Niagara Falls, “honeymoon capital of North America,” was the site for the national meetings of Canada’s two largest non-Catholic denominations. Although the courtship between the United Church and the Anglican Church1Another party to the church-union talks is the smaller Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). It entered the talks in 1969. had not reached the honeymoon stage, church-union enthusiasts were obviously hopeful that simultaneous meetings in the same city might facilitate the work of the ecclesiastical cupid.
The Brock and the Foxhead, adjoining hotels on the Canadian side of the falls, were taken over by the churches from January 25 to February 2—the first time in history the two had met at the same time and in the same city.
In addition to attending their separate programs, delegates came together for interdenominational functions: two services of intercommunion, discussion of the proposed new hymnal, an important meeting to hear and discuss the first draft of the plan of union, and an afternoon of small study groups on union. Despite optimistic official statements at the close of the gatherings, many observers felt the two were no closer to union than when the much heralded meetings opened.
Pro-unionists had their hopes elevated when the churches elected their new heads during the first days. The Anglican choice of Bishop Edward (Ted) W. Scott seemed to be a victory for unionists. The 51-year-old bishop of Kootenay, elected on the third ballot as primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, is the youngest Canadian primate ever elected.
The United Church’s choice for moderator, elected on the second ballot, was Dr. Arthur B. B. Moore, former president of Victoria University in Toronto and current president of the Canadian Council of Churches. Moore, 64, is unreservedly committed to church union.
The United Church, itself the product of a 1925 merger of Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregational churches, maintained its understandably consistent commitment to union with the Anglicans. The Anglicans, however, appeared to have little enthusiasm. The most favorable interpretation is that years of foot-dragging lie ahead.
Anglican hesitance to the marriage stemmed from various quarters: high Anglicans, evangelicals, and those who feel that church union itself is an outdated exercise in an age that is wary of all institutions.
High Anglican opposition was spotlighted by the announcement that Dr. Carmino de Catanzaro had resigned from the commission that was formulating the doctrinal stance of the new church. And Dr. Eugene Fairweather of Trinity College in Toronto expressed his objections to the symptoms of doctrinal indifference.
Evangelical Anglican layman Dr. Donald C. Masters of Guelph University objected on grounds that the proposed union was a new embodiment of liberal religion.
Probably, though, indifference—as much as opposition—motivated much of the opposition. “I am not for union. But I’m not entirely against union. I just don’t have time for it—for playing at church. For me it is totally a non-issue,” shrugged Archdeacon C. R. Elliott.
A straw vote among ten Anglican youth delegates probably reflected that church’s fractured stand: five were against union, four were pro-union, and one was undecided.
Where does that leave church-union negotiations? Archbishop Scott, at the conclusion of the Anglican General Synod meeting and his first week as primate, stated he was not disturbed at what seemed to be his church’s hesitance. He added that neither would he be disturbed if the two churches stopped short of some monolithic structure. Earlier in the week, the newly elected moderator and the primate (personal friends of long standing) had agreed that church union might become a reality within ten years.
Merger talk put in the shadows other major issues that ordinarily would have been headlines. Prominent among them were reports of sharp declines in attendance, Sunday-school enrollment and finances.
Dr. Harold L. Arnup of the United Church’s finance department told the General Council that revenues were down $485,000 from the previous year—the first time in thirty years that a decline had been registered. But he hastened to reassure his fellow churchmen: “We are not broke. We have the resources to adjust to changing situations without going into debt.” Other statistical indicators were more critical, he warned. Average attendance of members declined seriously and Sunday-school attendance dropped 185,000 between 1965 and 1969 (30 per cent in five years). “The average age of our membership is increasing, and the indication is that this trend will continue,” Arnup said.
Meanwhile, the Anglicans were hearing that if the church continued to dip into its reserve funds, they would be depleted in a few years.
The gloomy statistical report, coupled with the stalling on church union, prompted some irreverence from United Church youth delegates. A suggested new stanza for “Onward Christian Soldiers” was circulated:
Joining hands in brotherhood
Far too good to last,
One the whole world over,
Even in Belfast.
We are not “United,”
One great church are we,
Almost one in doctrine,
One in bankruptcy.
Another area of concern at the national assemblies was the churches’ stand on abortion. Both denominations were confronted with resolutions on the subject, but if they had adopted the resolutions as presented, the two denominations would have come down on opposite sides of the question.
An Anglican resolution, proposed by the Reverend P. R. Ellis of British Columbia, called for an end to “the indiscriminate slaughter of unborn children by abortion.” The General Synod reacted with the time-tested device of appointing a task force to investigate the question of defining human life.
The United Church General Council debated the abortion question and finally decided that it was primarily a private matter between a woman and her doctor and that abortion was not matter for the Criminal Code.
The 1974 meetings of the two churches now assume new significance: the 1971 meetings failed to produce clear sense of direction on church union. If Anglican consensus is not realized by 1974, and if unionists are determined to press for decision, Canada could witness a repetition of the 1925 church-union division when 30 per cent of the Presbyterians refused to join the United Church of Canada and elected to maintain a continuing Presbyterian Church.
Not a pleasing prospect—and one that would cause second thoughts to Anglican primate Ted Scott, who probably wouldn’t press for merger at the risk of a major rupture in his church.
Singing The Faith
Two Canadian denominations, in the process of church-union talks, have approved a new hymnbook and will proceed to print 200,000 copies. The action comes after nine years of work by a joint hymnbook committee of the United Church of Canada and the Anglican Church of Canada.
Described by its enthusiastic boosters as the “finest English-language selection in the world of hymnody today,” the publication will reflect the poles and tensions inherent in the Canadian church-union discussions. Traditionalists are assured that two-thirds of the hymns appeared in either or both of the previous denominational hymnaries.
Former Methodists or Presbyterians in the United Church might be startled to come across a hymn in the section, “Festivals of the Virgin Mary”:
Glorious Mother, now rewarded
With a crown at Jesus’ hand,
Age to age thy name recorded
Shall be blest in every land.
Then, for contemporary tastes, there are hymns such as “The Lord of the Dance”:
I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black
It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back;
They buried my body and they thought I’d gone—
But I am the dance and I still go on.
Another hymn of thanks raised some eyebrows:
Vitality and zest,
For strength to meet the day’s demands,
The urge to give our best,
For all our body’s appetites
Which can fulfillment find,
And for the sacrament of sex
That recreates our kind.
A new Christmas hymn that came in for special praise from the committee was “Every Star Shall Sing a Carol.” Evangelicals who regard the birth of Christ as a once-for-all event will be startled to hear:
Who can tell what other cradle
High above the milky way,
Still may rock the king of heaven
On another Christmas day?
God above, Man below,
Holy is the name I know.
In explaining the philosophy behind the overall selection, the Reverend Richard Davidson, vice-chairman of the committee, stated, “If you stick to the old jargon in hymns, the best has been said. What we had to do was to take old concepts and put them in a new way.”
The attempt to delete “old jargon” resulted in some casualties—missionary hymns that the committee felt were patronizing, those that were “overly sentimental,” and sawdust-trail gospel types.
One United Church delegate wryly pointed out that the committee had dropped “Amazing Grace” and that during the week in which the hymnbook vote was being taken, a contemporary rendition of “Amazing Grace” was on the top-ten list of popular hits! Apparently, he added, the “old jargon” was not entirely incomprehensible to modern youth.
LESLIE K. TARR
Alcoholism Analyzed
To what extent is alcoholism a disease of the body or mind?
Medical investigators reported their latest findings last month at the second annual School on Alcohol and Narcotics studies in Eustis, Florida. They said alcoholism is a physiological disease that damages the brain and can be cured only by giving the victim a motivation strong enough to overcome the effects of the injured tissue.
More than a dozen former alcoholics and drug addicts, many in their early twenties, gave testimonials that such spiritual strength can come only through a moving religious experience, involving a commitment so deep that physical craving induced by a damaged mind can be resisted.
Dr. Jorge Valles, who heads a large alcoholic rehabilitation center at the Houston Veterans Hospital, feels that alcohol damages the hypothalamus, an area at the base of the brain that is believed to contain the centers of hunger and thirst. This damage, he feels, is what creates the insatiable appetite for alcohol.
Valles, a Spanish-born psychiatrist who is on the Baylor University medical faculty, says the only cure for alcoholism is to get the victim to abstain. To accomplish this he uses “psychodrama.” He indicated that a religious experience of conversion is a valid form of psychodrama in which the individual comes to grips with the force that is trying to destroy him and conquers it.
Some 175 ministers, educators, and law-enforcement officials attended the three-day school sponsored by United Christian Action, an interdenominational service agency working in the field of alcohol and narcotics education.
Dr. Gerhard Freund, youthful medical professor at the University of Florida, reported on studies made with white rats fed small amounts of alcohol with their water (laboratory animals consistently refuse to drink strong alcoholic beverages). These rats, Freund said, cannot perform memory tests as well as matched litter-mates fed only sugar water. More important, they never regain pre-alcoholic proficiency even though they are taken off alcohol.
Dr. Melvin Knisely, professor of anatomy at the Medical College of South Carolina, presented new evidence that brain damage results from impairment of blood circulation by the presence of alcohol in the bloodstream, causing a lack of oxygen in the brain’s nerve cells. Knisely, who has researched the phenomenon for some thirty years, warns that every drinking bout causes permanent damage.
GLENN D. EVERETT
Dull Sword
The Sword of the Lord may be quick and powerful, but it doesn’t seem to have much cutting edge at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. The Sword’s editor, Dr. John R. Rice, was invited to speak at Moody’s annual Founder’s Week this month. He accepted but was subsequently “uninvited” by Moody president Dr. William Culbertson after a small group of students called to his attention Rice’s published stand on race.
In an article last March in the Sword, Rice defended Bob Jones University’s policy of barring Negro students and opposing interracial marriage. The offending Rice article said, in part: “The university would not intentionally take any student, of any race, who is certain to bring strife and disrupt the work of the school. That is one reason why they do not seek Negro students.”
Sources close to the Moody student body said Culbertson, having been shown the article, decided to cancel Rice’s appearance at Moody and had a letter so stating read in the Moody chapel assembly. There reportedly was “rousing applause” after the reading, though Rice contended that some students walked out in protest.
Culbertson, asked to comment on the matter, did not immediately respond. The Founder’s Week featured a score of prominent Bible speakers including keynoter Dr. Robert A. Cook of King’s College, New York. The theme was, “Thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name” (Ps. 138:2). Rice was to have been on a panel discussion on why the fundamentals of the faith are important.
National Prayer Breakfast: Powerful Audience
“There’s a great deal of moral fiber and strength left in this country, and that’s what really matters,” said President Nixon to 3,000 VIPs, including all his Cabinet members and half of the U. S. Congress, at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in the nation’s capital this month.
Referring to Solomon’s request of God not for wealth or power but for an understanding heart, the chief executive then challenged the crowd: “Let that be our prayer … If we can have that on the 200th birthday [of the nation] we will be very rich and very strong, but more important, we will be a good country in the truest sense …”
Nixon’s brief remarks followed a twenty-five minute homily on the Twenty-Third Psalm by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, the main speaker. Some felt his remarks, primarily devotional, did not sufficiently challenge the host of prominent government officials, religious leaders, and diplomats from more than 100 countries who assembled for the breakfast.
Nixon, who noted that the audience was “four times” the size of the one on hand to hear his State of the Union address a few days before, seemed impressed with its potential. “It might be impossible to find an audience anywhere in America where more power could be assembled than here,” he said.
The breakfast is sponsored by the Senate and House Prayer Breakfast groups. Since its beginning in 1953, governors in all fifty states and mayors in more than 1,000 cities have held similar prayer breakfasts locally. The U. S. Senate and House prayer groups meet regularly each week while Congress is in session.
Representative G. V. Montgomery (D.-Miss.) said one benefit of the groups is contact with other persons of good will around the world. “We know we are better individuals and congressmen as a result of these groups,” he said, adding: “It’s also the best source of jokes suitable for telling at home.”
The only two clergymen seated at the head tables were Dr. Richard C. Halverson, pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church, Washington, long associated with International Christian Leadership and the prayer breakfast movement, and Dr. Billy Graham.
Graham didn’t speak at the breakfast but addressed some 500 leaders at a private luncheon following morning seminars. The evangelist had said at a press conference the day before that he would be in Washington for several weeks to meet with government leaders on an informal basis to talk about the “need for spiritual renewal in the country … and moral leadership.”
When asked by a newsman whether his personal friendship with Nixon interfered with his ability to speak prophetically, Graham traced the development of his friendship with Nixon and pointed out that he has been friends with previous presidents, too. “I really do try, desperately, to stay out of politics,” he declared. He noted that Nixon had “told me time after time to stay out of politics. He has told me that my ministry is too important to get involved in politics.”
And speaking about the current wave of spiritual revolution among young people, especially on the West Coast, the deeply tanned (from a short vacation in the Virgin Islands) evangelist observed: “We’re in the midst of possibly the greatest revival of young people ever in our nation.… A tremendous thing is taking place.”
RUSSELL CHANDLER
One Mayor’S Breakfast
A unique Mayor’s Youth Prayer Breakfast in Modesto, California, is packing in young people by the hundreds. The annual event was so successful this month that 600 high-school and college students turned out from 7 to 9 A.M.
Lee Davies, mayor of the city of 60,000 in the central San Joaquin Valley, originated the youth breakfast three years ago. He says he believes it is the only such project in the nation. Davies, who invites all guests by personal letter, said he sees a widespread “return to the teachings of Christ” replacing a period of drug use, pornography, permissiveness, and violence.
A series of short talks and Bible readings (no sermons) were handled mostly by area student-body officers from thirty public and private schools. Not all are Christians or attend church.
Frank Roberts, featured in the film High on the Campus, told of his teenage turn from drug use and arrest for selling narcotics to peace in Christ. Bob Kranning, high-school activities director at Forest Home Conference Ground near Redlands in southern California, declared God “was no ogre” who said, “Okay, you guys, no more fun!” Instead, Kranning explained, “Christ added a new dimension to my life.”
All but forty-four students filled out comment cards at the breakfast. Examples: “I felt a closeness to God.” “I need a Bible.” “It really started me thinking.” “I need to find someone to talk to about God.” “Pray for me.” One card simply said: “I need a true friend.”
At next year’s breakfast (in larger quarters) a report is planned on results of Bible-study and fellowship groups meeting in area schools as an outgrowth of one mayor’s vision for God.
LEE RODDY
Africa’S Dangerous Precedent: Sentencing Catholic Bishops
Bowing to pressure, President Ahamadou Ahidjo of the Cameroun last month commuted the death sentences of a Roman Catholic bishop and two other men—convicted of plotting to assassinate him—to life imprisonment. But Africa’s churchmen can breathe only a very nervous sigh of relief. The bishop’s conviction has set a most dangerous precedent for Africa, especially because the evidence that he led a serious coup was very flimsy.
The bishop, Monsignor Albert Ndongmo, is a flashy, brilliant intellectual. He is known to oppose President Ahidjo, who, he contended, neglected the development of his own English-speaking western region of the Cameroun.
The bishop was also known to be a friend of a rebel tribe, the Bamileke; on trips out of the country, including one to Algeria, he sought to gain support for the rebels. Although the Bamileke revolt died a long time ago, the leaders went into hiding, and the Cameroun, like many of its neighboring republics, has been enjoying only a surface stability.
The Bamileke spirit seems to have been dying out, and presumably the government decided to act against the rebels to demonstrate once and for all their impotence. The government might also have wanted to act against Ndongmo because he appeared to be out of favor with the Vatican and his fellow bishops.
Ndongmo had taken church money to start a series of secular businesses that raised eyebrows: a plastics factory, a printing press, and a small “magazin” (department store). Because of his financial problems, the Vatican had appointed an administrator over his diocese and had called him to Rome to explain. As soon as he returned he was arrested and charged with “complicity with a rebellion.”
The arrest rallied the other bishops and the West African press behind Ndongmo. There has been speculation in the African press as to whether the bishop was really guilty, and whether the facts were as trivial as they appeared to be. The affair is being hotly discussed, especially in the French-speaking states.
The real issue is whether or not church leaders should get involved in politics. The trend obviously is for leaders of the new independent African states to stifle opposition from any quarter.
Meanwhile in Rome, the arrest, conviction, and life sentencing to hard labor of Guinea’s Catholic archbishop Raymond-Marie Tchidimbo brought an explosive outburst from Pope Paul. In a Sunday speech from his window over St. Peter’s Square, the pontiff said the bishop was innocent of the charges.
The prelate, bishop of Conarky, had been accused, along with many others, of plotting against the Guinean regime. A right-wing Rome newspaper that came out before Radio Conakry announced the sentences said the bishop and other defendants in the invasion affair faced “possible immersion in boiling oil, or burial alive.”
Ninety-two persons were condemned to death for their part in last November’s invasion, thirty-four in their absence. Tchidimbo was among another seventy-two sentenced to forced labor for life.
Three years ago President Sekou Toure of Guinea openly launched a campaign against the Catholic Church, expelling all non-native clergy and closing all Catholic schools and other institutions.
In an appeal over Vatican Radio, Maurice Cardinal Roy of Quebec, primate of Canada, pleaded for Guinean authorities to grant clemency to those condemned to death.
ODHIAMBO OKITE
Lutheran Fellowship
The inability of Lutherans in the United States to achieve fellowship with one another is hampering interdenominational dialogue. That was the message given to representatives of the nation’s three major Lutheran bodies last month by the head of theological studies for the Lutheran Council in the U.S.A.
At the annual council meeting in New York, Dr. Frederick W. Meuser made his remarks in a report on current Lutheran-Episcopal doctrinal talks and on plans to resume Lutheran-Reformed discussions, possibly late this year. “Serious consideration of close relationships with other confessions must inevitably await the achievement of full intra-Lutheran fellowship,” he said.
Two studies now in process are aimed at overcoming tensions within Lutheranism, Meuser pointed out. One deals with membership in non-Christian organizations, the other with modern-day interpretation of the Lutheran Confessions.
Dr. C. Thomas Spitz, Jr., LCUSA general secretary, told the session that centralized programming and administration are being displaced everywhere by decentralization. “The inhibiting force of tradition has lessened as experimentation has become more acceptable. Authoritarianism is increasingly rejected as participation and self-expression are demanded. Executive control is being discarded in favor of group control,” Spitz reported.
At the council’s closing dinner session, council president Oswald C. J. Hoffmann and Lutheran Church in America president Robert J. Marshall reported on their recent tours of Viet Nam and the war zone. Both praised the efforts of military chaplains there. Hoffmann and the other major officeholders were re-elected to their LCUSA posts. Membership in the council encompasses about 95 per cent of the nation’s nine million Lutherans.
Preus On Concordia: ‘No Progress Reports’
There will be no statement now on Concordia Seminary, according to Dr. Jacob A. O. Preus, president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and middleman in the giant liberal-conservative tug-of-war now threatening to tear apart the 2.8-million-member denomination.
Preus was presented with a petition last month signed by about 1,400 pastors, teachers, and laymen of the church. It asked for an end to internal strife in the Missouri Synod and charged that conservatives are creating a “climate of suspicion, fear, and discouragement.” The furor stems from an investigation, headed by Preus, regarding the doctrinal orthodoxy of some professors at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis (see August 21 issue, page 40). The statement handed to Preus, called a Declaration of Determination, was also to be presented to the Synod’s board of directors this month, according to one of the declaration’s sponsors.
Earlier, a majority of Concordia faculty said they would participate in the investigation of their theological positions “only under protest.” A five-man “fact-finding committee” began the probe last October. Some professors have labeled the investigation “heresy hunting.”
Preus, remaining mum, told a reporter privately during an appearance in Washington, D. C., this month: “I don’t want to issue progress reports.” He believes he is complying with his church’s constitution and is fighting for the position imposed upon him by the Lutheran Confessions. Conservatives within the Synod backing the probe hold to an inerrant Bible and say the professors under fire teach destructive theories of liberal biblical criticism contrary to the standards of the church. Preus reportedly has said letters he has received on the subject run 90 per cent in favor of present handling of the investigation.
The drafter of the petition to Preus was the Reverend Bertwin Frey, a former president of the Synod’s English District. “We deplore the suggestion that our pastors and teachers should be required to teach in harmony with every resolution to our synodical conventions,” says one of the declaration’s seven points. Another declares that the signers will inform delegates to the Synod’s July, 1971, biennial convention in Milwaukee of “our position and stance.…”
The impasse may be settled there; more likely it will spill over to the 1973 convention and an all-out struggle between factions for control of the church. There is almost certain to be a strong challenge to Dr. Preus’s leadership. Christian Herald magazine, in a two-part analysis of “The Missouri-Synod Lutheran Civil War” (January and February issues), calls the story “one of the most important we have ever published.”
Evangelicals within and beyond the Lutheran communion are watching with great interest to see what happens at Concordia.
RUSSELL CHANDLER
A Life For Laos
Like Viet Nam, little Laos is known primarily as the focus of a lingering struggle for political control. But long before the present military conflict attracted outsiders, there were those who went to Laos to do battle on the spiritual level. The most noteworthy is scholarly G. Edward Roffe, who probably knows more about Laos than any other American.
Despite the intermittent bloody strife in recent years, Roffe has been able to oversee the work of translating the New Testament into Lao, the national language spoken by nearly three million people. Final typescripts are now being prepared. Roffe reached retirement age last year but secured an extension from the Christian and Missionary Alliance. “I want to remain in order to see this through the printing stage,” he says.
Roffe, son of a Toronto clergyman, graduated from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, and Nyack (New York) Missionary College. In 1928 he became the first resident American missionary in what is now Laos.2The only other Protestant missionary work in Laos was begun in 1902 in the south by “Open” Plymouth Brethten from Switzerland. These were joined later by Brethren from other countries and by the Overseas Missionary Fellowship. There are now more than eighty Protestant churches in the country, three-fourths of them in the north, where the CMA works. His college sweetheart, from Orlando, Florida, joined him the following year and they were married there. While on furlough Roffe did graduate study in linguistics at Cornell.
The first full text of the New Testament in Lao had been published in 1926, but missionaries and national Christian leaders felt the need of a new and better translation. An inter-church, inter-mission committee worked for ten years, finishing in 1965. The four Gospels and Acts were already off the press when there were second thoughts. Says Roffe:
“As new insights were gained … it was decided to undertake an in-depth revision of the already approved text, and to engage the services of a stylist. This amounted to a retranslation of what had already been completed and approved for printing.”
Serious work on the revision did not begin until 1968. But even though the translators worked only half-time, they were able to accomplish the task in three years. The new publication will include paragraph headings, appropriate references for parallel passages, a regular reference system, a glossary, and an index.
A translation team of younger persons has begun work on the Old Testament.
DAVID KUCHARSKY
Shifts For Survey, Motive
After more than three years’ rapidly falling circulation for the Presbyterian Survey, official journal of the Presbyterian Church, U. S., the magazine’s board of directors this month discharged Ben Hartley, editor, and Miss Frances Furlow, associate editor.
The magazine has skidded from more than 250,000 circulation in the early 1960s to a present 140,000. No replacements were named for Hartley and Miss Furlow, and they will be allowed to remain at the Survey until Dr. E. A. Dean, the board’s executive director, replaces them. Hartley said he would not comment on the firing. He submitted a resignation three years ago, saying then that he lacked the board’s support and editorial freedom. The board refused to accept the resignation.
The magazine has shifted in emphasis in recent years, reflecting denominational concerns and news of the church’s boards and agencies. Hartley is known to have favored a more prophetic form of newsmagazine journalism.
Meanwhile, the controversial United Methodist publication, motive, will become independent July 1, according to the Methodist Board of Education. For thirty years motive, aimed at college and university communities, has been under the Methodist wing. In 1969—following an uproar over an issue that contained four-letter words—the board voted to support motive for three years. A study committee is to make recommendations on future denominational ties for the 13,000 circulation, eight-times-a-year publication.
Personalia
Evangelist Billy Graham underwent surgery this month for removal of a swollen salivary gland. He canceled several engagements to recuperate, but doctors said they expected no adverse effects. The gland has been troubling Graham for several months.
Decision editor Sherwood E. Wirt, marking his tenth anniversary with the magazine, is participating in a nine-week tour of the Pacific rim. He and his wife are leading Christian writing schools in Sydney, Jakarta, Singapore, Taipei, Tokyo, and Manila. He will return to his office April 19.
United Presbyterian-related Macalester College in St. Paul is losing its chief benefactor and its president. DeWitt Wallace, founder of Reader’s Digest, has given $37 million to his alma mater in the past forty years, but the largess will all but end this year. President Arthur Flemming, a former National Council of Churches president, will retire by August 31.
Dr. Raymond I. Lindquist, 63, for eighteen years pastor of huge Hollywood, California, Presbyterian Church, has announced his resignation in order to head a new foundation that will award grants for religious endeavors.
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod president Jacob A. O. Preus preached on the power of prayer in the space age this month at a White House Sunday service attended by the President and Billy Graham.
Religion In Transit
A microfilm packet containing Genesis 1:1 in sixteen languages and a complete RSV Bible were deposited on the moon February 5 by Apollo 14 LEM commander Edgar Mitchell.
St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church in Washington, D. C., has bought out all the seats at the National Theater for a Washington preview of the hippie musical “Hair” on March 11. Proceeds from $7, $15, and $25 tickets will help meet the church’s commitment to the black community.
New York’s Riverside Church will spend $100,000 this year for its security program—more than the entire budget of most smaller churches—because of the growing crime problem.
Yale Divinity School and its smaller neighbor, Berkeley Divinity School (Episcopal), will merge this spring to establish a theological training program stressing field community work instead of traditional academic studies.
The U. S. Supreme Court has been asked to modify its ban on prayer in public schools to allow voluntary prayer services before school. The Netcong, New Jersey, school board brought the issue before the court.… The New York State Assembly approved a bill that would permit the same beforeschool exercises.
World Scene
The Far East Broadcasting Company has launched the Open Door Project to China, a radio endeavor to reach all of Red China with the Gospel. The million-dollar project, scheduled for completion next year, includes a station on Cheju Island in Korea and one on Luzon in the Philippines. Both will be powered by 250,000 watts.
More money ($2.36 million) was given to the United Methodist Committee for Overseas Relief (UMCOR) in 1970 than in any other year in the three-decade history of the organization.
Because United Methodists in Rhodesia refused to make up a 5 per cent cut by the government in teachers’ salaries, some of the denomination’s 200 schools have had to close.
The World Council of Churches’ special fund to combat racism has now received more than $123,500 in addition to the $200,000 allocated from WCC reserves.
