Although revival is often spoken of glibly, with every little spiritual stir giving rise to speculation of a great awakening, the real thing does occasionally happen. The latest legitimate claim to revival belongs to the 112 million people of Indonesia, where in recent months there has been a historic surge in the Christian churches (see also April 28 issue, p. 42).
“It’s too early to put all the pieces together,” says Dr. Clyde W. Taylor, executive secretary of the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association, “but there can be no doubt that revival has broken out.”
Taylor says the best estimates show at least 200,000 conversions from Islam to Christianity within the last eighteen months. Mission boards are assigning top priority to getting help to the workers in Indonesia, now the world’s fifth-largest country. Nowhere before has there ever been a comparable response from Muslims—missionary experts often regard them as among the hardest people in the world to reach.
Christians in Indonesia are still very much the minority group there, numbering something less than 10 per cent of the total population. But many missions report startling statistics in baptisms and new church members. At the World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin last fall, an Indonesian delegate declared that in one area hundreds of new Christians were virtually standing in line to be baptized.
Taylor says that the revival is showing itself in at least three ways. The first is through the enthusiastic witness of lay people who go out in small bands to evangelize. Some of them are illiterate and must rely on what Scripture they have memorized. These lay witnesses have had their best results among disenchanted ex-Communists who survived the bloody aftermath of the abortive 1965 coup in Indonesia.
According to Taylor, there has also been a tremendous movement among pagans, and thousands are known to have been burning their fetishes and idols.
In addition, there has been an unusually effective cell movement as a result of efforts among the Dutch Reformed, the largest Protestant group in Indonesia. Some older churches, however, are said to be resisting the new movement.
Reports of the awakening now include calls for more Bibles to meet the unusual demand. A number of teams of evangelists are said to be going about fanning the flames of the revival. Healings and other miracles have been reported, as well as all-night prayer meetings and mass confession of sin. All these signs are traditionally associated with genuine revival.
Missions
Radio Lumiere, operated by West Indies Mission, began broadcasting May 17 from a new 240-foot tower located in a mud flat near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. In three days the second-hand diesel that turns the power plant gave out, and technicians had to revert temporarily to an old sixty-foot hurricane-damaged antenna. A 1,000-watt transmitter has been ordered to replace the present 250-watter.
South Viet Nam government approved construction of a “missionary embassy” in Saigon by World Vision. It is to be built across the street from U. S. and British embassies along the prominent boulevard that leads to National Palace gates.
Missionary aviation training facilities of Moody Bible Institute will be moved to Elizabethton, Tennessee. The new site is said to offer better flying conditions than the present airfield, located two miles from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
A health-insurance program for missionaries is being developed by Christian Medical Society. The organization will serve as administrative intermediary between an insurance underwriter and mission boards. Wide participation will allow the underwriter to tailor coverage to the special financial and health-care requirements of missionaries.
A Dalat, South Viet Nam, ceremony marked publication of the New Testament in Koho, language of one of the nation’s largest mountain tribal groups.
Personalia
Hans Küng, much talked about young Roman Catholic theologian in Germany, will be visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary, New York, during the 1967–68 spring semester.
Martin Niemoller, controversial German Protestant churchman and a member of the World Council of Churches’ presidium, is scheduled to be visiting professor at Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, for the second semester of the 1968–69 academic year.
LeRoy Moore, Jr., a Southern Baptist clergyman on the faculty of the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California, will go to teach history at the Hartford Seminary Foundation in Connecticut.
William G. Chalmers was appointed president of the University of Dubuque (United Presbyterian), succeeding the Rev. Gaylord M. Couchman. Chalmers has been an area counselor for the United Presbyterians’ Fifty Million Fund. Couchman will remain at the university as director of church relations.
Dr. Herbert S. Anderson was elected general director of the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society. He is currently a pastor in Portland, Oregon, and has served for three years as president of the Conservative Baptist Association of America. He holds a doctorate in theology from Princeton.
Commissioner Clarence D. Wiseman, 60, has been appointed national commander of the Salvation Army for Canada and Bermuda. Until recently, Wiseman was the head of the Army’s International Training College in London, England. He succeeds Commissioner Edgar Grinsted, who is now on a world tour before retiring in his native England in September.
Two faculty members have resigned at Berkeley Baptist Divinity School. Librarian Robert Hannen moves to Central Baptist Seminary, public-relations head L. Earle Shipley to a fund-raising firm in New York.
Dr. William J. Villaume resigned last month as president of Waterloo (Ontario) Lutheran University. Villaume cited a forthcoming report from a management consultant firm and said he felt “it would be advantageous for the board to be as free as possible from all long-range commitments so that planning for the future may not be hindered.”
Msgr. Vincent A. Yzermans, for three years the director of the United States Catholic Conference’s Bureau of Information, was named editor of Our Sunday Visitor. Educational background of the 41-year-old priest includes graduate study in journalism and communications arts at Notre Dame and Fordham.
Dr. Robert A. Traina became dean of Asbury Theological Seminary. He succeeds Dr. Maurice E. Culver, who plans to return to Southern Rhodesia to resume missionary work under appointment of The Methodist Church. Traina has been professor of English Bible at Asbury.
The Rev. Robert Pierre Johnson was elected general presbyter of the New York City Presbytery, the first Negro ever to be named to the post. Johnson has been pastor of Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church, Washington, D. C., and is regarded as an expert in inner-city problems.
