In the window of Follett’s Bookstore in Ann Arbor, Sex and the College Girl and racy Ian Fleming mysteries flanked Peace With God and My Answer in uneasy togetherness. In other stores near the University of Michigan campus, modest placards announced that Dr. Billy Graham would hold a three-day lecture series for students and staff. A much larger sign in front of the Michigan Union proclaimed National Negro History Week (and, ironically enough, Graham was destined to speak and answer students’ questions—some of them on race—from the same ornately carved hardwood lectern that Governor Ross Barnett of Mississippi used during a controversial appearance at Michigan last fall).
Billy Graham’s visit to Michigan, sponsored by a university agency and by the Michigan Christian Fellowship, was the first of several campus appearances in February. Later he traveled east to address students at Harvard, Radcliffe, and Wellesley. Typically thought of in the context of the overflow crowd in the largest stadium in town, Graham was deliberately planning for smaller audiences in order to get the university student alone with his peers and approach him on his own ground. There was no singing, no praying, and, at the main meetings, no invitation.
“I want to be all things to all men,” Graham said, and he laced his messages with heavy doses of Hemingway, Steinbeck, O’Neill, Einstein, and Toynbee—names students respect. Nicodemus was a “theological professor”; Paul’s Mars Hill address was a speech before a “university audience.” Words like “philosophical,” “psychological,” and “intellectual” were probably used many more times in Graham’s talks than in a typical university lecture hour, but the heart of the message was the same Graham has preached to 40 million people the world over. “Man has a moral disease,” he said. “There are more sophisticated names for it, but I’m going back to the original name. It’s called sin.”
“Joseph Goebbels got his Ph.D. at Heidelberg. What causes a Goebbels, an Eichmann, a Lee Oswald, to do the things they did?” he asked repeatedly. “What is it inside of people?”
To students seeking “commitment” of some sort, Graham presented Christianity as “something to march for … something to wave a flag about.”
“It involves the intellect, it involves the emotions, but primarily it involves the will,” he said.
The students in turn had questions for Graham, many more than could be anwered at the lectures and panel discussions.1Panelists at Michigan included Graham; Dr. Kenneth Pike and Dr. Gordon van Wylen, both professors at the university; Dr. Akbar Haqq of India, a specialist in comparative religion; and Dr. Merrill C. Tenney, dean of the Graduate School of Wheaton College. At Harvard, where there were fewer panels, questions were answered by Graham, Haqq, and Dr. John White, a Ph.D. from Oxford. Graham talked at length on the “moral problem,” and, predictably, sex was the subject of many questions. One card handed forward mentioned “extramarital relations,” which was pronounced “extramartial” by a flustered moderator.
Christian students and workers, who had been preparing for the meetings for about a year under the leadership of MCF President Bryan Mawhinney, estimated that 6,000–8,000 students and university affiliates (the student body numbers 27,000) had heard Graham. They reported a number of conversions and said that at least 325 inquiry cards (the basis of indigenous student follow-up work) had been turned in.
The spirit at Michigan, which had been friendly from the start, was carried over at Boston, where Graham flew in to speak at Sunday evening services at Tremont Temple and Park Street Church. More than 100 persons, mainly young people, responded to the invitation at Park Street. And at Wellesley the next day, Graham’s message to more than 1,300 students was followed by discussions in student houses.
But the reception at Harvard, the East’s monument to non-regimentation, was distinctly cooler. “Students here are different,” said Hans Schemer, a senior, who was chairman of the ad hoc committee that brought Graham to the campus. “Or at least they think they are, and that’s what counts.”
“I think the fun part is when he asks everybody to come up to the front of the room,” said one Harvard man on the way to the first meeting, and it was evident that some of the 800 students who had sloshed their way through ten inches of snow had come for laughs. A reference to the Holy Spirit drew a few titters. Students derided Graham’s use of Time, reportedly read at Harvard only for entertainment, not as a source of information. “The Bible in one hand—and Time magazine,” sniffed one student after one of the meetings.
But there were visible results, even on the first evening: eighteen students stood up at an “after-meeting,” held in another building, indicating commitment.
With a student population about half that of Michigan, Harvard did not turn out in great numbers. Some 800 to 900 students half-filled the auditorium at the three main meetings. The Boston area was hit with the two biggest blizzards of the winter during the week, and there were the inevitable minor mishaps. A Boston paper got the time of the first meeting wrong, and hundreds of Harvard and Radcliffe students followed the false lead. Even so, it was a “very good Harvard crowd,” said an Inter-Varsity staffer; it was also said to be the best-attended Harvard “mission” of the century.
During the question-and-answer period on the afternoon of the second day, there was some hissing of a student who tried unsuccessfully to get Graham rattled with a series of captious questions. And as the meetings progressed, it became evident that the ice was melting. The audience listened with hardly a move when Graham spoke the second evening. Attendance at the after-meetings increased from 150 on the first night to about 350 on the third, and Inter-Varsity leaders reported that at the end, over 100 inquiry cards, the majority of which indicated commitment, had been turned in.
Graham was also given an attentive hearing at a meeting of psychiatrists (Harvard has ten on its staff), deans, and masters.
In an eloquent introduction to the third evening talk, the chairman of the United Campus Ministry thanked Graham for “being yourself among us,” adding parenthetically that he wished that Graham would say “less about what the Bible says, and more about what Christ says.” When Graham rose to speak, he said, “I want to turn to the Bible, if I might [laughter], for a quotation of Jesus, because I do not know any quotations of Jesus outside the Bible [laughter and applause].”
In his message Graham quoted John Harvard, whose name the university bears, and whose conviction it was that Christ was “the only foundation for knowledge and learning.”
The climax came when Graham, introduced by Dean Samuel Miller, addressed some 200 students at the Harvard Divinity School, giving a plea for “that other voice,” the voice of God, in preaching today, and defending himself against various criticisms that have been leveled at his theology and methods. (To one questioner, who alluded to this magazine, Graham said drily, “I didn’t know anybody here read CHRISTIANITY TODAY.”) The applause at the end of the almost two-hour meeting was sustained.
“If he can be accepted here, he can be accepted anywhere,” said Dr. Harold Ockenga afterward. Ockenga, minister of Park Street Church, called the series of meetings “superb.”
The evangelist, also in Boston to prepare for the area-wide crusade this fall, outlined his plans at a meeting to which over 500 New England ministers came, despite icy roads. “There was great enthusiasm among these ministers,” said one observer.
Graham’s two-week tour was a milestone in his growing campus ministry. It reflects what the evangelist sees as the heightened religious inquiry on the part of students today. After Graham’s plans for an expanded campus ministry were picked up by the press last summer, over 300 invitations came in within a month from colleges and universities, one as far away as Hong Kong. Graham says that students’ questions today are no longer on science and the Bible, as they were five and six years ago, but are more existential—more “theological, philosophical, and psychological,” as he puts it.
Harassment In The Sanctuary
President K. Owen White of the Southern Baptist Convention complained publicly last month that his 3,588-member First Baptist Church of Houston was subjected to a campaign of harassment by the Congress on Racial Equality after he as pastor had refused to debate racial integration.
White, in a press conference at Columbia, South Carolina, told newsmen that his congregation began seating Negroes fifteen months before he was elected SBC head.
Shortly after the election, he said, a CORE official threatened to instigate “an all-out campaign of intimidation” unless White agreed to participate in a public debate.
“I replied that debating was not my approach to the work,” White declared, “and the intimidation began.”
“Every Sunday for several weeks from two to ten Negroes came to our services. Almost every Sunday at least one sought membership.”
White said he and other church leaders counseled with the seekers and concluded that unworthy motivations were involved. The church turns down white seekers on similar grounds, he added.
White’s church still has not admitted any Negroes as members.
White, a native of England, said the South needs sympathetic understanding: “It is hard to effect a revolution overnight,” he added.
A Calm Beginning
The Deputy, a young German’s play about six million murdered Jews and one silent pope, opened in relative quiet on Broadway last month.
In a year of performances of the play in Europe, people have hooted, thrown eggs, and climbed onstage to fight with the actors. Others have hailed it as one of the few real contributions Germany has made toward coming to terms with the past.
About 150 persons picketed the Broadway premiere, including members of the American Nazi Party, who came dressed as storm troopers and wore swastikas. When they arrived, someone shouted, “Come on, Jews, let’s get em. I hate swastikas.” But the crowd that then pushed forward turned out to be mostly reporters who wanted to see what would happen. Nothing did.
Another group of demonstrators, “mostly Catholic” according to a New York newspaper, called themselves the Ad Hoc Committee to Protest the Deputy.
The anti-Deputy faction waved placards reading “Ban Deputy Bigots,” “Anti-Christ Hate Killed JFK,” and “Anti-Christian Hate Show.” Others said “Hurray for Freedom of Speech,” and “Only Totalitarianism Would Ban the Deputy.”
The play (also called The Representative and The Vicar), was written by 33-year-old Rolf Hochhuth, who arrived in New York last month in time to see the premiere.
Reaction in America so far has been mixed. One statement pleading for a fair hearing was signed by leading Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. Commonweal, national Catholic lay weekly, says that the questions raised are valid, but it denounces as “base calumny” Hochhuth’s portrait of Pope Pius XII as a man who kept silent out of unworthy motives.
Besides attacking the pope for not taking a strong stand on the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews, Hochhuth tells in detail how the Jews lived during the Nazi era and how they died.
Revising The Oath
Davidson College, the “Oxford of Southern Presbyterians,” is drastically altering its controversial faculty oath. Trustees, at their winter meeting, approved on first reading a new pledge that leaves out the professors’ affirmation of belief in evangelical principles and belief in the infallibility of the Bible.
Final reading is planned at a board meeting in May. No opposition is expected.
The proposal now before the trustees simply calls on tenured teachers to affirm acceptance of Jesus Christ and to consider teaching as a Christian calling. Proponents said the change means that a majority of the faculty will be obligated instead of a minority, as in the past. Until now, the oath has been taken only on assumption of the rank of full professor.
A Plea For Legislation
The United Church of Canada’s Board of Evangelism and Social Service asked the Canadian government last month to legalize birth control.
The board, authorized to speak for the whole church in its particular fields, called for abolition of that section of the Criminal Code banning the sale and advertising of contraceptives. The law has been enforced in recent years.
At an annual meeting in Toronto, the board said the present law offends the religious beliefs of a majority of Canadians and makes a criminal offense of contraception, regarded by some churchmen as a moral necessity nowadays.
A Landmark Case
The Supreme Court of Spain made legal history last month when it ruled against the government and authorized establishment of a Protestant church in Valencia.
The court held that the government, in 1961, had erred in barring Protestants from opening a house of worship. It said that the government ministry involved had issued an order “not consistent with law” and ruled the edict null and void.
Involved was a Protestant group whose spokesman was identified as Tomas Perez. Representing the appellants in court was Ernesto Vellve, who successfully opposed the government’s restriction after a three-year legal battle. He told newsmen that the church would be opened in Valencia.
Observers in Madrid said the court’s decision was of “the greatest importance” to Protestants in predominantly Roman Catholic Spain. Some noted that the ruling could be another phase of a trend indicating more liberal treatment of Protestants by the government.
The court’s action followed a report that the nation’s Roman Catholic hierarchy had approved a draft law that would give considerably more freedom to Protestants in Spain. According to the report, the first draft of the proposed law was endorsed in principle by the late Pope John XXIII in 1961. Observers said a revised draft, approved by the bishops, would be sent on to the Vatican for study. Approval is expected.
In providing Protestants greater freedom of worship, the law would define their legal position for the first time.
A Boon To Church Budgets
Churches in the United States should see immediate benefits as a result of the income tax reduction voted by Congress and signed into law by President Johnson last month. Giving to religious enterprises of all kinds is expected to increase appreciably.
Tax specialists say the new cut, largest in U. S. history, paves the way for an estimated $265,000,000 in additional itemized charitable contributions by taxpayers during 1964, barring unexpected setbacks in the economy. They say the extra for 1965 attributable to the tax cuts could be as much as $400,000,000. This indicates a boost of approximately 4½ per cent in giving, based on total itemized deductions of contributions of $8.5 billion (the current figure).
For the average church these totals in themselves indicate only a modest budgetary increase. But observers point out that in all likelihood the boost will be further enhanced by any additional expansion of the economy.
Americans are already getting more in their pay checks because of a decrease in the amount of income tax the government requires employers to withhold. Some increase in church giving, therefore, should be evident immediately. The full effect will come about gradually over a number of months, because it is based on the anticipated expanded economy.
Some observers see a possible adverse effect in the tax cut. They say that with the rate of taxation moving downward, the relative advantage of the deduction is lessened and, in turn, incentive for charitable contributions is reduced. But this factor is unlikely to be very important. Statistics show that during previous tax-rate cuts a stable relation between personal income and charitable giving was maintained.
The most important change in the tax law, as far as charitable contributions are concerned, is the ability of the individual donor to “carry over” his deduction in excess of 30 per cent of adjusted gross income for a period of up to five years. This will encourage donors in every income bracket who are in a position to make large contributions within a single year. What they are unable to deduct one year they can claim in following years.
Also in the new law is a provision that extends from 20 to 30 per cent the ceiling on contributions to certain charitable organizations. The 30 per cent limit had applied previously only to contributions to churches, hospitals, schools, and certain medical research organizations. Now it applies to contributions to all charitable, religious, and philanthropic institutions, with the exception of private foundations, in which case the 20 per cent limit still applies.
Private foundations also got a blow from another direction. Contributions to such foundations will not be allowed as a basis for the “unlimited deduction,” which applies to persons whose contributions plus their income tax liability amount to more than 90 per cent of their taxable income for the current year and eight of the ten previous taxable years.
Still another important change applies to corporate giving. The period of “carryover” for corporate contributions in excess of the allowable 5 per cent of annual earnings has been extended from two years to five.
DONALD H. GILL
