with having demonstrated the meaning of genuine ecumenicity.
“Some of us of the ecumenical crowd,” said Crowe, “have been ecumenical to our own group only.”
Also enthusiastic was Dr. Edgar H. S. Chandler, executive vice president of the federation who as a consultant to the U. S. Information Agency is top religious affairs advisor in the Federal government.
Chandler said he had seen positive results of the Graham crusade around the world and that he had expected great things when the evangelist came to Chicago.
However, he said, the crusade had accomplished “even greater things than I had anticipated.”
It is up to the Chicago area churches to follow-up the personal commitments made during the crusade, he added.
Chandler cited the fact that Graham had “dealt so honestly and definitely with some of the basic social problems of our city and generation.”
He declared that he knew of a number of ministers who previously had been antagonistic or lukewarm toward Graham who had developed more positive attitudes after witnessing the crusade.
Chandler said flatly that if another Graham crusade were scheduled in Chicago he would urge the federation to endorse it officially.
Such an opportunity may indeed come. Herbert J. Taylor, general chairman of the crusade, said the executive committee and crusade supporters in some 1,200 churches will work and pray for a return of Graham and his team—perhaps in 1965.
People: Words And Events
Deaths:Dr. Russell J. Humbert, 57, president of DePauw University; at Traverse City, Michigan … Archbishop Teodors Grunbergs, 92, of the Latvian Church in Exile; at Essingen, Germany … Dr. William Edgar Gilroy, 86, former newspaper columnist and Congregationalist editor; at Newton Centre, Massachusetts … Dr. Frederick Ponsonby Wood, 77, cofounder of the National Young Life Campaign of Britain; in London.
Retirements: As minister-at-large for United Presbyterian Board of National Missions, Dr. Louis H. Evans, Sr.… as pastor of Delmar Baptist Church, St. Louis, Dr. Edwin T. Dahlberg, former president of the National Council of Churches … as president of the American Bible Society, Dr. Daniel Burke.
Elections: As president of the American Association of Theological Schools, Principal G. Johnston of Montreal United Theological Callege … as executive bishop of the General Church of the New Jerusalem (Swedenborgian), the Rt. Rev. Willard D. Pendleton … as moderator of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Robert L. Atwell … as general secretary of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Dr. Andrew J. Gailey … as president of the Methodist Church in Ireland, the Rev. James Wisheart.
Appointments: As American counsul-general to the Federation of the Rhodesias and Nyasaland, Dr. Paul F. Green, noted Southern Baptist educator … as general director of United Church Men, Dr. Don L. Calame … as executive secretary of the Board of Higher Education of the United Lutheran Church in America, Dr. E. Theodore Bachmann … as executive director of the Church Federation of Los Angeles, the Rev. Harry A. McKnight.
George Burnham
George Ralph Burnham, 43, first news editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, died last month in a Chattanooga, Tennessee, hospital. Burnham, who suffered from ulcers, had undergone intestinal surgery and was expected to recover when complications set in.
Burnham left CHRISTIANITY TODAY at the end of 1957 to work with World Vision. He subsequently returned to the Chattanooga News-Free Press, where he had been a reporter for many years.
Burnham was author of two books on overseas evangelism, Billy Graham: Mission Accomplished and To the Far Corners. He also wrote Prison Is My Parish, a biography of Chaplain Park Tucker of the federal penitentiary in Atlanta.
