A fortnightly report of developments in religion
For the vacationing Supreme Court it was a summer set aside for trips abroad (Chief Justice Warren), for the August convention of the American Bar Association (Justice White), or for merely puttering around the back yard (Justice Black). Meanwhile, the war of words set off by the court’s June 25 ruling on New York school prayers rankled in the U. S. religious community and even set churchmen at odds with each other.
Protestants were split over the ruling in which the court by a six-to-one majority declared unconstitutional the state of New York’s recommended use of a 22-word interfaith prayer composed by its Board of Regents. Baptist leaders generally applauded the decision, with the notable exception of Billy Graham, while a number of other denominational leaders came out strongly against it, including theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and Episcopal Bishop James A. Pike.
Evangelical opinions were mixed, their main agreement lying in expressed fear that the ruling indicates a trend toward secularization of society. Some were gratified that a blow had been struck at a least-common-denominator type of religion. As the days passed, however, support grew for the view that the position on church-state separation implicit in the Supreme Court action was—as CHRISTIANITY TODAY had editorialized (July 20, 1962)—both defensible and commendable.
But would the ruling be improperly exploited by irreligious secularists? What would the Supreme Court say about Bible reading and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in public schools? Did the Constitution need an explanatory amendment on church-state matters?
These were some of the questions that provided fuel for the fire aroused by the June ruling.
Scores of politicians fanned the flames, assailing the court ruling and calling for a constitutional amendment. By mid-July 49 resolutions had been introduced in Congress for such an amendment.
Chances for passage were not as yet clear.
Roman Catholics initially seemed to be unanimous in their denunciation of the ruling. Subsequently, however, a few of their publications broke ranks. The newsweekly of the Portland (Maine) Diocese eventually endorsed the court’s action “heartily.” An article in Novena Notes, a weekly publication of the Servite Fathers of Chicago, also came to the court’s defense. The article, written by the Rev. James M. Dore, asserted that “only an alarmist would interpret the Supreme Court decision as a certain sign that the country is being sold into the bondage of atheism.”
Delegates to the Denver convention of the National Education Association, representing more than 800,000 teachers, turned down three attempts to state some degree of support for the decision.
What Churchmen Are Saying
The National Council of Churches was officially noncommittal. A joint personal statement was issued by President J. Irwin Miller and General Secretary Roy G. Ross noted that “no one can speak officially” for the council. Their statement did not indicate whether they approved of the Supreme Court’s action. However, Dr. Dean M. Kelley, director of the NCC Department of Religious Liberty, said “many Christians will welcome the decision.” He added that “it protects the religious rights of minorities and guards against the development of ‘public school religion,’ which is neither Christianity nor Judaism but something less than either.”
Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr, professor emeritus of Union Theological Seminary, said the court’s verdict was “the basis of a new suppression.” “The First Amendment was not opposed to, or in favor of (religion), but simply prohibited the establishment or suppression of it. This provision of the Constitution merely meant to prevent the establishment of a particular religion or the suppression of a particular religion, which is necessary in a pluralistic society and a basis for all religion.”
The Christian Century solicited approval of the following statement from a number of Protestant leaders: “We are in agreement with the Supreme Court that ‘It is neither sacrilegious nor antireligious to say that each separate government in this country should stay out of the business of writing or sanctioning official prayers and leave that purely religious function to the people themselves and to those the people choose to look to for religious guidance.’ We call upon the American people to study this decision prayerfully and without political emotion. We believe the court’s ruling against officially written and officially prescribed prayers protects the integrity of the religious conscience and the proper function of religious and governmental institutions.” The signatories included Hampton Adams, Theodore Adams, Roland H. Bainton, George C. Bonnell, Aubrey N. Brown, Jr., Mrs. Porter Brown, C. Emanuel Carlson, Edwin T. Dahlberg, Truman B. Douglass, Harold E. Fey, W. Barry Garrett, A. Raymond Grant, J. Wallace Hamilton, Kyle Haselden, Herschel H. Hobbs, Joseph H. Jackson, Frank E. Johnston, Charles D. Kean, Dwight E. Loder, John Wesley Lord, Malvin H. Lundeen, Carlyle Marney, Martin E. Marty, Edward O. Miller, Samuel Miller, W. Hubert Porter, Richard H. Raines, Mrs. J. Fount Tillman, Edwin Tuller, Cynthia Clark Wedel, and Frank II. Woyke.
Episcopal Bishop James A. Pike said the Supreme Court “has just deconsecrated the nation.” He called for a constitutional amendment to override the verdict. Pike is a member of the bar of the U. S. Supreme Court. For five years he taught in the field of church-state relationships at Columbia University.
The Very Rev. Francis B. Sayre, Jr., dean of Washington Cathedral, said the decision “appears to have broken further the spiritual bond between the Christian faith and our democracy.… I thought President Kennedy missed the point when he advised us to pray at home for this nourishes only our private lives as individuals, but what of our corporate life as a nation? If we cannot prayer together as a country then what will become of our common democracy?”
Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State predicted that the case “will loom as a landmark of religious freedom. The decision strikes down a law under which public officials in New York state sought to use coercive processes of government to make a prayer of their own composing required for an important segment of the population.… The Court did not outlaw prayer; it merely made prayer free of political limitation and control.”
The National Association of Evangelicals issued a 1,295-word statement by its executive committee. The statement noted that Justice Black’s majority opinion “carefully avoided striking down the prayer on the simple grounds that it is a religious activity within a governmental institution. Instead the prayer in question was called unconstitutional because it was written and sanctioned by an official government body … We do not take issue with the point of law on which the majority of the Justices ruled. Indeed if this has served to uphold the constitutional stipulation that church and state must be kept separate we commend the Court for its sensitivities to the dangers involved in even the most minute intrusion upon religious freedom by any agency of the goverment.”
The statement added: “However, the trend toward secularism which is inherent in this decision gravely concerns us … That this (New York) prayer constitutes an ‘establishment of religion’ is certainly arguable.” The NAE urged its constituents to remain alert to future developments:
“Let us watch with prayerful interest the decisions which will come from the next term of the Supreme Court regarding Bible reading and the Lord’s Prayer in public schools. If these rulings do not dispel the confusion created by the current decisions then we should give our support to remedial legislation which will preserve the rights of the majority to maintain our great and vital school traditions.”
Methodist Bishop Fred Pierce Corson charged that the decision “makes secularism the national religion”.… World Outlook, a publication of the Methodist Board of Missions, said the court “erred badly”.… The Christian Advocate, official biweekly organ of The Methodist Church, defended the decision and said it “may well be a step forward wherein God can finally climb off the coins and into the hearts of the American people.”
The president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Dr. Herschel H. Hobbs, said that “what appeared to me to be a tragedy is now clear to me to be one of the greatest blessings that could come to those of us who believe in the absolute separation of church and state”.… National Association of Free Will Baptists called for a constitutional amendment that would permit voluntary, non-sectarian religious exercises in public schools.… The Baptist General Conference in America deferred action on similar proposals at its annual convention in Muskegon, Michigan.
New Cabinet Member
Anthony J. Celebrezze, nominated to succeed Abraham A. Ribicoff as U. S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, will be the second Roman Catholic member of President Kennedy’s cabinet. Attorney General Robert Kennedy is the other.
Church-state observers in Washington have a special interest in HEW affairs. They will probably try to sound out Celebrezze, Democratic mayor of Cleveland, on his views toward federal aid to church-related schools.
Christmas Stamp
The proposed Christmas stamp to be issued by the U. S. Post Office Department probably will show a holly wreath on a door, according to Religious News Service. Franklin R. Bruns, Jr., former director of philately of the Post Office Department, was quoted as saying that there is a commercial motive behind issuance of the stamp. He said the stamp will be issued in either the four-cent or five-cent denomination, depending on whether a five-cent first class postage rate is approved: “Hundreds of thousands of greeting cards are sent unsealed at the printed matter rate of three cents, and the Post Office hopes mailers will want to use the Christmas stamp and, therefore, will send their cards at the first class rate.”
Bruns, who is now acting curator of the Cardinal Spellman Philatelic Museum at Regis College, Weston, Massachusetts, made the comment in a syndicated column on philately.
Plight Of A Book
The 55-member Southern Baptist Sunday School Board voted last month against publishing a second edition of Ralph Elliott’s controversial book, The Message of Genesis.
Elliott immediately charged that there had been a “breach of ethics.” He pointed out that the annual session of the Southern Baptist Convention in June in San Francisco had voted not to ban the book. He said he believed the “basic agreement not to reprint the book was made behind the scenes at San Francisco” in an attempt to avoid the bad publicity of banning the book and yet to achieve the same purpose.
The first printing, which amounted to nearly 5,000 copies, has been exhausted. A spokesman said there had been 1,000 additional back orders.
The book rights may revert to Elliott, in which case he will probably seek another publisher.
Worm’S Eye View
Russian cosmonaut Gherman Titov is fond of saying that he saw no God in space during his 17 orbits of the earth last year. “This,” says evangelist Billy Graham, “is like a little earthworm sticking his head a fraction of an inch out of the ground and saying, ‘I don’t see any Khrushchev, therefore there is no Khrushchev’.” The remark came during Graham’s appearance last month at the Seattle World’s Fair where he spoke to 20,000 persons.
The evangelist proceeded to California for an eight-day crusade in Fresno. Deploring the world-wide Communist infiltration he warned, “We need not fear their philosophy, or the danger that they will make war, but we need to fear their dedication.… One of the things needed is a change in human nature. I think we cannot have moral regeneration without spiritual revival.”
The crusade was supported by some 500 churches in the San Joaquin valley and drew an aggregate attendance estimated at 160,000.
Missionary Statistics
Contributions to Protestant foreign missionary endeavors totaled more than $170,000,000 last year, according to a comprehensive survey published by the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association.
The survey, results of which are disclosed in IFMA’s Missions Annual—1962, shows a total of more than 28,000 foreign missionaries now in service, as reported by missionary boards. Among individual agencies listed, the Southern Baptist Convention shows the largest number of foreign missionaries—1,468.
Next are Seventh-day Adventists with 1,450; Sudan Interior Mission, 1,299; United Presbyterians, 1,269; Methodists, 1,146; and the Christian and Missionary Alliance, 860.
The figures cited above exclude home staff and home missionaries.
Here is a breakdown by associational groupings:
Protestant Panorama
• Representatives of four major Protestant bodies contemplating merger will hold their second meeting in Oberlin, Ohio, March 19–21, 1963. The site was selected by the Executive Committee of the Consultation on Church Union, formed as a continuing organization by the denominational delegates at their first meeting in April at Washington, D. C.
• The Presbytery of Philadelphia will deny accredited church support to Presbyterian Children’s Village of suburban Rosemont because the 84-year-old orphanage will not adopt an integration policy.
• Some 300 members of the Bellevue Baptist Church of Memphis, Tennessee, are holding separate services at a downtown theater because they are miffed at Pastor Ramsey Pollard, former Southern Baptist Convention president, according to a Baptist Press report.
• The Wesleyan Methodist Church of America is marking the 100th anniversary of its Home and Foreign Missionary Society with special services in the United States and abroad.
• The Japan Council of Evangelical Missions voted to merge with the Evangelical Missionary Association of Japan. The merger must still be approved by the missionary association.
• Trans World Radio plans to establish a powerful new short-wave missionary station on the Caribbean island of Curacao.
• An evangelistic campaign in Reykjavik, Iceland, led by Dr. Oswald J. Smith, was described as the largest ever held in the country. Smith spoke through an interpreter. The interdenominational meeting was held in the largest Lutheran church on the island.
• Arizona Bible Institute will merge with the Bible Institute of Los Angeles and will be operated as an affiliate school.
Convention Circuit
Rotterdam, Holland—A leading denominational churchman denounced the World Council of Churches’ overemphasis on organization at a meeting of the International Congregational Council.
Dr. Russell Henry Stafford, who has been president of the ICC since 1958, hailed the “growing orderliness of mutual regard and cooperation” within the World Council, but declared that “none of us wants a Geneva Vatican.”
Stafford cited the danger of “confusing uniformity with unity.” He said that uniformity was “a matter of organization” while unity, being spiritual, does not involve “any mechanism of constitution and by-laws.”
He suggested abandoning the word “church” in ecumenical fellowship and substituting a phrase like “the world Christian movement.”
In its eagerness to draw “as many Christian divisions” as possible into one world organization the council may set up barriers for its own “safeguarding” that will bar small groups “Christian in spirit yet unable conscientiously to assent to the standards thus established,” Stafford observed.
Stafford was succeeded as ICC president by Dr. Norman Goodall, associate general secretary of the WCC.
The 550 delegates subsequently adopted a resolution urging world confessional church bodies to subordinate their activities to those of ecumenical organizations such as the WCC. In other action during the nine-day assembly the delegates turned down a membership application from the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches in the United States. The group is made up of about 200 Congregational churches that did not join the merger with the Evangelical and Reformed Church.
Calgary, Alberta—“The world will lose the battle to save the underdevedoped countries unless Christians come to the rescue.”
The speaker was the Prime Minister of Canada, John Diefenbaker. The occasion was the sixth triennial assembly of the Baptist Federation of Canada.
“Christian faith and ideals are the best weapons against communism in the contest for men’s souls,” said Diefenbaker, a Baptist layman. “This is a big challenge, but it must be met before communism ruins it.”
Some 500 delegates were on hand for the assembly, representing 1,170 churches with 137,000 members in the dominion.
One report asserted paradoxically that in Canada “Baptists outnumber Baptists approximately three to one.” It was a way of stressing the fact that while Baptists make up nearly four per cent of the Canadian population, membership figures of Baptist churches in Canada show little more than one per cent. One of the chief concerns expressed in the assembly was that of trying to reach the large group of “unaffiliated Baptists.”
The assembly coincided with the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Canadian Baptist Foreign Mission Board, which carries on work in India, Bolivia, and Angola.
Delegates adopted a resolution giving encouragement to a more thorough study of religious liberty in the provincial and federal jurisdictions in Canada. Another resolution declared that “one of the basic tenets of our Christian heritage (is) that all men are equal in the sight of God” and reaffirmed belief “in such fundamentals of democracy as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly … without discrimination by reason of race, national origin, color, religion, or sex.”
The assembly also looked into relations with Southern Baptists and some observers even thought the topic a grim reminder that positive “freedom” can easily degenerate into irresponsible “license.” Bad feeling reportedly has been created by certain “missionary activities” of the Baptist General Convention of Oregon-Washington (Southern Baptist). As a result, a number of churches have been planted in Western Canada which are allied with the convention. Satisfaction was expressed, however, over the attitude of Southern Baptist leadership. Delegates of the “Southern” churches in Canada have not been seated at Southern Baptist Convention sessions.
Delegates appealed to labor and management leaders to keep Sunday work at a minimum. They criticized proposals to create legal lotteries.
The year 1963 will mark the bicentennary of organized Baptist work in Canada. The first Baptist church was founded in 1763 near Sackville, New Brunswick, by the Rev. Nathan Mason and 12 fellow Baptists who moved from Swansea, Massachusetts.
Anderson, Indiana—Dedication services for two new buildings were features of the 73rd annual International Convention of the Church of God. One is the 7,500-seat Warner Auditorium, which replaces a frame structure destroyed in a storm two years ago. The other is the $500,000 Anderson College Graduate School of Theology building.
The Church of God with headquarters in Anderson now has more than 200,000 members in 3,200 churches and mission stations throughout the world.
The Rev. R. Eugene Stener, director of the Division of Church Services, emphasized the church’s “vertical fellowship with God” in address to the assembly.
“The church does not exist for itself but for the glory of God,” he said.
“If we lose the vertical dimension,” he warned, “the church is merely an organization; it becomes only a human agency. The church needs to be saved from helpless humanism.”
Winona Lake, Indiana—Delegates to the 78th annual conference of the Evangelical Free Church of America were advised that their denomination has experienced a 10 per cent growth in membership during the past year and that per capita giving jumped from $209.54 to $223.51.
President Arnold T. Olson also announced that the church’s new $400,000 international headquarters building in Minneapolis will be dedicated this fall.
Lexington, Kentucky—Delegates to the North American Christian Convention were told that their church must give up some of its “complacent” attitudes and participate more fully in the movement toward Christian unity. The Rev. Fred Thompson, Jr., minister of the First Christian Church of Chicago, spoke to some 7,000 delegates representing the evangelical wing of the Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ).
He said that although the Disciples have an “historic commitment to unity” they have often failed to put it into practice successfully.
Thompson urged local churches to join the National Association of Evangelicals and to affiliate with local federations of churches “where such participation allows us to remain true to our commitments.”
Warm Beach, Washington—“Science directs us to a better way of living, but Christianity directs us to a better life,” says Dr. Edwin K. Gedney, president of the Advent Christian Church. Gedney made the observation during the 37th biennial meeting of the denomination’s General Conference. He added;
“Science is giving us the greatest knowledge the world has ever known, but the genuine wisdom is found in religion.”
Executive Secretary J. Howard Shaw reported that the denomination now comprises 435 congregations with a membership of 31,000.
Seattle, Washington—Dr. Karl A. Olsson, president of Chicago’s North Park College, called for more conversations between clergy and laymen in a speech before the 77th annual General Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church of America.
“We must break down the wall between the ‘professional’ piety of the clergy and the ‘amateur’ piety of the laity,” he declared, “if we would not wish to create and sustain a Christian ghetto while the world boils outside its walls.”
Conference sessions were attended by some 1,000 delegates and visitors. The denomination has some 60,000 members.
Among actions of the delegates was a resolution endorsing an extensive study of Christianity and communism. Another resolution reaffirmed the denomination’s “forthright stand against racial prejudice in every form.”
Nashville, Tennessee—An appeal to a dissident state convention was made at the 26th annual meeting of the National Association of Free Will Baptists. Delegates voted unanimously to “seek a cordial Christian relationship” with the North Carolina Free Will Baptist Convention, oldest and formerly the largest of Free Will Baptist state conventions. The North Carolina convention withdrew from the national association last March, taking with it about half the state’s 45,000 Free Will Baptists. The other half has formed an association of its own and was officially received into membership by the national body.
Some 2,000 delegates and visitors attended the three-day convention. The Free Will Baptist denomination, which dates back to 1727, now has some 225,000 members in 31 states, with the heaviest concentration in the South.
The current squabble had its origin in the Edgemont Free Will Baptist Church of Durham, North Carolina, where the pastor, the Rev. Ronald W. Creech, was ousted by the state convention’s Western Conference. A minority group backed by the state convention filed suit against the congregation’s majority led by Creech.
The national association stood behind the congregation’s majority group on grounds that a majority of the local church members have a right to run the church’s affairs. The state Superior Court ruled in favor of the majority group of the church, said to be the state’s largest Free Will Baptist church.
The national association favors a congregational form of church government and contends that disagreement over polity is the basic issue in the dispute. The state convention, which supports a more connectional polity, maintains that the controversy involves additional factors, including theological differences on the security of the believer. The controversy over Creech entailed his criticism of Mount Olive (North Carolina) Junior College, a regionally-accredited school operated by the state convention. Creech feels that Mount Olive’s policies on separated Christian living have been too liberal. College officials say the real issue is Bible school curriculum versus Christian liberal arts.
Painesville, Ohio—Another Lutheran merger was virtually assured when the annual convention of the National Evangelical Lutheran Church unanimously pledged “whole-hearted support” of proposed union with the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Organized in 1898 by Finnish immigrants who broke off from the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church (Suomi Synod), the NELC has been in pulpit and altar fellowship with the Missouri Synod since 1923. According to conditions which the 12,000-member NELC set up for the merger, a permanent “Board for Finnish Affairs” will be maintained even after the merger. The board will oversee recruitment and training of Finnish students, publication of Finnish religious literature, and establishment and maintenance of church work where the Finnish language is used.
Cape May, New Jersey—Statements supporting the United Nations and opposing capital punishment were approved at the biennial Friends General Conference. The assembly, attended by some 3,000 Quakers, was held in a large tent. A convention hall which was to have been the meeting place was destroyed by last March’s ocean storm.
School Priorities
Which comes first in a Christian college: academic achievement or development of Christian character?
A report from the third quadrennial Convocation of Christian Colleges, held June 17–21 in Northfield, Minnesota, indicates that Christian educators differ sharply on that question.
A specific breakdown of opinions, however, was unavailable inasmuch as no attempt was made during the convocation to reach definite conclusions or to establish a consensus. Dr. James M. Godard, executive director of the Council of Protestant Colleges and Universities, said the group tried merely to “delineate and recognize” issues common to most of the 165 participating colleges.
In three featured lectures, Dr. John Dillenberger of San Francisco Theological Seminary presented a case for increased separation between church and university. The difference between the church and the university, he said, was that “to the church Christ is the truth while to the university, truth may be Christ.”
Dillenberger asserted that in the modern era “there can be a church-related college, but there can no longer be a Baptist or Methodist or Presbyterian college.” He asserted that there is no longer even a denominational theology and “differences are now greater within denominations than between them.”
The convocation was sponsored by the Council of Protestant Colleges and Universities with the cooperation of the Commission on Higher Education of the National Council of Churches.
Christian Depression
The number one health problem among Christians is depression, according to Dr. David F. Busby, a psychiatrist who treats missionaries and ministers.
Busby, of Niles, Illinois, told delegates to the North American Christian Convention that Christians in general tend to identify psychological problems with sin.
“Sin can be and is the main contributing factor in mental illness, but I do not believe that the Bible offers any guarantee by the Lord against breakdowns among his people,” he said.
Describing his experience with treating students at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Busby said that many felt their depression was caused by “something wrong in their spiritual lives.”
“The truth was that they were often going without adequate sleep, or food, or protection in bad weather,” he said. “They wanted God to take their depression away, but they were violating his natural health laws.”
Anglicans In Session
During the summer session of the Church Assembly at Westminster the Archbishop of Canterbury announced the resumption of conversations with Presbyterians, his own impending visit to the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow, and the appointment of three Anglican observers to the Second Vatican Council in Rome. The assembly’s reaction ranged from cool silence through audible approval to overwhelming applause at the third announcement. Dr. Ramsey went on to name the Anglicans chosen: the Bishop of Ripon, Dr. J. R. H. Morman; Dr. Frederick Grant, formerly dean of Seabury-Western Theological Seminary; and the Venerable Charles de Soysa, Archdeacon of Colombo.
“The deep doctrinal differences between the Church of Rome and our own Church,” said the archbishop, “do not alter the call that comes to all Christians to pray for the forthcoming Vatican Council that it may by God’s blessing serve the cause of Christendom in truth and righteousness.”
Since the Reformation official contacts between Romans and Anglicans have been few and far between. Archbishop Laud in the seventeenth century records that he was offered a cardinal’s hat if he could reconcile the two—and replied that while Rome remained as she was he could not do so. At the first Vatican Council in 1870, an appeal from Pius IX to all separated Christians to return to Rome evoked some unfriendly comments from the rest of Christendom. During the present century, however, there has been an increasingly friendly exchange of views, climaxed by the former Archbishop of Canterbury’s 1960 papal visit.
The assembly discussed the use of a single lectionary for the whole church, in place of the several currently in use. Presenting an official report, the Bishop of Winchester, Dr. S. F. Allison, suggested that the employment of a uniform lectionary would foster daily home Bible reading. Many agreed with the principle, although one speaker deplored the “lust for uniformity.” Some raised strong objection to details in the proposed new lectionary. A layman pointed out that the Epistle to the Romans, which he described as “the key to the whole of the Scriptures,” was read in church on Sundays only three times in the course of the year if the new table were followed. This was in marked contrast to the many lessons from the Apocrypha.
An Oxford scholar criticized the new lectionary because it contained too much Old Testament typology, while a London professor complained that the Old and New Testament lessons for given days were totally unrelated. Finally, after going from the united assembly to the House of Clergy, the new lectionary was rejected.
Later in the week there was a long debate on intercommunion, when evangelicals fought their customary losing battle against those who hold that “the bishops are the guardians of the sacraments,” which sacraments are efficacious only “if the person has had episcopal hands laid on him.” Though Church of England practice varies towards non-Anglicans, the high church party’s bloc vote carried the day in the assembly in upholding an exclusiveness (except in exceptional circumstances) expressed in the catchword, “We don’t want a free-for-all.”
J. D. D.
Whose Table?
A flurry of protests in the Church of England greeted the Bishop of Leicester’s decision to invite all baptized delegates at a forthcoming ecumenical youth conference at Leicester to receive communion.
“This action,” complains the General Council of the Church Union, “offends and thereby exacerbates differences within the Anglican communion and is likely to impair both the work of the ecumenical youth conference and other efforts to promote Christian unity.” The Church Union, which represents a pronouncedly high church position, holds to the letter of the Prayer Book in stating that no one should take Holy Communion before or until they have been confirmed.
Said Dr. Arthur Kirby, a free church minister concerned with the conference arrangements: “The Church Union statement … is unreasonable. It claims that the joint communion service would offend the convictions of Anglicans, but what of the convictions of free church members? Refusal by the bishop would offend them.”
Said the bishop, Dr. Ronald Williams: “What I am doing is in line with general informed opinion in the Church of England as witnessed at the meeting of the World Council of Churches in New Delhi when the Archbishop of Canterbury took part in a similar service.”
Warm approval of Dr. Williams’ action is expressed in a statement from the the Council of the Church Society (i.e. the evangelical wing) which “welcomes this return to the historic Church of England practice of inviting baptised communicants of other denominations to the Lord’s Table.”
J. D. D.
Trying Again
At the college of the Venerable Bede, in the shadow of the ancient cathedral at Durham, private talks were resumed last month between representatives of the national churches of England and Scotland. It was the first official meeting since the Presbyterian General Assembly rejected a significant Anglican bishops’ report three years ago. Prior to this decision, various smoke screens had confused issues: an ill-informed press campaign which regarded the imposition of episcopacy of Scotland as the badge of national inferiority; sporadic sniping by high church Anglicans on both sides of the border; and a general misconception that the purpose and sole topic of the negotiations was the terms on which the Church of Scotland would accept bishops.
Conferees stress that they do not presently intend to undertake negotiations for reunion between the two churches, but to prepare the way for any future meetings. Conversations have been going on for some 30 years, but four problems still remain unresolved. These are: the meaning of unity as distinct from uniformity in church order; the meaning of “validity” as applied to ministerial order; the doctrine of Holy Communion; and the meaning of “the apostolic succession” in relation to all these matters.
Also taking part in the discussions at Durham were delegates from the Presbyterian Church of England and the Episcopal Church in Scotland.
J. D. D.
Canonical Sleepwear
“No Ecclesiastical Person shall wear any Coif or wrought Night-cap, but only plain Night-caps of black silk, satin, or velvet.”
The need for revising such passages of the Church of England Canons is only too apparent, but revision requires Parliamentary sanction, so the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have sent a letter to inform and enlist the support of members of the Houses of Lords and Commons. Their consent is necessary also for revision of the Book of Common Prayer, which has its 300th birthday this year.
“The thought which is being given to these problems in our own Church,” says the Archbishops’ letter, “is being matched in other parts of the Anglican communion and, indeed, throughout Christendom.” What is desired is not a complete alternative Prayer Book (request for which was refused by Parliament in 1927–28), but merely what the letter calls “experimental variations in public worship.”
J. D. D.
A Jewish Toll
Twenty-eight Jews were reported to have been among the 46 persons sentenced to death in the Soviet Union since last fall for so-called “economic offenses.”
A British Jewish leader charged last month that there is a growing conviction Soviet authorities are using Jews as scapegoats for economic ills in the Soviet Union.
Sir Barnett Janner, chairman of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said Jews around the world are watching with increasing concern the mounting toll. He declared that in no other country in peacetime would such offenses merit such savage penalties.
Sir Barnett commented that the 28 death sentences among Jews represents not only “an inexplicably high proportion of the total, even after making full allowance for the fact that Jews are largely city dwellers, but the accounts of the court hearings—conducted often as show trials—reveal a distinct anti-Jewish bias.”
Parochial Protest
Roman Catholic parents and clergy are protesting the lack of government aid to church-related schools in Goulburn, Australia. To do so they have closed eight parochial schools, from primary grades through college, thereby flooding the public school system with an additional 2,200 pupils. Goulburn’s public schools have a normal enrollment of 2,900.
Catholic Archbishop Eris O’Brien of Canberra and Goulburn termed aid to the church-related schools “a sound business proposition.” He said that the schools had been closed “to draw attention to the extent of the dependence of the state upon the contribution which the Catholic schools make to education.” Protestant leaders generally condemned the action, though Anglican A. C. King, Dean of Goulburn, termed the decision “courageous.”
Bomb In The Basilica
A small time bomb was exploded in St. Peter’s Basilica last month. The blast came an hour and 20 minutes after the gigantic mother church of Roman Catholicism had been closed for the night and a patrol of Vatican police had just completed a routine inspection of the empty structure.
Vatican authorities requested the help of the Italian armed forces in finding the person responsible.
The explosion caused only slight damage. It splintered the ledge of a monument to Pope Clement X and shook up a nearby organ. Five days later another explosion rocked Italy’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Rome.
Indian Ecumenism
A commission representing five South Indian Lutheran churches and the Church of South India moved closer toward organic union in a spring meeting at Bangalore. It adopted and recommended a litany for immediate use in the churches and a statement of faith to be referred to the negotiating churches for acceptance. The statement was unanimously adopted by the commission although it represents various Lutheran traditions, among them the Missouri Synod. If accepted the statement will be included in the constitution of the united church.
Africa On The Bridge
New anti-Christian legislation will greatly hinder missionaries in the African Sudan where Christians number just four per cent of a predominantly Moslem population. The new regulations ban Christian social activities, except by permission of the Council of Ministers, and forbid missionary interference in the Sudan’s foreign relations—appeals by the missionary to his embassy and the release of reports for foreign publication. The legislation caps a decade of missionary persecution in which church schools have been confiscated, missionaries expelled and the contracts between nationals and missionaries curtailed.
Moslem-Christian relations also are an issue in Nigeria where the people of the south, largely pagan or Christian, denounced last month the proposal of Premier Ahmadu Bello to establish a commonwealth of Muslim nations.
At the other end of the Moslem-Christian scale, the two nations of strongly Christian Ruanda-Urundi were moving toward a difficult but so-far peaceful independence. Catholics number 2,000,000 and Protestants 200,000 in a total population of nearly 5,000,000.
Missionary Slayings
A Canadian Mennonite missionary to Somalia was stabbed to death last month by a Moslem who had charged that the Mennonites menaced his faith, which is the state religion of the Somali Republic.
Religious News Service identified the victim as Merlin Grove, whose wife was critically injured. Grove was acting director of the Somalia Mennonite Mission at Mogadishu.
He was attacked at his desk as he enrolled students for an English language class. His wife heard him cry out and ran from her home nearby, followed by the couple’s three children. An aide attempted to wave her back from the scene, but she fell to the ground and was stabbed in the abdomen by the Moslem.
Evangelical Press Service reported last month that a missionary from New Zealand, Graham Roy Orpin, 26, died May 19 in a hospital at Pitsanuloke, Laos, after he was robbed and shot by tribal bandits.
Orpin served with the Overseas Missionary Fellowship. Early in June his wife gave birth to a boy.
People: Words And Events
Deaths:Dr. H. Richard Niebuhr, 67, leading Protestant scholar and brother of noted theologian Reinhold Niebuhr; in Greenfield, Massachusetts. H. Richard Niebuhr was Sterling Professor of Theology and Christian Ethics at Yale University Divinity School. He was ordained in the Evangelical and Reformed Church … Miss Esther Ellinghusen, 66, who with Dr. Henrietta C. Mears founded Gospel Light Press; in Hollywood, California.
Elections: As president of the American Bible Society, Everett Smith … as national YMCA president, Judge Beach Vasey … as executive director of the Lord’s Day Alliance of the U.S., Dr. Harold E. Mayo … as president of the American Society for Church Architecture, William S. Clark … as president of the Baptist Federation of Canada, Dr. A. J. Langley … as moderator of the National Association of Free Will Baptists, the Rev. W. Stanley Mooneyham … as bishop of the Korean Methodist Church, the Rev. Hwan Shin Lee.
Appointment: As president of Hope College, Dr. Calvin Vunder Werf … as Protestant chaplain to American residents in Moscow, the Rev. Donald V. Roberts, Presbyterian minister. (The appointment of Roberts was announced by the National Council of Churches. An NCC official termed the post of “important ecumenical significance.”) Two men have confessed to the robbing and killing.
