Pirates And Presbyterians
A devout band of twenty-nine Cuban Presbyterians who escaped to the Bahamas fell victim to a kidnapping assault by Castro’s gunboats last month. Nineteen of the refugees were seized and returned to Cuba by armed troops who landed on the British island of Anguilla Key. Others hid behind rocks or buried themselves in the sand. The refugees said their group included no revolutionaries, “only humble God-fearing people.” Said one: “Our only arms were Bibles.”
Convention Circuit
Delegates to the thirty-seventh biennial convention of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod voted 138 to 28 to withdraw from the 91-year-old Lutheran Synodical Conference, oldest association of conservative Lutherans in America. The action was described as a protest against the largest member of the conference, the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, which was charged with doctrinal deviations.
The Mennonite Church’s biennial General Conference adopted a new “Confession of Faith,” marking the denomination’s first revision of beliefs in more than forty years. Also approved was a “Brief Statement of Mennonite Doctrine” for liturgical use.
The National Association of Free Will Baptists assailed the Supreme Court ban on public school devotions in a resolution adopted unanimously by some 2,000 delegates.
Appointment of a committee to conduct ecumenical conversations was approved by delegates to the 151st annual Seventh Day Baptist General Conference. The action was in response to an invitation from the American Baptist Convention to engage in conversations exploring the possibility of interdenominational cooperation and merger.
Miscellany
The Greek Orthodox Church is renting space in the New York World’s Fair pavilion being erected by the Protestant Council of the City of New York. In deference to Orthodox participation, the pavilion, previously named “The Protestant Center,” will now be known as “The Protestant and Orthodox Center.”
The World Council of Churches is appealing for $500,000 for relief work in quake-stricken Skopje. A development of 100 prefabricated homes is planned. Church World Service has already dispatched tons of drugs and clothing.
Foreign missionaries are forbidden to proselytize under a sweeping new legal code promulgated by King Mahendra of Nepal, where Hinduism is the state religion.
National Presbyterian Church in Washington was sold last month for $2,575,000. It will be torn down to make room for a new office building. A new church will be constructed along Massachusetts Avenue by the local congregation. An adjoining Presbyterian Center will be established by the United Presbyterian General Assembly.
Retired ministers are entitled to reduce their taxable income by the rental value of homes they occupy, provided that the dwellings in effect constitute compensation for past services, according to a ruling by the Internal Revenue Service.
New bishops were consecrated by the Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese in the United States and Canada despite charges that a reorganization was Communist-inspired. Bishop Dionisije of Libertyville, Illinois, has refused to recognize his suspension by the church’s council of bishops last May in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. He said the action was “under the pressure of Tito’s Communist regime of Yugoslavia.”
The Brazilian government is considering a suggestion that it issue a series of stamps honoring Yemanja, voodoo water goddess, at the end of the year.
Personalia
Dr. Robert D. Rasmussen appointed director of the Commission on the Ministry of the American Baptist Convention.
Dr. C. James Krafft, Dallas pediatrician, elected president of the Christian Medical Society.
The Rev. Tom Allan named editorial director of The Christian, an evangelical British weekly. He will continue also as minister of St. George’s Tron Church in Glasgow.
The Rev. Rex Burdick elected president of the Seventh Day Baptist General Conference.
The Rev. Arthur Blazall, 72-year-old Anglican clergyman, will stand trial in South Africa on charges of violating the Suppression of Communism Act.
The Greek government refused to allow re-entry to the country of the Rev. Argos Zodhiates, for seventeen years the pastor of Katerini Evangelical Church, the nation’s largest Protestant congregation. Zodhiates is a Greek from Cyprus and a British subject.
Worth Quoting
“The test ban could, in the future, be as important for humanity as the birth of Christ.”—General David M. Shoup, commandant of the Marine Corps.
“I am convinced that we are spiritual beings and only in a very secondary sense physical. Also, I think with our limited capacities we know practically nothing. But the future is resplendent with light.”—Dr. Earl Douglass, noted Bible commentator, on his seventy-fifth birthday.
“We need a time frequently when we think about something besides a dollar or a nickel or another cigarette.”—Former President Eisenhower, in urging a prayer room for the Eisenhower Center at Abilene, Kansas.
DEATHS
DR. JESSE M. BADER, 77, general secretary of the World Convention of Churches of Christ (Disciples); in New York City.
DR. EDWARD D. KOHLSTEDT, 88, retired Methodist Church official and former president of the Home Missions Council of North America; in Menlo Park, California.
GUISEPPE MOSCHETTI, 55, one of the world’s leading church organists, a former Roman Catholic priest most recently director of music at St. John’s Lutheran Church, Allentown, Pennsylvania; in Allentown.
THE REV. W. REGINALD WHEELER, 74, former secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions; in New York City.
DR. EARLE W. GATES, 54, past president of the International Society of Christian Endeavor; in Buffalo, New York.
