BOLT ON THE NOSE—Lightning struck a TWA jetliner which carried among its 110 passengers 23 members of the Bethel Bible Lands Tour led by Dr. George E. Failing, editor of The Wesleyan Methodist. The plane was hit eight minutes after it left London Airport for New York. It returned to London safely despite a hole in the nose cone. Failing’s party, which included five ministers, was on the last lap of a 17-day tour of Europe and the Middle East. Also aboard were Hollywood actor Warren Beatty and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer president Robert O’Brien. No one was injured.
PROTESTANT PANORAMA—Lutheran Film Associates say the award-winning picture drama Question 7 will be available for church showings beginning September 1. Concordia Films will handle scheduling. Theme of the film is the conflict between Christianity and Communism in East Germany.
A Baptist church in Elche, Spain, closed by the government since 1955, has been reopened, according to Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board.
International Christian Broadcasters, an evangelical group, is calling for a worldwide chain of prayer on Sunday, June 9, “that Christian broadcasting may make great new advances to the glory of God.” Meanwhile, an ecumenically oriented group announced plans for a new World Association for Christian Broadcasting to replace the loosely knit World Committee for Christian Broadcasting organized in 1953.
Evangelical Free Church of America will begin missionary work among Moslems in the Philippines.
Lutheran Synodical Conference closed out work among Negroes in North America with the sale of Immanuel Lutheran College, Greensboro, North Carolina, to the state, and Alabama Lutheran Academy and College, Selma, Alabama, to the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.
Assemblies of God report a 10 per cent increase of contributions for world missions during 1962. Total was more than $7,350,000, which topped the previous year’s figure by some $690,000.
MISCELLANY—U. N. member states are urged to abolish the mandatory death penalty in a resolution adopted by the organization’s Economic and Social Council. Full U. S. support of the “death sentence ban” was promised by Ambassador Jonathan B. Bingham.
Two practice teachers at a Memphis high school say they were ordered to halt discussion of the theory of evolution. Tennessee law prohibits teaching that man descended from a lower form of animals. School officials say the theory can be cited as pertinent thought but not as something to be believed in. A county judge ruled that the American Baptist Convention must pay taxes on about half of its 55½-acre national offices property at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. He said the convention and associated organizations are “purely public charities” but that 28½ acres are taxable because they are not necessary for the occupancy and “enjoyment of said charity.”
Spokesmen for HCJB, Christian radio station in Quito, Ecuador, say listener response during 1962 included 460 pieces of mail from Communist-controlled countries. The station is heard via shortwave around the world. A number of programs are beamed directly to the Soviet Union and its satellites.
Roman Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles refused to allow Father Hans küng, controversial German theologian, to speak at the UCLA campus. Officials said it was “routine” for a traveling Catholic clergyman to seek permission to speak in a local diocese and that Küng made his request too late.
A “Christian Peace Council,” its political orientation uncertain, will be formed at a constituting assembly in Japan next month. Fifteen members of the Diet, meanwhile, introduced a bill to revive the National Party Day and thereby stirred wide protests from Christian groups who say the move would open the way for rebirth of national Shinto.
Federal Communications Commission is investigating a shortwave station featuring daily overseas broadcasts by Dr. Carl McIntire. One report said the Voice of America has complained that the station, WINB in Red Lion, Pennsylvania, confuses overseas listeners and distorts the image of America. WINB currently operates under a temporary authorization to broadcast test programs.
Nine church bodies in British Guiana petitioned the Ministry of Education for a meeting to discuss “a workable agreement to the government’s plan to set up a Teachers’ Service Commission.” Traditionally, schools in British Guiana have been operated under church sponsorship.
PERSONALIA—“Miss Methodist Student Nurse” for 1963 is a Latvian-born Lutheran, 21-year-old Diane Boitman of Clinton, Iowa. She was chosen for scholastic achievement and dedication to a Christian vocation in a nationwide contest sponsored by the National Association of Methodist Hospitals and Homes.
Congressman Adam Clayton Powell publicly withdrew an announcement that he would resign as minister of Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City effective December 31. He said he would continue to serve his Harlem congregation without salary.
Captain James E. Reaves, a Methodist minister, named senior chaplain at the U. S. Naval Academy.
The Rev. William E. Pannell, Negro evangelist, named to the crusade staff of Youth for Christ International.
The Rev. Floyd C. Woodworth, Assemblies of God missionary leader in Cuba, was released from a Havana jail and flown to Miami after being detained for 20 days on an assortment of charges, including one that he spied for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Christian Research Foundation awarded Professor Bruce M. Metzger of Princeton Theological Seminary a $1,000 prize for his book, Chapters in the History of New Testament Textual Criticism.
The Rev. Larry McGuill appointed to the newly created post of secretary of evangelism in the United States for the Pocket Testament League.
Editor Henry L. McCorkle of The Episcopalian elected president of Associated Church Press. The Rev. Alfred P. Klausler, editor of the Walther League Messenger, will resume his position as executive secretary. He had been forced to give up the post during a tour of active duty as military chaplain.
Among 129 personnel aboard the atomic submarine Thresher lost in the North Atlantic this month was Lieutenant Robert D. Biederman, a leader of the Officers Christian Union chapter in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Biederman traced his conversion experience to student days at a naval architecture school on Long Island. An OCU spokesman described him as “a very clear witness for the Lord.”
WORTH QUOTING—“Church and state should have separate sources of income, the state levying taxes on its citizens, and the church receiving gifts from its members. Careful consideration should be given to the question whether state support of churches tends to weaken the sense of responsibility and participation of church members.”—From a statement adopted by delegates to the First European Baptist Conference on Church and State in Ruschlikon, Switzerland.
“I don’t see why only the Communists get all the propaganda value out of their martyrs. It’s about time we Christians woke up to the fact that martyrs have always been the seed of the Church.”—The Rev. Kenny Joseph, American missionary to Japan, in launching a “Martyred Missionaries’ Fund” for widows of two Wycliffe Translator missionaries killed in Viet Nam.
Deaths
THE RT. REV. G. ASHTON OLDHAM, 85, retired Episcopal bishop and former member of the executive committee of the World Council of Churches; in Litchfield, Connecticut.
DR. J. J. HOFFMANN, 92, noted Methodist minister and former professor at Wheaton College; at Penney Farms, Florida.
THE REV. BERNARD SIGAMONEY, 75, first Indian priest of the Anglican church in South Africa and an outspoken foe of apartheid; in Johannesburg.
PAT BEAIRD, 63, executive vice-president of the Methodist Publishing House; in Nashville, Tennessee.
