SUPREME COURT APPEAL—A group of Congregational churches which refused to join a merger with the Evangelical and Reformed Church are appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court. They assert that their legal interests have been denied “without due process of law.” Meanwhile, legal action seeking to prevent the First Congregational Church of Sheridan, Wyoming, from becoming part of the merged United Church of Christ was dismissed by a state court.
PROTESTANT PANORAMA—A Texas pastor is withdrawing his motion asking that Canadian messengers be seated at the annual sessions of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Rev. Nolan M. Kennedy of Amarillo says his withdrawal is based on a desire “to remove every possible hindrance to the Baptist Jubilee Advance.”
A five-member committee of the Disciples of Christ flies to the Congo this month to assess the role of the missionary in the current political climate. The committee’s findings are expected to shape future policies of the Disciples’ United Christian Missionary Society.
A financial crisis in the American Lutheran Church drew 250 of the denomination’s fund-raising leaders to a three-day meeting in Minneapolis. The fund raisers drafted a program aimed at increasing church contributions by more than 25 per cent.
Some 10,000 persons signed “Rule of Life” cards pledging to deepen their spiritual activities during a month-long evangelistic campaign of the Episcopal South Florida Diocese.
A total of 286 of the 327 congregations of the Lutheran Free Church became a part of the American Lutheran Church when the denominations were officially merged on February 1. The other 41 LFC congregations stayed out of the merger and asked not to be certified with congregations joining the ALC.
The American Baptist Convention’s General Council adopted a resolution reaffirming support of church-state separation. A council spokesman said, however, that the resolution was not intended as a reply to an accusation by Dr. Stanley I. Stuber, an American Baptist minister who is executive director of the Missouri Council of Churches. Stuber had charged that some American Baptist institutions are violating church-state separation by accepting federal grants and loans.
MISCELLANY—At least 103 persons were killed when side walls and parts of the roof collapsed at the Roman Catholic Heart of Mary College in Biblian, Ecuador. Some 450 persons were gathered for a service in a second-floor chapel when the disaster occurred.
A resolution pledging efforts toward ultimate creation of a single Orthodox church in the United States was adopted in New York at a convocation of the Russian Orthodox Catholic Church’s Archdiocese of the Aleutian Islands and North America.
Church World Service has set a goal of $16,846,140 this year in its annual “One Great Hour of Sharing” appeal.
Campus Crusade for Christ says it needs 200 new staff members to expand its ministry on international fronts.
A proposed “Charter of Religious Freedom” for all peoples was approved unanimously by the 14-member U. N. Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. The charter is being forwarded to the U. N. Commission on Human Rights, and, if approved there, to the General Assembly.
A delegation of 16 church leaders from the Soviet Union arrives this week and will be introduced as guest-observers at the National Council of Churches’ General Board meeting in Denver.
America, national Jesuit weekly, editorially applauded the student newspaper at City College of New York for discontinuing cigarette advertisements. The magazine noted that most college papers are dependent upon “a product which, according to the evidence, contributes so greatly to the death of thousands every year.”
A proposal to make religious instruction a part of the public high school curriculum, first advanced by the Anglican Primate of Australia, Dr. Hugh Gough, was rejected by the New South Wales’ minister for education, T. J. Wetherell.
A dinner marking the 20th anniversary of the death of the immortal four chaplains of the U. S. S. Dorchester was held in Washington, D. C. Dr. Daniel A. Poling, father of one of the chaplains, noted that his son offered the “perfect prayer” before he sailed on what was to be his last mission: “Lord, make me adequate.”
PERSONALIA—Archbishop Josyf Slipyi, secretly released from a Siberian prison last Christmas after 18 years of confinement, arrived in Rome and was received by Pope John XXIII.
The Rev. A. Dudley Ward named general secretary of the Methodist Board of Christian Social Concerns succeeding Dr. Caradine R. Hooton, who will retire July 31.
The Rev. George E. Kempsell, Jr., rector of the Episcopal Church of St. James the Less of Scarsdale, New York, resigned last month because he had failed to secure “the unanimous support of the church wardens and vestry” in parish programs. Kempsell had attracted nationwide attention with attempts to combat racial discrimination.
The Rev. William Montgomery named moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.
Bishop Iakovos Vavanatsos, who resigned under pressure last year as Archbishop of Athens and Primate of the Orthodox Church in Greece, was reinstated as Metropolitan of Attica and Megaris, the post he had previously held. The charges against him were never disclosed publicly. He was subsequently cleared by a special ecclesiastical court.
The congregation of the First Christian Church of Greensboro, North Carolina, voted 299–98 to keep as its minister the Rev. Charles W. Strong, who was elected to the State Senate as a Republican last November.
Retired Marine Lieutenant General M. H. Silverthorn elected president of International Christian Leadership.
The Rev. Clifford Ray Pritchard, minister of the Highland, Kansas, Christian Church, named “1963 Rural Minister of the Year” by the Disciples of Christ.
The Rev. W. R. Woodell, who recently had both legs amputated, resolves “to continue my ministry as a pastor.” In a radio sermon preached from Arkansas Baptist Hospital, Little Rock, he said that “I never doubted the love and grace of the Lord Jesus.” The amputation was necessary because of a blood vessel and circulation affliction.
Larry Ward, former managing editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, resigned as vice president of World Vision to launch a new organization with photographer-artist Roy B. Wolfe. The new venture, to be known as Tell, will issue religious manuscripts and art and will handle public relations in behalf of Christian organizations.
WORTH QUOTING—“Every time you drop a dollar in the church collection you have to pay nine dollars out of another pocket to pay the cost of crime.”—C. D. De-Loach, assistant FBI director.
“It was a victory of sorts for freedom, but a victory for freedom from religion rather than freedom of religion.”—U. S. Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, reflecting on last year’s Supreme Court repudiation of the New York Board of Regents prayer.
Deaths
DR. ADOLPH KELLER, 91, vice president of the World Presbyterian Alliance; in Santa Monica, California.
DR. IVAN M. GOULD, 54, former executive secretary of the Pennsylvania Council of Churches; in Merrick, New York.
REV. DOUGLAS M. BRANCH, 54, general secretary of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina; in a highway collision near Ahoskie, North Carolina.
J. KELLY SIMMONS, 58, editor of the California Southern Baptist; in Fresno.
DR. GEORGE MCCREADY PRICE, 92, Seventh-day Adventist author; in Loma Linda, California.
