It is doubtful whether any gathering in the history of Anglican evangelicalism compares in size or scope with last month’s National Evangelical Anglican Congress at Keele University, England.
The congress began with an address by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, and closed with issuance of a remarkable 10,000-word “statement” from the 1,000 delegates on theology, evangelism, ecumenism, and social affairs.
Previously, committee chairman John R. W. Stott had said the Keele assembly was “due to the remarkable development of evangelical life in the Church of England since the Second World War. During the last twenty years, evangelical Anglicans have grown in numbers, scholarship, cohesion, and confidence. This is a matter for thanksgiving to God. It is not to be viewed as the expansion of a sinister ‘party’ fired with fanatical ‘party spirit.’ On the contrary, it is the welcome increase within our national church of those who believe and love the biblical gospel, and who long to see the whole Church renewed in faith and life through submission to God’s Word and Spirit.”
In the same tone, Ramsey, not always seen as an ally by evangelicals, said, “I greet you all in the love and service of Christ, the Lord of all of us.” He then gave a thoroughly biblical exposition on the centrality of the Cross.
Congress delegates had received an advance copy of a symposium volume edited by J. I. Packer, warden of Latimer House, Oxford. In the packed program (fourteen full sessions in rather less than three days), each of the nine contributors had half an hour to form groundwork for the congress statement that was to come.
Packer presented the first case, denying with Stott that evangelicals are a divisive camp. But he said that in an age of secular mind and secular society, “there are things that need to be said … that will not be said unless we evangelicals say them.” He then sketched a history of the modem philosophical tradition which makes it hard to believe in the living God. “We proclaim a grace greater than we find in the doctrine of the individualists,” Packer said.
There was a fine spirit evident throughout the congress, not least when session chairmen were splendidly ruthless in diverting red herrings and dismissing minor points. It is no contradiction of this to add that cheerfulness kept breaking through, as in the pawky wit of Philip Hughes (who else would dare to correct Stott’s Latin in public?).
Observers were present not only from Anglican societies of other traditions, but also from the Congregationalists, Methodists, Salvationists, and Roman Catholics.
Interests of the Orthodox of Thyateira were well-served by their Metropolitan, and there was something at least parenthetically reassuring about the presence of the BBC’s Head of Religious Programmes.
A warm invitation to the closing day’s service of Holy Communion went to “all delegates and observers who are baptized communicant members of a Christian church, and who can come to the table with repentance, faith, and love.”
In this spirit, ecumenism and such specific ecumenical problems as open communion loomed large in the congress statement. Perhaps most significant was a friendly word for Rome, but the document also endorsed Anglican-Methodist union, on terms as favorable to Methodism as possible (see Current Religious Thought, page 54). Of particular interest within evangelicalism was the third of the statement’s six sections, on “The Church and the World,” which dealt with a variety of social issues (see following story).
Of more significance within the Church of England will be the assertions about the Church’s message and mission. The evangelicals reaffirmed belief “in the historic faith of the Church, in an age when it has come under attack from both outside and inside the Church,” and then proceeded to spell it out in seventeen topical paragraphs.
Turning next to evangelism, the statement calls it the work of all Christians, not just specialists, and hails “the great evangelistic campaigns of our day.” It says Anglicans should share their wealth and manpower with churches in newer nations and in turn benefit from their “spiritual vigour.” The evangelicals also confess failure in reaching the “industrial inner city and new housing areas” and urge appointment of full-time evangelists.
The statement welcomes sympathic dialogue with non-Christians but rejects “as misleading the statement that Christ is already present in other faiths. We cannot regard those true insights which non-Christian religions contain as constituting a way of salvation.”
Sampler On Social Issues
Besides discussing doctrine, denominational affairs, and ecumenical strategy, the statement issued last month by the National Evangelical Anglican Congress (story above) dealt with a host of issues facing Christians in society. Excerpts follow:
Separation—“Misunderstanding of the biblical summons to ‘separation from the world’ has sometimes diverted Evangelicals from grasping, or even giving thought to, the nature of the world and the contemporary situation. We call on all Evangelicals to study and be involved in the contemporary world.…”
Social Action—“We must work not only for the redemption of individuals, but also for the reformation of society.… As a member of this world the Christian is called to support the State in all rightful activity and to challenge it in the areas where its responsibilities are not being fulfilled. [Social concern] may be expressed in four ways: by individual Christian action in daily life; by Christians playing a full part with others in secular activities; by the work of voluntary Christian societies; and by the work of the Church corporately.”
“We welcome the existence of the Welfare State. We regard it as an acceptance by the State of its responsibility under God.”
Automation—“Both Church and State ought to recognize the peculiar human problems which arise from the movement and closure of industries, often due to technological development, particularly in towns dependent on one particular industry. An expansion in retraining facilities is urgently needed. Management faces severe temptations to be callous and to treat men as dispensible pieces of machinery, and Trade Unions face increasing temptation to hold industry to ransom.”
War—“It is the urgent duty of Christians to pursue all means to maintain, or where necessary to restore, peace with justice and freedom. We nevertheless recognize that it is a government’s first duty to uphold law and justice, and that even war may be justified in the resistance of aggression or the restraint of such manifest evils as genocide.”
Race—“We … condemn racial discrimination in all countries and are especially concerned at the appearance of it in our own country in the spheres of employment and accommodation.… Christians who are themselves prejudiced must look to Christ to set them free.”
Sex—“We assert that marriage is the divinely ordained state in which complete sexual fulfillment is to be sought. Pre-marital and extra-marital intercourse are therefore contrary to this principle and are responsible for much unhappiness.”
Divorce—“We accept one fundamental standard, but we believe that we may rightly take our part in framing a civil law of divorce which will best combine such concessions to human frailty and sin as the circumstances of society may require, with maintenance of the greatest possible stability in marriage.”
Abortion—“We urge that questions such as alleged rape, the possibility that the embryo might be malformed, and social considerations, should not be regarded as grounds for abortion unless the mother’s health is in danger.”
Situation ethics—“We confess that legalistic attitudes have in the past obscured our witness to Christian liberty and we see ‘situation ethics’ as warning us against doctrinaire and insensitive attitudes to people’s needs. Nevertheless there is a form of ‘situation ethics’ which is in effect altogether lawless since it disregards God’s moral law in scripture and fails to realize the inability of love as a motive to set standards for itself and achieve them.”
Personalia
Southern Rhodesia expelled United Church of Christ missionary B. Neill Richards, 31, a professor at Epworth Theological Seminary in Salisbury. No reason was given.
Robert J. McCracken, 63, native of Scotland who succeeded Harry Emerson Fosdick as pastor of New York City’s prestigious Riverside Church, will retire because of a heart ailment.
Harold Martin, education minister from Blytheville, Arkansas, is believed to be the first Southern Baptist to become a full-time professional with the National Council of Churches. He will be promotion assistant for the NCC’s overseas communications agency, RAVEMCCO.
Presbyterians United for Biblical Confession plans to continue as an organization, with evangelistic emphasis as its next project. Retired pastor E. G. Montag was replaced as executive secretary by the Rev. Bruce Thielemann of First Presbyterian Church, McKeesport, Pennsylvania.
Winston H. Taylor, Washington, D. C., director of Methodist Information, was chosen president of the Religious Public Relations Council, replacing W. C. Fields of the Southern Baptist Convention, who had just won the presidency of Associated Church Press.
The Rev. Wilson O. Weldon, a Greensboro, North Carolina, pastor, is the new editor of The Upper Room, Methodist devotional guide of vast circulation.
The Australian Council of Churches elected as president A. Bramwell Cook, a territorial commander in the Salvation Army and formerly a medical missionary to India.
Famous gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, 55, won a divorce from her saxophone-playing husband of three years. It was her first marriage, his second.
Wake Forest College (Southern Baptist) got a $1 million library endowment from Mrs. Nancy Reynolds Verney, an heiress to the Camel cigarette fortune.
Mrs. Dorothy Sheridan, 30, of Barnstable, Massachusetts, a Christian Scientist who refused medical treatment for her five-year-old daughter’s respiratory illness, will be tried in Superior Court for manslaughter because the girl died.
Norman L. Trott retires this fall as president of Wesley Theological Seminary (Methodist), Washington, D. C. His successor is the Rev. John L. Knight of First Methodist Church, Syracuse, New York.
John M. Costello, California hospital chaplain, will teach practical theology part-time at Concordia Theological Seminary, Springfield, Illinois, and advise institutional chaplains for the Illinois Council of Churches.
J. C. Thornton, philosophy teacher at Australia’s Canterbury University, resigned from the Anglican ministry because he doubts the existence of a supernatural God.
Surveying Surveys
Fifty-seven per cent of those polled think religion is “losing” its influence on American life, four times the percentage a decade ago (Gallup Poll).
Contributions for religious purposes made up 48 per cent of America’s 13.5 billion in philanthropic giving last year (American Association of Fund–Raising Counsel)
Twice as many Jews find bad feeling against Roman Catholics in 1965—after Vatican II’s decree on Jews—than in 1952 (Gallup Poll, for Catholic Digest).
More than 30,000 Americans have converted to Judaism since 1954 (Ascher Penn, in the second volume of his Yid-dish-language Judaism in America).
A “rather high percentage” of seminary students are in some form of psychotherapy, perhaps because of the demands of the ministry, or their knowledge about psychiatric services (the Rev. Robert Carrigan in the Journal of Religion and Health).
Nearly three-fourths of 12,000 women respondents are often “offended by explicit sex scenes or overly frank dialogue” in movies, leading McCall’s magazine to say that moviemakers, guided “only by box-office results, may be missing the true response of the American public to their work.” The least-liked movie of 1966 was Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Miscellany
Eastern Orthodox scholars are planning to produce an “American Orthodox Bible,” a revision of the Revised Standard Version, starting with New Testament. The Old Testament is more troublesome because of Orthodoxy’s dependence on the Septuagint, an ancient Greek translation; the RSV is based on Hebrew manuscripts.
Patriarch Athenagoras of Istanbul warned in an encyclical that intercommunion and confession between the Orthodox Church and other churches “does not as yet exist.”
The 1967 Greek Orthodox Yearbook reaffirms that “use of contraceptive devices for the prevention of children is forbidden and condemned unreservedly.”
Ten denominations and two foundations are joining in a National Council of Churches three-year pilot campaign to recruit promising college students for church careers.
The council of the Episcopal Diocese of California says its appeal for an end to criminal laws against homosexual acts between consenting adults does not imply “approval of such behavior.”
Governor John Love signed a bill making Colorado the first state to liberalize its abortion laws (see April 28 issue, page 43).
A radio station in Orillia, Ontario, that favors liberalized liquor laws cut off Baptist and United Church pastors as they were about to comment on the issue on their regular Sunday broadcasts.
A survey in Australia shows a missionary force of 4,416, an increase of 1,656 over 1959. Roman Catholics showed the greatest advance.
University College (Roman Catholic) and Trinity College (Anglican) of Dublin, Ireland, plan to merge under a single administration.
Baptists and other free churchmen in Finland are hoping for a change in the law that permits only Lutherans to teach religion in public schools.
South Africa has denied reports it plans to cut off immigration from predominantly Roman Catholic nations in Europe. Such a move has been urged by right-wing Dutch Reformed churchmen who fear immigrants are “diluting Afrikaanerdom.”
Rabbi George B. Lieberman of Rockville Centre, New York, sent a Passover message to Soviet Jews over the Voice of America noting “unbroken and unbreakable spiritual ties that link us together in prayer and in hope.” It was the first direct message from an American religious leader to the Soviet Union via VOA.
A thousand seminarians, “uncomfortable about accepting deferments not available to others,” have asked that “conscientious objector” eligibility be broadened, with the endorsement of chief executives from Union, Jewish, San Francisco, Chicago and Harvard seminaries. In another protest, World Council of Churches leader Eugene C. Blake said U.S. Viet Nam policy creates great “danger to human survival.”
Deaths
EDWARD JOHN CARNELL, 47, philosopher of religion and first president at Fuller Theological Seminary; noted evangelical scholar; in Berkeley, California, of an apparent heart attack on the eve of a speech to the Roman Catholic-sponsored National Workshop for Church Unity (see editorial, page 30).
J. THEODORE MUELLER, 82, professor at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, from 1920 to 1964; in St. Louis, a year after a severe stroke (see editorial, page 30).
WILLIAM A. IRWIN, 82, former Old Testament professor at the University of Toronto, University of Chicago, and Southern Methodist University, and member of the Revised Standard Version committee; in Wheaton, Maryland.
