NEWS
For forty years, under the able leadership of editor-minister Daniel A. Poling, the now 93-year-old Christian Herald was known as a bastion of conservative, evangelical Christianity. When Poling stepped down in 1966, two years before his death at 83, more than the masthead began to change.
Ford Stewart became editor, and in 1968 Poling’s nephew David, who had joined the magazine in 1964, became its president. The present editor, Kenneth L. Wilson, took over in 1967, and Laurence S. Heely, Jr., became publisher in early 1968.
The tone of the Herald, the nation’s largest interdenominational Protestant monthly, shifted rather markedly toward a liberal theology and a conciliar ecumenism during those years. Circulation, once at the 400,000 mark, began to slip. And rightly or wrongly, David Poling, urbane, talented, and a man with many an iron in journalistic fires, was both praised and assailed for the Herald’s changing image.
This month Poling resigned, severing formal contact with the magazine except for a position on its board of directors. And last month Heely, the publisher, resigned after eighteen years at the Herald. He now sells religious lists for an advertising brokerage firm in New York. About twenty-five Herald employees have been laid off in the past year, and circulation, by a planned reduction, now hovers just over 300,000.
Sources close to the Herald say Heely and Poling were “let go by mutual consent,” but both they and editor Wilson say the departures were strictly voluntary. And there is disagreement as to whether the theological change in the magazine is a root cause of financial difficulties and masthead turnover.
Poling, reached at his White Plains, New York, home by telephone, said his leaving was “not an overnight thing.” He said he had “indicated my willingness to resign in order to write and speak for some time.” Poling, prolific and energetic, is coauthoring a book on Albert Schweitzer. He writes a regular column for the Newspaper Enterprises Association and plans, among other things, to write a series of twenty-five booklets of commentary on medals of the world’s great religions to be struck by noted sculptor Ralph Menconi (he made medals of the last four U.S. presidents).
David is of a different breed from his late uncle, though both men have exhibited great diversity. Daniel was theologically conservative, anti-Communist, and anti-pacifist, and was one of the few big-name churchmen to oppose the Supreme Court prayer decision. David freely acknowledges responsibility for changes at the Herald. “As I move pretty easily and freely in several denominational camps,” he explained, “I’d probably be considered the cause of the Herald’s wider range of interests.… We needed to camp in the mainstream.”
While David was president, the Herald came out with a series of articles critical of the Viet Nam war and took on a stable of regular contributing writers who often choose controversial subjects—frequently serving them up with a liberal flavor.
Wilson seems firmly entrenched and now wears the double mantle of editor and publisher since Heely’s departure. He sees the changes at the Herald in a different light than Poling. In a separate interview Wilson told a reporter: “Any blame for the direction of the magazine falls on my hands,” not Poling’s. But he says the most “dramatic changes” took place under Ford Stewart’s editorship. Wilson, considered a liberal who “plays it close to the chest,” said there is more of a relationship between the magazine and himself than there was between the magazine and Poling.
And Wilson, a Herald employee for twenty-two years, flatly denied that the board in any way interferes with his editorial decisions. Those who think the magazine will revert to a more conservative stance without Poling better think again, Wilson believes. He points out that he—as editor—would have been axed had there been board dissatisfaction with the Herald’s editorial thrust.
One man outside the Herald staff but long associated with it (he asked not to be identified) thinks the Herald’s policy-makers have misjudged its readership. “It is losing circulation because of the swing away from the evangelical position,” he maintains. “Dave has been taking it more and more down the liberal line and [toward] the National Council of Churches.… But the market is the old-line conservatives in the major denominations, and the evangelicals, and it has been since the time of Dan Poling.”
In any case, the Herald—not alone among major religious publications—has been in a financial sweat the last several years. Ad linage is down this year, according to Poling. “The last year has been a crusher,” he admitted, adding that the Herald had sold its 39th Street building in New York and is leasing back space from the purchaser.
Those interviewed agreed that the present circulation of slightly more than 300,000 was a planned cutback, and at least partially a response to the general sag in the national economy. “We have eliminated the most unprofitable segment of the magazine,” Wilson said, noting that there is “an optimum point of circulation of any magazine.” Keeping mail-sold circulation at a higher level, plus continuing expirees on the circulation list, were simply not profitable.
There also was agreement that the recent death of department-store executive J. C. Penney, a prime benefactor of the Herald during the 1920s, had nothing to do with the staff changes in the past few weeks. Penney apparently gave no money to the Herald through his will, and had contributed only token amounts since 1934, according to Wilson.
The magazine itself is not self-supporting, but the Herald enterprises as a whole (including the book club, travel tours, and other projects) are.
The magazine may have been losing money partly because of high-priced overstaffing. A sign that this is being corrected is that two advertising salesmen now take the place of the previous five or six. Intimates are optimistic that the publication can avoid the terminal illness that has stricken such secular greats as the Saturday Evening Post. Says one: “The Herald could be in the black with 300,000 circulation, good management, and lower overhead.”
The Herald’s new president keeps a tight hand on the pursestrings. Fenwick D. Loomer, a Lutheran Church in America layman who joined the Herald staff only seven months ago, was treasurer before he stepped into Poling’s shoes this month. He is seen by some as the new power behind the throne. Friction between him and Heely reportedly was a cause of Heely’s leaving, and there are signs that Loomer is doing the staff housecleaning.
Before joining the Herald, Loomer was vice-president and treasurer of the National Retail Merchants Association. In Wilson’s words: “Loomer brings [us] professional know-how.”
No one is publicly saying there will be any big changes at the Herald. But in the March issue, the well-known “Lines of a Layman” by Penney (a longtime Herald hallmark) appears opposite the popular “David Poling Answers Your Questions” column. Now that the one author has passed to his reward and the other has moved to different fields, the Christian Herald appears to be on the brink of a new era.
Final Editions
Financial pressures on religious periodicals may be exacting their biggest toll in more than a generation. Two tabloids are the latest to fold: the Canadian Mennonite, a weekly published in Winnipeg, and Tempo, a monthly put out by the National Council of Churches in the U.S.A.
The last issue of the Mennonite paper was dated February 19. At the top of the front page a black box appeared with the headline: “Final Edition.” The Canadian Mennonite, independently published, began about eighteen years ago.
Tempo ceased publication in its third year. It had about 10,000 paying subscribers. The editors said in a parting note that they had plans to begin publishing in 1971 a periodical newsletter reporting news of the ecumenical life of the churches.
Another NCC publication may soon fold. Religion in Communist-Dominated Areas, a documentary newsletter often threatened with extinction, is now scheduled to go out of business by June 30 unless more financial support can be mustered.
Methodist Edward H. Beck, a Syracuse University journalism scholar, found in a survey of editors and circulation managers of Protestant periodicals that reader dissatisfaction with denominational actions and competition of other interests such as sports and travel were chief causes of widespread circulation decline.
Revival Reaches Out; Sda Students Carry It On
It was chilly and overcast outside, and patches of brown snow lay amid watery quagmires, but warm revival fires of love and joy in Jesus burned brightly inside.
The site: Camp Berkshire, New York, where late last month more than 400 Seventh-day Adventist students gathered—on less than one week’s notice for most—to compare notes about the spiritual revolution that had recently engulfed them. They had come in cars, vans, and chartered buses from eight SDA colleges and two high-school academies located as far away as Nebraska and Alabama. Some hitchhiked from Michigan in order to witness about Christ along the way. A station wagon arrived with “Carry It On” emblazoned in large letters.
During the long weekend at camp they discussed methods of personal witness, the filling of the Holy Spirit, and Bible teachings about Christ’s second coming. To the accompaniment of spirited guitarists and soul pianists they sang such songs as “He’s Everything to Me,” “They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love,” “His Name Is Wonderful,” and choruses from Ralph Carmichael’s Tell It Like It Is. Groups of four or five seemed to link arms almost spontaneously and break into fervent prayer for one another and for spiritually lost friends.
“Sharing” sessions were marked by stirring accounts of recent conversions, joyous “Amen” responses, and soft “Thank you, Jesus” prayers. Recurring testimonies: “I’ve been an Adventist all my life but I’m a Christian now,” and “I’ve been into legalism and into drugs but now I’m into Jesus and the Bible.”
Graham Text Favors Public Aid To Private Schools
Billy Graham, in an address prepared for delivery March 14 at a Cleveland meeting of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, called for public aid to private schools. It was the first time the Southern Baptist evangelist has taken such a stand.
Graham was invited to the banquet to receive the 1971 NCCJ International Brotherhood Award.
Graham stressed that he was “irrevocably committed” to the traditional separation of church and state. But he noted that “religiously oriented schools all over the nation are threatened with bankruptcy.…” Calling for “some creative solution to this complex problem,” Graham suggested as possible answers dual enrollment (shared time), tax rebates, or tuition grants students could use “where they please.”
His remarks were set in the context of an uncompromising witness to his personal commitment to Christ as Saviour. “It seems wrong in principle for people to be taxed to support truly secular education while at the same time having to pay for educating their children in church schools,” Graham asserted. “Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish Americans are now helping to pay for materialistic, atheistic … and in some instances anti-Christian and anti-Semitic teaching.”
Graham’s choice of time and audience to declare his views appeared significant. Roman Catholic leaders have mounted an intense campaign for government assistance to parochial schools. Some Jewish bodies have recently swung to that side. Presidents Nixon and Johnson—both Protestants—have also leaned in that direction. The Supreme Court is now considering several cases involving forms of public aid to private schools.
Graham again urged the return of prayer to public schools. “Students should have the right to pray silently on a voluntary basis or to repeat prayers used in the Supreme Court or before Congress,” he said. “I also believe that the Bible should be read … perhaps limited even to the Ten Commandments,” he added.
At one meeting a young black stopped the music and told of his recent conversion. He said he came from a background of militancy and hate. “I didn’t like white people,” he confessed. But he said something happened when he accepted Christ: “Now I love you all.” A white immediately popped to his feet and in a decidedly British accent told of his prejudice as a South African against blacks in his land. “But Jesus has taken it away,” he declared, “and I love you, too, brother.” Blacks and whites tearfully embraced.
Occasionally, small groups armed with Reach Out! editions of The Living New Testament slipped away to witness in a nearby resort community.
The revival broke out simultaneously on several campuses last fall, most dramatically at Andrews University (2,000 students) in Berrien Springs, Michigan. Andrews had been plagued by student rebellion, wide-scale drug use (one student said he once had $3,000 worth of drugs stashed on book shelves in his dorm room), and polarization among faculty and student groups.
Alf Lingstrand and Art McLarty, two student leaders banned from campus earlier, found Christ after bad drug trips elsewhere and revisited Andrews in May to witness to old friends. Their testimonies sparked a summer of spiritual crisis for many students. Meanwhile, the pair joined religion professor Paul Cannon, himself newly committed to Christ, to spread the Gospel on the streets of Detroit.
In October, 150 students attended a Campus Concern retreat near Andrews where, reported one, “the Holy Spirit really got hold of us.” There were confessions of sin, conversions, statements of consecration. In a “routine” chapel assembly back at school they reported what God had done in their lives, inviting others who wished a similar experience to come forward. More than half the assembled students walked forward to pray and testify, and the chapel session, like that at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky, a year ago (see February 27, 1970, issue, page 36), went on for hours. Many declared they were accepting Christ on the spot. Some telephoned their parents to ask forgiveness.
Scores of prayer and Bible-study groups were formed. Teams took the news to other colleges, academies, and churches; revival followed virtually everywhere they went.
Doug DeLong, who reportedly underwent exorcism of a demon when he was converted in a dorm prayer meeting, went to his alma mater, Battle Creek Academy—described as a hotbed of discontent—and boomed: “I hope you guys get into Jesus!” Many did.
At Forest Lake Academy, two recent “services”—the official one inside and an unofficial prayer meeting outside (where students prayed for unconverted friends inside)—went on past midnight. “This is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit!” cried one student. “This is Pentecost!”
At Columbia Union College (950 students) in Takoma Park, Maryland, visiting Andrews students prayed and exchanged testimonies with crowds of spiritually ready CUCers until the wee hours.
One hundred students from Andrews, CUC, and other schools spent their Christmas holidays reaching people for Christ in the streets of New York City. Groups from Pacific Union College (1,850 students) in Angwin, California, launched street campaigns in San Francisco and door-to-door visits in the suburbs. PUCers were in the center of things when more than a third of Monterey Bay Academy’s 350 students at a California retreat requested salvation and filling by the Holy Spirit. And Kingsway (Canada) collegians witnessed to hippies in Toronto.
Churches have reported all-night prayer meetings and new spiritual vitality following visits by students. In some cases, factional feuds and disharmony have disappeared.
At the Camp Berkshire meeting (initiated by Columbia Union students), observer Arthur White, grandson of SDA founder Ellen G. White, told CHRISTIANITY TODAY: “We at headquarters have been silently sitting back and watching all of this. I am now ready to say that it is a genuine movement of the Holy Spirit.”
“This revival will last,” predicted SDA world youth director John Hancock in an interview. “These kids have an insatiable desire to study the Word of God. Their testimonies are Bible-centered.” It is time now not to evaluate but to participate, he exhorted the SDA executive staff this month.
What do others think of the movement?
“I thank God for it!” exclaimed Kettering College (Ohio) dean Marthine Bliss. “I’ve been praying for this for a long time.” She told of a veteran SDA foreign missionary who accepted Christ on a recent visit at Kettering.
Columbia Union dean Lawrence Stevens, himself a leader in the movement, said he and other SDA deans are no longer running around trying to put down student unrest. “We’re now kept busy counseling kids who want to know about Christ and the Spirit-filled life,” he said. “We’ve never had it so easy before.”
Some older SDA leaders privately voice hopes that the movement will get more excited about Adventism as a cause or system.
Never, says an Andrews student. “The traditional system failed to communicate Christ.” Yet he and others in the movement speak of new respect for Mrs. White because of insights they have gleaned from her devotional writings.
Meanwhile, reports Tyndale House publisher Ken Taylor, SDA bookstores can’t seem to keep enough of his Reach Out! New Testaments in stock; thousands have been sent, but the stores keep running out. EDWARD E. PLOWMAN
Membership Plateaus
One word describes church membership in the United States, according to the 1971 edition of the Yearbook of American Churches: static.
The annual tally revealed that the membership of 230 church bodies rose 35,448 to an all-time high of 128,505,084. But that is only a .03 per cent gain, compared to the previous year’s gain of 1.6 per cent, and far below the general population increase of 1.1 per cent. The data, which mainly reflect figures for the year 1969, show that 62.4 per cent of Americans hold church membership, compared with 63.1 per cent in the previous listing. Church attendance figures were 42 per cent for the new survey, down 1 per cent from the year before.
Among the larger communions showing a slight membership loss were Roman Catholics, United Methodists, Episcopalians, United Presbyterians, American Lutherans, the United Church of Christ, and the Lutheran Church in America.
A few major bodies showed gains: the Southern Baptists, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and the National Primitive Baptist Convention. Most small, conservative church bodies followed a well-established pattern of growth.
Forty-eight reporting Protestant church bodies indicated that their members gave a combined total of $3,099,589,399, up about $99,500,000 from the 1968 figure. About 70 per cent of the money given in 1969 stayed at the local congregational level.
Large increases in the number of ordained clergymen were reported by the Yearbook. The 230 church bodies had 387,642 ordained clergymen in the latest survey, up from 361,506 in 226 bodies reported in the 1970 Yearbook.
The statistics, published by the National Council of Churches, also show that church construction was off in 1969, and that Canadian Christian communions reported 11,455,241 members for 1969–70; 8.7 million are Roman Catholic. The largest Eastern Orthodox group is the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America with 1.87 million.
Expelling Missionaries
A series of government raids on the homes and offices of church officials, and deportations of clergymen have shaken up church leaders in southern Africa and in the United States.
Three young American church workers were ordered to leave South Africa by March 14. No official reason was given for the deportation of United Methodist special-term missionary Gus Kious of San Leandro, or Mr. and Mrs. Reed Kramer of Knoxville, serving an ecumenical mission project. News accounts speculated the ouster may have been related to multiracial aspects of the programs. The Kramers’ apartment was reportedly raided twice.
A few days later, Howard Trumbull, a Congregational Church lay worker, and his family of five were ordered out of South Africa by May 28; the order was the tenth for a church worker during one week.
As a result of seizure of an interchurch agency’s records by security police in Capetown, thousands of persons face starvation, according to an agency official. Without the records, he said, administration of the organization’s charity program that provides subsistence-level income to families of persons detained by police on political charges is impossible. The police removed files from the Inter-Church Dependents’ Conference in an alleged search for “subversive literature.” Raids also were made on denominational offices and religious leaders’ homes in Capetown, Johannesburg, and Durban.
Two American-born Mariannhill missionary priests, meanwhile, were expelled. The South Africa government told Father Casimir Paulsen of Detroit to leave by March 31, the same date Father Henry Heier of Aberdeen, South Dakota, was given by the Rhodesia government to leave that country. Both men have been outspoken against apartheid.
And in Taiwan, the Nationalist Chinese government this month without explanation placed a United Methodist missionary and his wife under house arrest and ordered them out within forty-eight hours. The Reverend M. L. Thornberry, registrar and teacher at Taiwan Theological College, a Presbyterian seminary, is known to have been friendly with a number of politically disaffected native Taiwanese, the New York Times reported. The expulsion was believed to be the first for an American citizen in Taiwan.
If All Else Fails …
Renewed outbreaks of violence in Belfast last month sparked an all-day prayer meeting held by a group of local businessmen. Granted free use of the city’s Ulster Hall for the day, leaders called the meeting to pray for “the province in the present emergency.”
Those attending—including the governor of Northern Ireland, the Lord Mayor and other political, commercial, and religious leaders—were requested to pray silently. Approximately 7,000 attended during the course of the day.
S. W. MURRAY
A New Folk Musical: Do The Answers Ring True?
Chimes from a church steeple ring as a baby wails and sounds of the street and war are heard. Tedd Smith’s “quest in folk rock,” New Vibrations, tells of John’s search for meaning through the pain and confusion that the initial sound effects symbolize. In the confusion, the church bells never stop chiming. The answer is in the midst of the confusion, but will it be heard?
The structure is cyclical; we hear John search through adolescence, middle age, and old age without finding answers. His son, John, Jr., asks the same questions his father did but—unconvincingly—finds answers in Christ. “Life Is Why” expresses most of John’s questions. The girl, intended as a foil, replies: “You were born to glorify the one who died.”
Smith develops his quest through poetic preludes that probe the problem more seriously than the songs. The musical hammers away at some of the pet grievances of this generation: materialism, lack of love, and the institutional church (John sings, “[I] looked for you in stained-glass windows, but you weren’t there”). Although the subject is trite, the questions are honest, with a certain freshness to the approach.
John’s son follows in his father’s footsteps, but with only two songs in which to find his answers. In the finale, “New Vibrations,” he “tries to believe.” (With the girl and the chorus shouting at him, he has no choice.) He breaks into a chant of the Apostles’ Creed; while reciting “the third day he rose again from the dead” he stops and begins shouting: “I believe, yes, I believe!” The conversion, however, is too abrupt and theatrical for credibility.
Although the composer tries to give hope to a generation convinced of the hopelessness of life (starting with the butterflies on the album cover), his effort suffers from answers too quickly and easily found by John’s son.
Smith’s conclusion may ring true to young people who have found Christianity easy to accept, but uncommitted listeners of this generation may fare no better than John, Sr. CHERYL A. FORBES
Followers Of The Way
One of the latest outbreaks of the spiritual awakening on the nation’s youth scene is centered at Rye, New York, a wealthy bedroom village near the Connecticut state line.
Photographers for Life magazine, which is preparing an article on the movement, clicked away at a recent meeting of 170. Writer Jane Howard interviewed parents of the young people, whose lives reportedly have shown remarkable changes since they received Christ.
The leaders of the movement are associated with The Way Biblical Research Center of New Knoxville, Ohio, headed by Dr. Victor Wierwille, former Evangelical and Reformed minister.
Mixed Vibes
Staging and production were blah, but the lyrics and poetry sounded mighty fine.
These were some of the reactions from the capacity audience at the premiere of pianist-composer Tedd Smith’s one-hour folk musical, New Vibrations. The majority of the 1,600 persons—mostly straight young people and adults—at the San Gabriel, California, civic auditorium accorded the musical a standing ovation. Ralph Carmichael conducted a select group of singers for the occasion.
“I think Mr. Smith did a wonderful job in capturing the questions man asks all through life about God and his own existence on this planet,” said one adult.
Richard George, a college student, said: “I think mostly Christians and straight people will go to see New
Vibrations, which is good. There are a lot of things being written and produced to reach the hippies and exiles of society. This is something which a short-haired kid can identify with. The poetic readings were excellent—the best part of the show!”
One teen-ager said she liked the music and the words but not the staging, mainly the lack of movement. Others complained that a back-up light show detracted rather than enhanced.
Several youths reportedly received Christ afterward. One middle-aged mother commented that she had never before thought so seriously about life.
Smith’s work is the latest of a growing number of Christian folk musicals, a medium popular among hundreds of new church youth choirs since the advent of compiler Bob Oldenburg’s Good News in 1967.
RITA WARREN
Until 1968 The Way was largely confined to a few adults in Ohio. Then Wierwille’s lectures were put on tape and film. He also persuaded Steve Heefner and Jim Doop, whom he met on a visit to a California Christian commune, to join him. Heefner, a drugscene convert and former popular disc jockey known on San Francisco and New York stations as Steve O’Shea, became The Way’s East Coast director in Rye. Doop, a former tobacco salesman who mixed right-wing politics with dope trips, took over West Coast activities.
The new youth-beamed outreach successfully reached thousands—straights and street kids alike—and many of them are still out on the streets winning others. Large contingents meet in the San Francisco area, Wichita, and on the university campus at Greenville, North Carolina, as well as at Rye. There is a current upsurge on Long Island directed by new leaders Steve and Lori Perez.
The way is rigorous for followers of The Way: a thirteen-session course with a $45 tab for materials (“satisfaction guaranteed or your money back”). “Abundance of life” is advertised as the main emphasis. Water baptism is not recognized. Healing is always God’s will, The Way teaches, and God doesn’t like it when a believer dies (“one less witness”). The Way incorporates views associated with anti-legalist, dispensationalist, Calvinist, and charismatic positions. Wierwille also teaches an unusual non-Trinitarian view of God. All members are encouraged to speak in tongues (“one of nine gifts given to every believer”) at the end of the course.
The Rye meetings are held in the manse of the Rye Presbyterian Church. Pastor Joseph Bishop, who has taken the course, says he has reservations about some of Wierwille’s teachings but none about the changed lives he sees in the movement.
Heefner no longer thinks communal life is good for Christians, and he believes the bulk of the so-called “Jesus movement” burgeoning throughout the nation is too long on experience and too short on intensive Bible study.
EDWARD E. PLOWMAN
Selling Out?
The Federal Communications Commission has been asked to approve the sale of radio stations WAVO AM and FM, in Decatur, Georgia, by Bob Jones University. Robert W. Sudbrink of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, owner of several radio stations in Ohio and Florida, has offered $675,500 for the stations in which the university invested $319,425 in 1963.
The university said it wants to sell the stations to help fund construction of a campus amphitorium. License renewal is being held up on the Decatur stations and also on the university’s stations WMUU AM and FM in Greenville, South Carolina, pending a reply by the university to the FCC’s demand that it demonstrate it is following fair-employment practices in hiring station personnel. Sudbrink says he will comply with all FCC policies.
