Pentecost Sunday, 1975, will live in church history as the day when the charismatic movement in the Catholic Church arrived in St. Peter’s with full force. During the pontifical mass presided over by Pope Paul VI on May 18, the sound of tongues and charismatic singing filled the massive nave of the ancient mother church of Roman Catholicism. Of the 25,000 who jammed the basilica, about 10,000 were participants in the third International Conference on the Charismatic Renewal (an estimated 4,000 were from North America and 1,000 from Latin America). In four remarkable days, these Pentecostal Catholics found that their movement had gained warm acceptance at the highest levels of the Roman church.
The conference, which in previous years had met at Notre Dame University, convened in Rome in conjunction with the Holy Year proclaimed by Pope Paul. The theme was the same as that for the Holy Year—”Renewal and Reconciliation.” Participants came from over sixty nations representing more than one million Catholic charismatics in several thousand prayer groups.* Several Protestant Pentecostal and charismatic leaders also attended as “official ecumenical observers.”
Conference sessions were held on the outskirts of Rome in a large tent over the catacombs of St. Callixtus, a meeting and burial place for early Christian martyrs. Many difficulties had to be overcome. Communist-run labor unions delayed construction of the five tents used for the conference. They also closed the airports and railway stations temporarily, stranding thousands of travelers in France.
The sights and sounds of the conference were similar to those of a back-woods Pentecostal camp meeting. Thousands stood and sat outside the tent because there was no room inside. The testimonies, sermons, and impassioned singing resulted in much rejoicing and “dancing in the Spirit.” The Daily American, an English-language newspaper, reported that “bishops, archbishops and cardinals, struggling to keep their hats in place, sang and danced in ecstasy, embracing one another and raising their arms to heaven.” Another Roman newspaper characterized the meeting as a “mass illusion.”
Although traditional Pentecostal manifestations claimed the headlines, the major work of the conference was devoted to workshops on healing, parish renewal, sacramental renewal, life in the Holy Spirit, and family life. The leading figure in the conference was Cardinal Josef Suenens, primate of Belgium, who welcomed the conferees and celebrated the final charismatic mass. Practical leadership was given by chairman Ralph Martin and the Word of God Community of Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Although no individual “messages” in other tongues were given, many “prophecies” were delivered. These were handed to the leaders in written form and communicated to the conference. Testimonies of the movement’s burgeoning growth around the world were greeted with enthusiastic applause.
On Pentecost Sunday, the conference moved to St. Peter’s for the mass celebrated by Pope Paul. Although the charismatics were a minority in the throngs who filled the church and the square outside, their presence was apparent as the mass progressed. Spontaneous singing of the charismatic anthem “Alleluia” competed with the pipe organ at the beginning and end of the service. At the consecration of the host, a soft murmur of “singing in the Spirit” (chanting in harmony in glossolalia) filled the cathedral. While the Pope continued the mass, hands were raised in praise, and at one point, a priest fell to his knees and asked to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Several persons laid hands on him and prayed quietly.
At the end of the Pope’s sermon on Christian joy, which was delivered in five languages, he exclaimed, “Jesus is Lord,” evoking thunderous shouts from the charismatics. As the Pope was carried out on his throne, the chorus “Alleluia” was sung so lustily that the organist finally joined in and accompanied the singing.
On Sunday afternoon the conference returned to the tent to hear Cardinal John Willebrands, president of the Secretariat for Christian Unity in the Vatican. While praising the charismatics for their joy and use of the Spirit’s gifts, he counseled them to share their gifts with all mankind. He further admonished that holiness is the greatest object of Christian living.
The climax of the conference came at St. Peter’s on Monday, May 19, in a mass conducted by Cardinal Suenens, who was assisted by twelve bishops and more than 800 priests. This was the first specifically charismatic service ever held in St. Peter’s. Suenens delivered his sermon in typical Pentecostal style. The cathedral reverberated with the shouted responses to his “hallelujahs.” Such Pentecostal choruses as “Spirit of the Living God” and “Alleluia” were sung with hands upraised. Several times the well-filled basilica resounded with singing in the Spirit.
A striking moment in the service came when two young lay leaders, Ralph Martin and Bruce Young, prophesied from the high altar of the basilica. Their prophecies spoke of “days of darkness and tribulation” for the world and the faithful, but also a “time of evangelism, victory, and triumph” for those in Christ. Several similar prophecies were given over microphones in the choir area by members of the “word-gift unit.”
At the close of the mass, Pope Paul arrived to give special greetings to the conferees. As he entered, the congregation broke into cheers and applause. Most of his message was given in French, with short summaries in Spanish and English.
His message to the Catholic charismatics was one of encouragement and exhortation. Using the word “spiritual” instead of “charismatic” to describe the renewal, he called for “fidelity to the authentic doctrines of the faith,” for “all the spiritual gifts to be received with gratitude,” and for greater emphasis on love, because “the fruit of the Spirit is love.” Could not this spiritual renewal be a chance for the church and for the world? he asked, adding, “Why, in this case, do we not take every means to continue it?”
At the end of his prepared text, the Pope broke into impromptu remarks in his native Italian. Reflecting on his encyclical on joy that was proclaimed the day before, he exhorted the charismatics to share their joy with the world. The conference erupted in applause as the Pope ended with, “Glory to the Lord, hallelujah!” Before he exited, the Pope embraced and kissed Cardinal Suenens and greeted about twenty of the leading charismatics. Many wept openly.
At a closing theological conference and reception attended by more than sixty theologians and observers, attempts were made to explain the Pentecostal experience in terms acceptable to the Catholic Church. Leading professors from several theological faculties in Rome questioned members of a panel of charismatic theologians from Europe and the United States on the validity and evidences of tongues and miracles of healing.
Observers at the conference felt that the words and actions of Pope Paul amounted to tacit support for the charismatic movement. Even though the Pope’s remarks did not constitute “official” approval, they agreed, they indicated an acceptance that could spur even greater growth of the movement in the church.
According to Catholic theologian Kilian McDonnell of Minnesota, it was a “triumphant day,” while to Balthasar Fisher of Trier University, Germany, the meeting was “historical—of enormous importance.” To Protestant Pentecostal spokesman David du Plessis, it was “the greatest charismatic and ecumenical event in ecclesiastical history.”
Cardinal Suenens summed up the feelings—and hopes—of many when he declared that by his actions and warm words of approval, “the Pope opened his arms and heart to the charismatic renewal.”
Optimism In Canada
The eleven-year-old Evangelical Fellowship of Canada tried a new format for its annual meeting last month and got its biggest turnout ever.
Plans called for around 800 registrants at what was billed as a “Christian Leadership Seminar” May 13–16 at York University in Toronto. But more than 1,000 registered, and the main meetings had to be held in the university’s large ice arena. Ministers and lay leaders from all ten provinces and from nearly every Protestant denomination were there.
Business items, financial reports, election, and house matters were kept low key, being dispatched by the EFC’s dedicated core in the dead hours between supper and the evening session.
Attention was focused on the main ring at the arena and on the seminar room where Anglican rector John Stott of London, television minister Stephen Olford, and Fuller Seminary missions specialist Donald McGavran dealt with expository speaking, evangelism, and church growth. The three delivered daily addresses and conducted workshops.
The choice of the speakers and the theme of the gathering (“Let Canada hear his voice”) gave the impression of a mini-version of the recent Lausanne Congress. Some 1,300 people filled the arena each night to hear Olford.
McGavran sounded a ringing, optimistic note in his concluding address. “We live in the sunrise, not the sunset of the Christian enterprise,” he contended. Speaking during the days of the Cambodian seizure of the Mayaguez, he called on his hearers to shake loose from the “vast pessimism” that, he said, too often characterizes evangelicals.
He had earlier accused some conciliar churches of a “sour grapes” attitude in their rejection of evangelism and church growth. Their dependence upon “biological growth” could be their downfall, he warned, citing Canadian census statistics. “The dynamics of the pill may open the eyes of some major denominations to the necessity of vigorous evangelism,” he chided.
Resolutions, sounding a positive note, dealt with issues under debate throughout Canada. At a time when the government is conducting a cross-Canada immigration inquiry to sample public opinion, EFC delegates unequivocally called for immigration laws, policies, and regulations that “reflect the biblical principles of love, justice, liberty, and equality for all, without discrimination by reason of age, color, creed, nationality, race, or sex.”
An EFC resolution on overseas development aid called on Canadians to sacrifice to relieve suffering in other nations and asked provincial and federal governments to allocate at least 1 per cent of the gross national product to such international aid. Evangelicals particularly were asked to support Share, Canada!—the EFC’s own relief agency.
Other resolutions dealt with the status of women (they are divinely entitled to enjoy “the high calling of full personhood”) and education (provincial governments were asked to honor “the plurality of different educational convictions by equitably supporting all primary, secondary schools, colleges, and unversities” that provide quality education).
Elected EFC president for a two-year term was Charles Bidenstinner, president of Emmanuel Bible College (Missionary Church) in Kitchener, Ontario. He succeeds Toronto Presbyterian minister A. Donald MacLeod.
Since making provision in 1972 for denominational membership, the EFC has received ten denominations*, and two others have membership under active consideration. A large segment of support still comes from para-church agencies, mission boards, and individual members.
LESLIE K. TARR
X-RATED SERMON
In Richardson, Texas, they’re still talking about the worldly ways of First Unitarian Church. On a recent Sunday Pastor William Nichols invited Diana King, a Unitarian from Fort Worth, to take part in the service. She did, and when she was through, Miss King—an exotic dancer at a Dallas nightspot—was wearing only a G-string. The congregation of 200 adults and children watched in fascinated silence as she shed her clothes in time with recorded music.
Nichols said the dance fit “very well into our service” and nobody complained. He also said he didn’t think anyone was aroused, “but I don’t consider the erotic aspect of the dance wrong. After all, that’s the way we were conceived.”
Miss King said it was something she wanted to do for a long time, and she would like to conduct classes for women church members.
“I would like to do a sermon using the exotic dance, and members of the congregation could join me if they liked,” she commented.
Chad: After The Coup
The general who led the coup against Chad president Ngarta Tombalbaye is an evangelical believer, and the man who replaced Tombalbaye has strong Christian ties. Also, the persecution of Christians that marked the last months of Tombalbaye’s regime (see November 8, 1974, issue, page 40) has apparently ceased, according to a report by General Secretary Byang H. Kato of the Association of Evangelicals of Africa and Madagascar (AEAM). Kato visited the central African state last month. (Tombalbaye, who had personally enforced an edict requiring all Christians to undergo an idolatrous tribal initiation rite, was assassinated on April 13.)
General Noel Odingar, the officer who led the coup, told Kato that no one would be forced into any rite against his religious conviction. Although some members of the nine-man ruling Supreme Military Council have undergone the “Yondo” initiation rites required under Tombalbaye’s African “authenticity” program, the new government has passed a decree authorizing religious freedom and reopening closed Christian churches and Muslim temples. The military leaders invited Kato to return later on to discuss with the Supreme Council the relation between culture and the Church.
The country’s new leader, General Felix Maloum, was released from prison to become chairman of the Supreme Council. He is from a Christian family, and his wife is a member of the Evangelical Church of Chad.
Maloum told Ben Stroscheim of The Evangelical Alliance Mission that missionaries expelled under Tombalbaye are free to return. Among these are more than a dozen workers of Baptist Mid-Missions ousted allegedly for encouraging church members to resist participation in the initiation rites. (Tombalbaye was once a professing Baptist.)
“There’s great potential for the churches in Chad now, but presently they are faced with the problem of what to do with members who underwent initiation,” Kato reported. “In one church, all but the pastor and an elder succumbed to Tombalbaye’s threats; in other churches the pastors underwent initiation but many members resisted—some paying with their lives. One pastor told me how he had been severely beaten and forced to eat human excrement. Some Christian initiates have repented, but the process of healing in the churches will be a long one. Division over what to do is a threat to the churches.”
A “Committee of Initiates,” made up of church members who underwent initiation, is reportedly trying to take over leadership of the churches, and some mission sources fear schism will be the result.
Kato noted the lack of trained leaders among Chad’s 200,000 Protestants. Most pastors are untrained or have had only elementary vernacular training. There is no seminary in Chad, and only recently a few men have been sent to France for seminary training. Kato spoke to a crowd of 500 educated Chadians in a church in N’Djamena, the capital, but noted that it was without a pastor.
“Missionaries will still have a part to play taking the word of life to Chad,” Kato stated, “but they should stay in the background. The urgent need is for training of Chadian leadership.”
Kato, a Nigerian based at AEAM’s headquarters in Kenya, reported that more than one hundred refugee families are being cared for in northeast Nigeria by churches and missions there. He recommended that these groups temporarily help support Chadian evangelists as they return.
One hundred Chadian church leaders met with Kato to discuss formation of an evangelical association that could help Christians present a united front in the future. Kato observed that all Protestant work among the nation’s four million people has been sponsored by evangelical groups. These include separatist elements, however, that traditionally have clung to narrow-fellowship views.
Chad, a former French colony which became independent in 1960, has a population of about four million. Muslims make up 53 per cent of the population. Christians, about equally divided between Protestants (virtually all of them evangelicals) and Catholics make up 5 per cent. The remainder follows tribal religions (animism).
“Ask Christians to pray for us,” General Odinger told Kato. “We are professional soldiers and not professional politicians. We were not trained to run a country. We thank God that he has answered the prayers of Christians around the world. Only with God’s help were we able to succeed in rescuing our nation.”
W. HAROLD FULLER
Trouble On Taiwan
The World Council of Churches and other groups have appealed to the government of the Republic of China for the release of 1,600 copies of a new romanized Taiwanese translation of the New Testament and 60 Bibles seized by the government of the late Chiang Kai-shek in January. Church spokesmen charge that the Nationalist Chinese government is violating the religious freedom of Taiwanese Christians.
Bible study in Japanese and other languages has been banned in the government’s apparent plan to enforce Mandarin Chinese as the official language of Taiwan.
Many people on the island, however, are not Chinese and do not speak Mandarin. Both the Catholics, numbering about 350,000, and the Protestants, about 300,000 strong, include mountain tribes descended from Malay people. Of the Protestants, 175,000 are Presbyterians, and half of their denomination’s 880 congregations are in the mountains.
The confiscated New Testaments are in a romanized rendition of Amoy Chinese spoken by more than 80 per cent of the island’s population.
Church sources say authorities interrupted services at a Tayal (tribal) church in February and seized copies of a recently published phonetic New Testament. Police later raided the printing depository of the Tayal Scriptures.
Officials of the National Council of Churches say the government has “intruded” in plans for a Billy Graham crusade set for the capital city of Taipei in October. They accuse authorities of limiting Graham to a 3,000-seat auditorium in order to eliminate an outdoor rally that might demonstrate church strength.
DEATHS
WYCLIFFE BOOTH, 80, grandson of the founder of the Salvation Army and himself a top leader in the group for many years; in London.
C. Andrew Lawson, 65, under whose twenty-five-year ministry the Timothy Eaton Memorial United Church in Toronto became the largest congregation in the United Church of Canada; in Toronto.
Marking The ‘Meck Deck’
North Carolina has set a precedent for making the religious element very much a part of American Bicentennial celebrations. The nation’s first gigantic Bicentennial rally, held May 20 in a park in Charlotte, included a worship service with the state’s most illustrious citizen, evangelist Billy Graham. The event commemorated the two-hundredth anniversary of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, which some believe marked the initial severing of the colonies’ ties to the British crown. President Ford was the featured speaker.
Coincidentally, one of those who signed the declaration was named William Graham, which prompted the evangelist to say, “I feel a very real kinship with this man and with all the signers of the Mecklenburg Declaration.… Most of all, my affinity with these men stems from the fact that they were—almost without exception—deeply religious. It is significant, I think, that both the signers of the Mecklenburg Declaration and the signers of the U. S. Declaration boldly proclaimed their belief in—and their dependence upon—God.”
As Graham spoke, the crowd kept growing. Ford followed Graham, and by that time the crowd was estimated at more than 100,000.
The speeches were part of an all day event staged in Charlotte’s Freedom Park under a blistering sun. The turnout showed the community’s high degree of awareness of heritage that makes it in effect the Philadelphia of the South. One of the city’s main thoroughfares is named Independence Boulevard. “First in Freedom” is the slogan that appears on North Carolina license plates.
Many historians, however, dispute the authenticity of what is affectionately called the “Meck Deck.” Those who believe in the document and in the meeting at which it was drafted say the original records were destroyed in a fire. There is no dispute about a meeting on May 31, 1775, of a local patriot committee. Resolves adopted then, though more moderate than those attributed to the May 20 meeting, are nonetheless described in Encyclopedia Britannica as having “annulled the authority of Great Britain.”
Virtually all of the twenty-seven persons thought to have signed the Meck Deck were Presbyterians. Two were clergy and fourteen were leaders. The clerk of the session of the Hopewell Presbyterian Church was the secretary of the May 20 meeting, and it was his home that burned in 1800, presumably destroying the records.
“The Bible was their blueprint of freedom, their charter of liberty,” said Graham. “They were evangelicals. They had not heard of the radical theology that a hundred years later was to emanate from Germany. They believed in the Bible as the Word of God.” He called for rededication to the principles and faith of the early leaders of Mecklenburg County.
Later, as Ford spoke, a group of “Red Hornet” youths raised a banner with an obscene reference to the God-and-country theme of Graham and Ford. Only the week before, a longstanding $1.08 million suit that claimed the group was excluded from a 1971 Billy Graham Day rally was dismissed in court. The suit named H. R. Haldeman, assistant to then President Nixon, who spoke at the event.
Graham gave the benediction following Ford’s speech. In earlier remarks made during his acceptance of a local citizens’ award he said, “I’m delighted to be a member of the New South. Night before last we closed a crusade in Jackson, Mississippi, with 52,000 people present. A third of that audience was black. I have seen in the past twenty-five years tremendous changes taking place throughout the South, and I believe that the South is now leading the nation in many ways: economically, politically, and sociologically.”
A spokesman for the eight-day crusade in Jackson said Graham addressed a cumulative total of 281,100, of whom 7,335 made recorded decisions for Christ. Rain plagued four of the meetings, which were held in the Mississippi Memorial Stadium. A budget of $266,000 was covered by the fourth night (never before had crusade expenses been raised so quickly), and one of the subsequent offerings was earmarked for hunger relief.
DAVID KUCHARSKY
Religion In Transit
Americans gave a record $25.15 billion to charitable causes in 1974, including $10.85 billion for religion, according to the annual edition of Giving USA.
Long Island’s Newsday reports the Pentagon has authorized more than 5,000 abortions for women in the armed forces, as well as for wives and daughters of servicemen, during the last year despite a presidential order prohibiting abortions except where the physical or mental health of the woman is imperiled.
The Unification Church, headed by Sun Myung Moon, last month purchased the former Columbia University Club in New York City for $1.2 million. The group’s national headquarters will be moved there from Washington, D. C.
Transcendental meditation (TM) has been dropped from the 1975–76 public school program in Narragansett, Rhode Island. The controversial class had been taught under a federal grant by a pupil of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
In a referendum, classes (districts) of the Reformed Church in America voted 28 to 15 in favor of the ordination of women, but the measure to approve failed for lack of a two-thirds majority. Pastor Joyce Stedge of Accord, New York, the RCA’s only woman minister, was ordained two years ago, a move that led to the referendum. Her status is not affected by the vote.
Park Street Church in Boston received pledges of nearly $460,000 at its annual missions conference, a new high, according to Pastor Paul Toms.
Personalia
Rear Admiral John J. O’Connor, 55, a Catholic priest with an earned Ph.D., will succeed United Methodist clergyman Francis L. Garrett as Navy Chief of chaplains when Garrett retires next month.
C. Stephen Board, editor of His since 1971, has become executive editor of Eternity, succeeding William J. Petersen, who replaced the retired Russell T. Hitt as editor.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn spent Orthodox Holy Week recently in a spiritual retreat at an Orthodox Church in America cathedral in Montreal. It is reported that he intends to settle permanently in Canada.
World Scene
Some 175 delegates attended the formation meeting in London of the new World Association for Christian Communication, involving 241 organizations in sixty-one countries. Broadcasting executive Christopher O. Kolade of Nigeria was elected president for a four-year term. The WACC’s 1976 budget is $1.7 million.
Planners are expecting up to 10,000 young people for Eurofest ’75, a Christian training event and celebration July 24-August 2 in Brussels. Uganda bishop Festo Kivengere, Latin American evangelist Luis Palau, and Billy Graham are among the platform heavyweights. Group travel plans are available from North America (Box 419, Wheaton, Illinois 60187).
Andrei Tverdokhlebov, a founding member of the Moscow human rights committee and a member of the Orthodox Church, was reportedly arrested by Soviet authorities and religious literature confiscated from his apartment. He had been helping government-oppressed Baptists.
Ireland’s Catholic bishops sternly condemned all forms of violence in Northern Ireland. Since 1969, more than 1,200 persons have died in bombings and assassinations in Ulster.
Latin America evangelist Luis Palau recently completed a swing around South America, holding well-attended crusades described as successful in Buenos Aires and Rosario, Argentina, Paraguay, and Santiago, Chile. As in the past, he reached millions through television.
The first World Congress of Witchcraft will be held in Bogota, Colombia, in August. Some 3,000 witches, occultists, astrologists, parapsychologists, and others are expected to attend.
British Methodists have declined by nearly 100,000 since 1969.
Deaths: Godfrey Driver, 82, Old Testament scholar of Oxford prominently identified with the translation of the New English Bible; Hindu Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the former Indian president who received this year’s Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion; and Geoffrey Williams, 89, founder of the famed Evangelical Library in London.
