The Canadian Congress on Evangelism is apt to be a non-evangelical happening, charge several of its critics. Most of the static revolves around the way the congress leaders have handled invitations to participants.
Two Toronto ministers, Dr. William Fitch of Knox Presbyterian Church and Dr. Paul Smith of the Peoples Church, believe the congress, to be held in Ottawa this August, has erred in asking Protestant denominations to designate their own delegates.
The crux of the criticism seems to be that such a procedure will weight the congress in favor of non-evangelicals. Smith has charged that the Ottawa gathering, like the Minneapolis congress (in his estimate), will be “90 per cent social gospel.”
Congress invitations chairman Kenn Opperman, a Toronto Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor and evangelical leader, staunchly defends the Canadian Congress procedure, which, he says, has been misunderstood or misrepresented.
Opperman maintains that the congress is a study gathering and not a deliberative legislative body. The desire, he states, is to penetrate all areas of Canadian life, and the organizers want the full spectrum represented. One third of the delegates, for instance, are to be under thirty, another third under fifty.
He further points out that the basic organizational committees are composed of men whose evangelical sympathies and position are well known and respected in Canada. The co-chairmen are Canon Leslie Hunt (of Wycliffe College, an evangelical Anglican training school in Toronto), and Wilbur Sutherland, Canadian secretary of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. The program chairman is Dr. Mariano DiGangi, North American director of the Bible and Medical Missionary Fellowship. Executive secretary is the Reverend Marney Patterson, Anglican evangelist. Opperman heads the invitation committee.
All program participants are to indicate sympathy with the statement of the World Congress on Evangelism, held in Berlin in 1966. Denominational appointees attending, however, need not, but will be aware of the evangelical thrust of the gathering.
Spokesmen say that the Canadian Congress, one of a series of national congresses on evangelism inspired by the World Congress, adopted its invitation procedures in order to secure a broad national participation. Organizers are persuaded that the Berlin statement, the solidly evangelical planning committee, and the evangelical speakers will clearly indicate the direction of the congress.1The Canadian Congress invitation procedures appear to differ from those used for the U. S. Congress on Evangelism in Minneapolis. Victor Nelson, executive director of the Minneapolis congress, said first approaches were made to the denominational secretaries of evangelism, who were asked to name a stated number of delegates to be invited. Four months prior to the congress, its organizers opened the doors to others not appointed by the denominations.
Several denominations, some for technical and some for doctrinal reasons, will not participate officially in the Ottawa congress. Included are four Baptist bodies, the Associated Gospel Churches, and the Lutheran Church of America. Several of these, however, will send observers or delegates sympathetic with congress aims.
With the congress five months away, its organizers report a groundswell of support among Canada’s million evangelicals, who are found in both the mainline and the newer denominations.
LESLIE K. TARR
Black Concerns In The White House
“Amen,” and “Yes, Lord,” responded members of a ten-man group of black Baptist ministers as evangelist Billy Graham preached to a White House congregation in the East Room March 15. Graham, who also spoke at the first service in the Executive Mansion on January 26, 1969, preached this time on Psalm 23. “A revival can begin in your hearts today,” he told President and Mrs. Nixon and a selected audience of 350, including Vice-President Spiro Agnew and Chief Justice Warren Burger.
Graham was instrumental in arranging the appearance of the black ministers at the service. Later that day, he and the ministers met with the President for about three hours. The group, called the Committee of Concerned Ministers for Evangelism, is chaired by Dr. E. V. Hill of Los Angeles. Hill told Religious News Service correspondent John Novotney afterwards that the conversations with Nixon were “concerned primarily about the spiritual life and needs of our people.” Crime, housing, job opportunities, and poverty were also discussed.
“It’s a compliment to the President that he would take this much time to listen to a group of local pastors,” Hill was quoted as saying. Graham previously had met with the clergymen about evangelism programs.
All ten serve churches affiliated with one of three bodies: Progressive National Baptist Convention; National Baptists, U. S. A., Inc., and the National Baptist Convention of America. Besides Hill, the committee members are Roy A. Allen, Detroit; Isaac Green, Pittsburgh; Richard A. Hildebrand, Brooklyn; Oddie Hoover, Cleveland; S. M. Lockridge, San Diego; M. L. Scott, Los Angeles; John W. Williams, Kansas City; O. B. Williams, Portland, Oregon; and M. L. Wilson, New York.
Political Fever: See Clergy Run
Political fever is striking clergymen in unprecedented numbers this year. By late March, at least five ministers or priests were engaged in campaigns for the U. S. Congress, and three clergy members of the House of Representatives were expected to seek re-election this fall.
The new clerical contenders in primary races—all Democrats—are Joseph R. Lucas, a Roman Catholic professor at Youngstown (Ohio) State University, who is running against five Democratic primary candidates; Joseph Duffey of Hartford, Connecticut, a United Church of Christ minister who is running against Senator Thomas Dodd; and three men whose candidacy has already been mentioned in CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
They are Lutheran pastor Richard J. Neuhaus of Brooklyn and Dean Robert F. Drinan, a Catholic priest at Boston College (see February 27 issue, page 41); and the Reverend Andrew Young, an Atlanta Baptist (see March 27 issue, page 37).
House members expected to seek re-election are Adam Clayton Powell (D.-N. Y.), a National Baptist; John H. Buchanan (R.-Ala.), a Southern Baptist; and Henry C. Schedeberg (R.-Wis.), a former Congregationalist pastor.
The greatest number of clergymen ever to be in Congress at one time was four in 1960. If elected, Drinan and Lucas would be the first full-fledged congressmen from the Catholic priesthood. The bids of the two priests for nomination caused Father Daniel Lyons, editor of the conservative Catholic weekly, Twin Circle, to warn editorially that the action will “set a bad precedent” and “stir up hostility” against the Catholic Church.
Protestant ministers have been relatively few, although fairly constant, in the ranks of both congressional branches. A Lutheran pastor, Frederick A. C. Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania, was the first speaker of the House.2United Church of Christ pastor Channing E. Phillips of Washington, D.C., who in 1968 was the first black man ever to be nominated for the Presidency at a National Democratic Convention (he now is national Democratic committeeman from the District of Columbia), resigned as copastor of Lincoln Temple last month. Phillips alluded to tensions with the congregation over social issues. He denied that he was leaving to become more involved in politics.
Victories for the current clerical candidates for Congress could influence that body toward the left: all fit the liberal category, and all advocate a quick end to the Viet Nam war. Poverty, race, and civil rights are key planks in the platform of each.
Why the upswing in clergymen running for political office? Observations made by Dr. Albert C. Outler, a Southern Methodist University professor of theology, could provide one answer. He is quoted in a recent issue of U. S. News and World Report:
“The 1960s saw the passing of the ‘parson,’ a term which once meant that he was the person, the central figure, in the community. Discovery that this definition no longer applies, that your authority brings you into conflict and resistance, has brought a problem of morale within the clergy.
“That is why you find clergymen seeking alternative roles as prophets, political leaders, reformers, and revivalists. They no longer are confident that doing a good job in the leadership of the congregation affects the course of revolutionary history.”
Ethiopian Church: Obstacle To Progress
At pan-African or international conferences, the Ethiopian Orthodox (Coptic) Church strikes a progressive, at times radical, pose. But at home it stands squarely in the way of national progress. Ethiopia’s aging emperor Haile Selassie has long been interested in modernization. But the political situation prevents such plans from being successful.
For example, in 1967 a land-reform measure, calling for a tax on gross income derived from the harvest, became law. It was, in effect, an income tax, not a land or property tax. But the Coptic Church, which owns a large amount of land, refused to pay the new tax. In the wholly Coptic region of Gojam Province, the tax law triggered a rebellion. Many soldiers and farmers were killed, and the government had to back down.
Since nearly half of the population of Ethiopia is Coptic Christian, the church has great economic and political influence. In addition, it is really a government in its own right. It is allowed to collect its own taxes, to rent land, and to organize and operate school systems.
Coptic Church leaders are tied to centuries-old customs rather than to innovations necessary for the future. Thus the government finds itself powerless to force the church to abide by state laws or to enforce measures the church opposes.
ODHIAMBO W. OKITE
Ellington: ‘Praise God And Dance!’
While five soloists from the Duke Ellington band danced in the aisles of the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D. C., last month, a largely black-tie audience of 1,000 clapped hands to the tune of $12,000 at a musical fund-raiser.
“Praise God and dance!” exhorted mellow jazz musician Ellington, and the last section of his Sacred Concert No. 2 began. Band members clapped, thrusting their hands heavenward toward the ceiling high above the arrow-like ribs of the sanctuary. Soon clumps of clappers in the audience joined in, timidly at first, then raising their hands straight up in a fervor of rhythm.
Tickets cost $25; $50 included the concert plus a champagne reception at the Belgian Embassy afterwards.
The concert was performed under the patronage of Mrs. Richard Nixon and Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower to benefit the Eisenhower Memorial Arts Fund, a project of the United Presbyterian Church’s World Arts Foundation. Chairman Kenneth G. Neigh presented a check for $12,000 to Dr. Lowell R. Ditzen, director of the National Presbyterian Center, to launch the fund.
The new National Church and Center will be formally dedicated May 10. In preparation for the event, a former religious news editor of the Washington Evening Star, Caspar Nannes, has written a book describing the history of the famous church since the 1790s.
Meanwhile, the church’s St. Paul window was dedicated to the late Frank Paul Morris, a theology professor at Asbury Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, under whom National Presbyterian Church pastor Edward L. R. Elson studied in the 1920s.
Fighting Behind Che
In a book just published by the Africa Evangelical Office in Nairobi, a leading French evangelical and missionary statesman has concluded that the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) poses a real danger to Africa’s evangelical churches.
Despite many positive aspects, writes Pastor Jacques Blocher in Observations on Abidjan—1969, “I left the AACC … profoundly saddened by many things I have seen and heard.” Blocher was a visitor to the AACC General Assembly in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, last September.
Blocher asserts the conference was top heavy with consultants; only 142 of 481 persons attending were actually delegates, he maintains. And he scores the political, revolutionary tone of papers presented at the conference: “To evangelize today is to act so that the war in Viet Nam, the apartheid in South Africa, the horrors of exploiting capitalism, cease. To preach the Gospel means to fight behind Che Guevara.”
Blocher also criticized the apparent close connection between the AACC and the World Council of Churches: “The AACC is the means by which the ecumenical movement hopes to operate in Africa.”
“Abidjan,” writes the French pastor, “did not leave a great deal of time for African Christians to express themselves, but rather it made known to them the theories developed by Protestant intellectuals of Europe and America.”
ODHIAMBO W. OKITE
Genetic Engineering
“When I share the platform with a theologian,” said the scientist, “I rarely find myself the conservative.” But conservative he was, claimed molecular biologist French Anderson, when he and Joseph Fletcher (author of Situation Ethics) met early in March to discuss genetic engineering.
Anderson spoke first, explaining with plastic models and analogies how scientists translate the language of genes in order to change human genetic material. This ability brings some good news and some bad news, Anderson admitted. The good news is the possibility of controlling genetic defects, cancer, viral diseases, and even aging. The bad news is the “frightening power” to control the human race by manipulating certain genes.
The question, he said, is who should decide what genes to manipulate. Anderson’s optimistic answer: informed society acting as a sort of committee-of-the-whole.
The theologian sitting on his right wondered aloud about society’s ability to comprehend such complex matters fully enough to act for the greatest good of the greatest number of people. His idea of how to achieve that great good put Fletcher on Anderson’s ideological left.
The moral choices that bring great social good can be made on the basis of principles or by a utilitarian, pragmatic determination of the consequences, explained Fletcher, opting for the latter. Whatever—including intervention in natural genetic processes—produces good consequences is morally permissible. “Should we,” he asked pointedly, “follow the principles of our non-technical past, or should we work pragmatically in the present?” Those principles—contained in the “archaic Bible and outmoded tradition”—are no longer helpful because the modern situation is different. Thus, he illustrated, “the command to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ is not only irrelevant—it is downright dangerous and destructive.”
There is no question, then, Fletcher declared, whether man should by genetic engineering “play God.” “The God we are playing is the old God of the gaps [in our knowledge], mighty because man was weak and frightened by what he couldn’t control. That God, hypothecated in ignorance, is quite dead.”
In response, self-styled conservative Anderson asked, “Who else is [making this technical progress] if not God? It’s either God or the devil.” Deciding what is good for society is a subjective matter, the scientist noted: “A blond, blue-eyed baby may be good—unless you’re Negro.”
With a final warning from Anderson about centralizing the power to make such decisions, the moderator invited questions from the audience. The response made it clear the discussion was taking place in Washington, D. C. Military (“what if China can do genetic engineering?”) and political (“how can society be informed—you should see the letters from our constituents”) questions bounced off the beams in the east transept of the National Cathedral.
After nearly two hours, the audience had laughed and gasped at Fletcher’s biting sarcasm, but seemed reluctant to relinquish life principles; they had gaped at Anderson’s plastic molecules, but seemed disinclined to share his social optimism. The final forum in the “Issues of the 70s” program sponsored by the National Cathedral and the National Presbyterian Center raised sensational questions and offered few incisive answers.
JANET ROHLER
Amen, Father
A Roman Catholic priest led a revival meeting in a Southern Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, last month. Some said the event was precedent-setting.
Franciscan Duane Stenzel of Louisville preached during the revival series in Vestavia Hills Baptist Church and led renewal discussions with the congregation. He is noted for a movement he leads called “cursillo.” During a cursillo, thirty-five to forty persons gather for a forty-eight-hour period to study the Bible, pray, and share personal experiences of Christ.
Explaining why the church asked the priest to speak, the Reverend Otis Brooks of the Vestavia Hills Church said: “There is a new stirring of life in the Roman Catholic Church. If there is a genuine revival in the Roman church, all Christians should rejoice, because the hope of winning the world to Christ is that much closer.”
WALLACE HENLEY
