History
Today in Christian History

July 25

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July 25, 325: The Council of Nicea closes. The first ecumenical council, convened by Constantine, it rejected the Arians (who denied the full divinity of Christ) as heretics (see issue 51: Heresy in the Early Church).

July 25, 1593: King Henry IV of France, raised a Protestant, converts to Catholicism. Long considered a political move, the conversion is now thought to have been sincere, partially because of the king's statement that "religion is not changed as easily as a shirt." His conversion did not end his sympathy for Protestants, however, and in 1598 he promulgated the Edict of Nantes, giving Protestants freedom of worship and permitting them to garrison certain towns for security (see issue 71: Huguenots).

July 25, 1918: Walter Rauschenbusch, Baptist pastor and theologian of the Social Gospel, dies. His books, including Christianity and the Social Crisis and The Social Principles of Jesus, influenced many—among them Martin Luther King, Jr., who observed that "Rauschenbusch gave to American Protestantism a sense of social responsibility that it should never lose."

History
Today in Christian History

July 24

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July 24, 1725: John Newton, author of “Amazing Grace” and other hymns, is born in London. Converted to Christianity while working on a slave ship, he hoped as a Christian to restrain the worst excesses of the slave trade, “promoting the life of God in the soul” of both his crew and his African cargo. In 1764 he became an Anglican minister and each week wrote a hymn to be sung to a familiar tune. In 1787 Newton wrote Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade to help William Wilberforce’s campaign to end the slave trade (see issue 31: The Golden Age of Hymns).

July 24, 1874: Oswald Chambers, author of “My Utmost for His Highest” (which was published posthumously in 1927), is born in Aberdeen, Scotland.

July 24, 1921: C.I. Scofield, editor of the Scofield Reference Bible and defender of dispensational premillennialism, dies in Douglaston, New York (see issue 61: The End of the World).

History
Today in Christian History

July 23

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July 23, 1373: Saint Bridget (or Birgitta) of Sweden dies. The pious and charitable mystic and founder of the Bridgettine Order, greatly influenced the pope’s decision to return to Rome.

July 23, 1583: Protestant printer John Day, who was responsible for publishing Hugh Latimer’s sermons, Nicholas Ridley’s “Friendly Farewell,” and John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, dies (see issue 72: How We Got Our History).

July 23, 1742: Susannah Wesley, mother of John and Charles, dies. Born the twenty-fifth child in a clergyman’s family, she became one of the most notable mothers in church history (see issue 2: John Wesley and issue 69: Charles and John Wesley).

History
Today in Christian History

July 22

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July 22, 1620: Led by John Robinson, a group of English Separatists who had fled to Holland in 1607, sail for England, where they would board the Mayflower (see issue 41: The American Puritans).

July 22, 1822: Gregor Mendel, the Austrian monk and botanist who discovered the basic laws of genetic inheritance, is born.

History
Today in Christian History

July 21

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July 21, 1773: Pope Clement XIV dissolves the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), which was founded in 1534. Clement did not condemn the Society, but explained it was an administrative move for the peace of the church. Pius VII restored the society in 1814.

July 21, 1925: Biology teacher John T. Scopes is fined $100 for teaching evolution. He lost his trial, but because of it fundamentalists lost respect (see issue 55: The Monkey Trial and The Rise of Fundamentalism).

History
Today in Christian History

July 20

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July 20, 1054: Patriarch of Constantinople Michael Cerularius, having been excommunicated from the Roman church four Days earlier, excommunicates Pope Leo IX and his followers. This precipitates the Great Schism (see issue 54: Eastern Orthodoxy).

July 20, 1910: The Christian Endeavor Society of Missouri begins a campaign to ban all motion pictures that depicted kissing between nonrelatives.

History
Today in Christian History

July 19

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July 19, 1692: Puritan magistrates convict and hang five women for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts. By September, 20 people had been executed on charges brought by 15 young girls (see issue 41: The American Puritan).

July 19, 1848: More than 300 men and women assemble in the Wesleyan Chapel at Seneca Falls, New York, for the first formal convention to discuss “the social, civil and religious condition and the rights of women.” The event has been called the birthplace of the women’s rights movement.

Stay Current, Skitter around the Edges

J. D. Douglas

We are too easily lured into skirmishes on the edge of the real battlefield.

When William Laud was appointed to Canterbury in 1633 he wrote: “There is more expected from me than the craziness of these times will give me leave to do.” Three and a half centuries and 26 archbishops later, Dr. Robert Runcie will want to be reminded that Laud’s fears were realized—under the executioner’s ax—largely because he made a wrong diagnosis of the ills facing the church.

Be that as it may, the craziness of the times is still with us. In a nearby town is a magnificent new hospital with up-to-date facilities for caring for the sick and for teaching medical students. In its spacious entrance hall is a bookstore. Idly I picked up a paperback in it. Said the cover: “A classic compound of grue, gore, insanity and incest skillfully blended.” That should keep the psychiatric unit busy.

Here is an anonymous doctor in a medical journal: “Doctors are doing their utmost to free these neurotic patients of the guilt complexes which bedevil their lives. But the churches, by their old-fashioned philosophy, seem to be doing their utmost to instill such guilt complexes by telling them how sinful they are and frightening them with threats of punishment in the hereafter.”

Some time ago, the Lord’s Day Observance Society was refused permission to display the Ten Commandments on Glasgow underground trains because of a rule that no religious ads are to be displayed on vehicles. Glasgow’s city motto is: “Let Glasgow flourish through the preaching of the Word and the praising of His Name.” (No one will feel surprise that the motto is generally abbreviated to the first three words.)

My newspaper tells of a film currently showing, which recommends itself as “offering brutal violence, inhuman rape, nauseating cannibalism.”

Police in the south of England have suddenly taken action against several open-air preachers. The charge against two of them in Eastbourne was dropped when Christians in influential positions protested. In London, however, one man was fined five pounds for preaching the gospel in Leicester Square, and another is due to appear before the magistrate shortly. The charge: obstruction. The police commissioner, himself an evangelical, is incredibly reported as having said the police could not differentiate between them and street traders.

A 12-person team monitored British television for one week. During that time they reported that our three channels featured 194 examples of swearing, 116 of blasphemy, 213 of drinking alcohol, 176 of violence, 169 of sex jokes, and 89 of sexual activity.

To protest or not to protest? We in Britain seem to do this far less than our American friends. Even those who wage wordy warfare in the Christian press do not always extend the battle into the secular field. It is a devious argument that sees a mark of the true church in the lack of impact we make.

The mass media listen more than we think. After hearing an ill-balanced view of “fundamentalism” on a radio program I wrote to correct errors of fact (I find this the best way to go about it). The producer called and we had a friendly chat. Fundamentalist defenders, I gathered, did not normally write courteous and reasonable epistles. That was a humbler that got me thinking.

Protesting can insidiously become a way of life; we come to know certain people for what they are against, those for whom crusading against one sin seems to diminish their view of sin generally, or whose defense of the fundamentals is taken as a license for graceless speech. It seems self-defeating to uphold the inerrancy of Scripture at the cost of violating at least two fruits of the Spirit.

Samuel Butler warned about those who “Compound for sins they are inclin’d to / By damning those they have no mind to.” An inordinate preoccupation with one sin, for example, might lose sight of the fact that 1 Timothy 1:9, 10 condemns “whatever … is contrary to sound doctrine.”

It is extraordinary how we have got into the frame of mind that thinks otherwise, one that, perhaps inadvertently, gives the impression that there are some things that are outside the orbit of the evangelical’s compassion. William Temple rightly reminded us that our fellowship with Christ is rooted in His compassion.

To develop this more generally would Communicate Anxiety, and remove me once for all from the woeful category of those about whom all men speak well. The imbalance extends to good causes also: is there not a grave danger of Christians getting caught up in some time-consuming, significant crusade which ultimately is peripheral to the real issue? It is fatally easy for one’s energies to be absorbed in arid controversy and in coping with the craziness of the times, whether it be the nuclear threat or abortion or homosexual permissiveness.

Let me be masochistic and edge out on the limb a bit further in saying that I have some misgivings about the current concentration on simple lifestyle—an expression I find unsatisfactory, for it has about it a whiff of things subjective, comparative, temporal. “Humble” is a much better adjective. Francis of Assisi is reckoned a master of the simple lifestyle, but he put the accent in the right place, and went far beyond the lesser goal when he said, “My brothers, you will convert all men by your word, if in all things you humble yourselves.”

But I digress (and doubtless I’ll smart for it). What I was trying to say was that the good things sometimes take us away from the best things. We are too easily lured into skirmishes on the edge of the real battlefield.

A much more humble seventeenth-century archbishop than William Laud saw this clearly. Robert Leighton, who condemned the persecution of Covenanters in Scotland as scaling heaven with ladders fetched out of hell, once gave the harassed ministers a gentle lesson in right priorities. Asked by a group of them why he did not “preach up the times,” he asked who did. “We all do,” they replied. “Then,” said that archbishop of Glasgow, “if all of you are busy preaching up the times, you may forgive one poor brother for preaching up Christ Jesus and his eternity.”

The same note was struck earlier this year when Billy Graham conducted a mission that had a remarkable impact on Cambridge University. Three days before the end, he indicated his intention to refer next evening to the world situation. There is no doubt that he would have handled it with the right emphases, but his young colleagues were a little uneasy. Diffidently they sent him a message, “We’d rather have the Cross again for the next two nights, please.” Being the good listener to local counsel that he is, Billy Graham at once saw the sure-footedness of that approach, and gave them the Cross. And that is the answer, one on which even the craziness of the times cannot place limitations.

J. D. Douglas is an author and journalist living in St. Andrews, Scotland.

It’s a Simmery Summer for U.S. And Canadian Presbyterians

Michigan’s Ward United Church Joins the UPCUSA Defectors

The United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. is leaking congregations—not in small drips, but in big globs. In the process of withdrawing last month was pastor Bartlett Hess’s 3,600-member Ward United Presbyterian Church in Livonia, Michigan. Also in suburban Detroit, pastor Calvin Gray’s 750-member Trenton First Presbyterian Church moved toward secession.

Denominational leaders had expected only small churches would leave, but “we’re talking about churches with thousands of members,” said pastor David Williams of Pitcairn, Pennsylvania. Williams, whose church had not pulled out, is chairman of Concerned United Presbyterians—a group of about 250 UPCUSA pastors who on biblical grounds oppose women elders and theological liberalism in the denomination.

Nearly half of CUP’s 11-member steering committee had left the denomination as of last month, and for that reason its leaders last month considered phasing out the nine-month-old organization. Departed CUP leaders included well-known radio pastor Bruce Dunn of 2,000-member Grace Church in Peoria, Illinois, and pastor James Boice of Philadelphia’s historic Tenth Presbyterian. Those in the process of leaving included Ralph McAuley and Thomas Graham, pastors of UPCUSA congregations in East Liverpool, Ohio, and Baltimore, Maryland, respectively.

There was a strong possibility last month that departing churches would form their own association, Williams said. However, those plans were very tentative, and being kept out of earshot of denominational leaders for fear of interference. (Williams, Hess, and several other pastors knew of other churches considering withdrawal, but wouldn’t name them out of fear of the same interference by UPCUSA leaders, who were naturally concerned about the drainage of members and churches.)

Boice doesn’t favor the association idea: “We shouldn’t perpetuate splits by forming another denomination.” However, he planned to attend a small gathering of some of the “key leaders” of departed churches later this month to discuss the various options. In a telephone interview, Boice indicated he would argue the value of joining an existing conservative Presbyterian body (see following article).

The exodus of congregations from the UPCUSA still was relatively small last month—but speeding up, mostly in reaction to the denomination’s recently completed general assembly (June 27, p. 56). Some churches and pastors, such as those in the CUP group, had vowed to leave unless the assembly (1) lifted the constitutional requirement that all congregations have women elders; (2) reaffirmed Christ’s full deity—to refute one presbytery’s much-publicized approval of a pastor who rejected that belief; and (3) left control of local church property with the congregation. None of that happened, so a number of the disenchanted apparently were making good on their promise.

Hess’s departure seemed particularly startling. He was one of four theological conservatives recently appointed to the committee studying union between the UPCUSA and the Presbyterian Church in the U.S., and had been a leader of those seeking an evangelical renewal within his denomination.

But the assembly’s inaction on the deity of Christ issue, and its continued order to have women elders, proved too much. Hess believes women elders are “biblically valid,” and his church has women elders. “But it’s the principle of freedom we’re greatly concerned about,” he said in a telephone interview. “If the church takes away our freedom on one issue, they might take it away on another.”

His 33-member church board had voted unanimously for withdrawal, and the congregation was expected to agree in a vote late last month, taking with it a $2 million annual budget (reportedly the largest in the UPCUSA).

Like Hess, pastor Gray of the Trenton church sees the problem as a “cumulation of things”—including theological liberalism and authoritarian controls such that “we’re fast becoming constitutional fundamentalists.” He professed no hard feelings toward his presbytery or denomination, but said the idea of departing churches forming an association interests him as the possible “beginning of something very exciting.”

Philadelphia’s Tenth Church Shops for a New Denomination

The issue of ordination of women to church offices continues to pester Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.

In March the 105-year-old congregation left the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S. A., partly in opposition to the denomination’s demand that member churches have women elders (April 18, p. 44). Last month Tenth faced the ironic situation of joining a denomination that would not allow it to keep its ordained women deacons.

Tenth officials had narrowed their choice of affiliation to the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod (RPCES). However, there was “concern” among the church members regarding the status of Tenth’s women deacons, said A. Clive Stockdale, clerk of the church’s session (board), in an interim report to the congregation. Neither the PCA nor the RPCES allow ordained women deacons.

The church, in a letter to both denominations, asked whether it would be accepted if it continued ordaining women deacons. “We don’t believe [that office] is excluded [for women] by God’s Word,” Stockdale told the congregation. At press time, no answer had been received. But, a church official said privately, if both denominations refuse to budge on women deacons, the church would probably join one or the other anyway.

Tenth has had women deacons since the middle 1970s, when the issue of ordained women elders grew in the UPCUSA. A board of elders study of Scripture showed that women elders were “clearly not allowed,” but that women deacons were, said pastoral administrator Glenn N. McDowell. “Ordination to an office of service was not excluded, as opposed to an office of rule, like elder,” he said.

Tenth’s influential pastor, James Boice, has publicly endorsed a proposed merger of three evangelical Presbyterian bodies: the PCA, RPCES, and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. (A fourth, the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America, also has been considered.) The church planned to send representatives to the RPCES general synod in July and to the PCA general assembly in June; the matter of union would be discussed at each. Tenth officials would follow the action closely. But McDowell indicated his belief that union among the three “isn’t going to happen right away.”

(In his church’s June newsletter, Boice suggested four guidelines for choosing a denomination. He said the denomination must be committed to “the highest possible standard of biblical authority,” to the Westminster standards, to “biblical practice in areas where the Scripture speaks”—while allowing “liberty in areas nonbiblical or biblically doubtful areas,” and to a Presbyterian form of government. He also hoped to find a denomination that is “evangelistically aggressive,” particularly in urban areas, and one that has a national distribution of churches “to give evidence of the unity of the church of God.”)

Tenth’s choice of denominational tie was not expected to be made until the end of the summer. Also in limbo was resolution of the lawsuit filed against the church by the Philadelphia presbytery. In May the presbytery sued for control of Tenth’s property, records, and name—contending the church had left the denomination illegally. Tenth’s lawyers challenged the presbytery to show where the denomination’s constitution forbids a church from leaving, and legal wranglings were expected to last several months.

Canadians Take Radical Middle Ground’ Stand on Women’s Issue

Scripture won’t change during the next 10 years. But a pastor’s interpretation of Scripture must change during that time period—that is, if he presently opposes ordination of women ministers and elders and wants to keep his job in the Presbyterian Church in Canada (PCC).

The denomination’s general assembly last month decreed that any minister refusing to ordain women ministers and elders by 1990 would have to quit the church. This year’s graduating seminarians, who oppose ordaining women, could still be ordained themselves, but they would be the last class allowed that option. Even then, these ministers would have to change their stand on women elders by 1990, or leave the church.

The assembly action stemmed from a case involving 25-year-old Westminster Seminary graduate Daniel McDougall. He was refused ordination a year ago after he told a committee of the Presbytery of East Toronto that his conscience forbade his participation in the ordination of women ministers and elders. (He said he would be willing to work with ordained women, however.) The presbytery ruled him in violation of a 1966 church ruling allowing women ministers and elders. His appeal was denied by the synod, and an unhappy senior minister took the case to the ruling general assembly.

In the meantime, McDougall accepted a job as assistant to the minister (not an ordained post) at 600-member Bethel Presbyterian Church in Sydney, Nova Scotia. He planned to take advantage of an assembly provision allowing his ordination, along with the “conscientious objectors” in the class of 1980, but he had no plans regarding his long-range status within the denomination. “The assembly’s action could be overturned, of course [at a later assembly],” he said.

Controversy over ordained women has not been exclusive to United Presbyterians south of the border. Charges of discrimination against women as ministers and elders were brought to the PCC’s 1979 general assembly in a resolution from the Presbytery of Montreal and in a report to the senate of The Presbyterian College in that city. The senate report alleged that some congregations were ignoring pastoral applications from women, while “one-quarter to one-third of our graduating classes are women.” The 1979 assembly appointed a task force to find ways to end discrimination against women.

Last month’s assembly action, despite its seeming hard-line stance, actually was a compromise characteristic of the PCC’s “radical middle ground approach,” designed to prevent polarization, but one that still would anger those at both ends of the issue, observed information officer James Dickey. The estimated 15 percent of the denomination’s 993 pastors who oppose women’s ordination, and their sympathizers, would be upset that the issue was being made “a touchstone of orthodoxy,” while women’s rights advocates would consider the 10-year grace period “wishy-washy,” he commented.

Denominational officials hope the issue won’t cause an exodus. The 160,000-member body already has suffered a 12 percent membership loss since 1969. Mindful of that, the 1980 assembly adopted a $1 million, 10-year plan aimed at doubling church membership in the 1980s.

The Salvation Army

Those Gentle Soldiers Are Veterans Now

Salvation Army founder William Booth had given young commissioner George Scott Railton the task of establishing the work in the United States. Upon his departure from London, where Booth founded the movement among the working class poor, Railton told the general, “Filled with God, we’ll shake America.”

Railton and seven women Salvationists landed in New York City on the steamer Australia in March 1880, marched down the gangplank singing hymns, and immediately began preaching to curious onlookers. Now, 100 years later, the army’s efforts seemingly continue with the same vigor.

Nearly 11,000 Salvationists attended a national centennial congress last month in Kansas City. They heard speeches by dignitaries, including international leader General Arnold Brown. Some led the familiar open-air evangelistic meetings around the city.

Presently, the organization has about 5,000 commissioned officers (full-time ordained men and women), more than 78,000 senior soldiers (members), plus other recruits and followers—a total membership in the U.S. of about 400,000.

The army serves in all 50 states. Its 9,000 centers include 1,074 corps (congregational centers), more than 100 alcoholic rehabilitation centers, and numerous hospitals, medical centers, and homes for the elderly, orphans, and young mothers.

During a goal-setting session near the end of the Kansas City conference, Salvationists avoided specific objectives. “We’ll retain our balanced ministry to the whole person in the name of Jesus Christ,” said an army spokesman in New York City headquarters.

White House Conference on Families

Conservatives Knocked Out in the First Round

Round one of the White House Conference on Families (WHCF) ended with the liberal-moderate coalition clearly on top. At last month’s meeting in Baltimore—the first of three regional WHCF sessions—the 671 delegates adopted 57 proposals described by the Washingtion Post as “a laundry list of liberalism.”

The assembly approved by a 383-to-202 vote the right to abortion (preceded by the most heated debate of the conference). It also voted for national health insurance, the Equal Rights Amendment, and a guaranteed annual income of $13,000 for a family of four. The group’s proposals, which focused mostly on the economic and social needs of low- and middle-class families, would cost billions annually to put into effect, the Post observed.

Conservative delegates formed a vocal but tiny minority, and were unable to gain adoption of their positions. In frustration, spokesperson Connie Marshner of the National Profamily Coalition and Virginia Republican Congressman Lawrence D. Pratt charged that conference chairman Jim Guy Tucker had rigged the WHCF membership to assure a liberal majority.

As a protest, and a stated attempt to weaken WHCF credibility, the two led a walkout of some 30 to 50 conservatives on the second day of the three-day meeting. Their leaving probably didn’t affect the workings of the conference; however, a narrowly adopted proposal (292-to-291 vote) favoring nondiscrimination against homosexuals probably would not have passed had the conservatives stayed, observers noted.

Some conservative delegates, such as Campus Crusade staff member Jerry Regier, elected to stay. “Although the proposals were of the liberal line, and I probably disagreed with 90 percent of the results, I felt it was important to hang in there and present the evangelical perspective,” he said.

Regier didn’t think the WHCF had been purposely stacked or rigged to favor the liberals, but said the group “certainly represented a lot of liberal political thinking.” He indicated the conservatives had grounds to complain. Regier is based in Washington, D.C., with Campus Crusade’s Christian Embassy—an outreach ministry to U.S. and foreign government personnel based in the nation’s capital. He says he has been in contact with WHCF planners for nearly two years; “I’d periodically check in with them to encourage them to have Christian leaders in conference planning.”

He says he helped arrange a private meeting in April between WHCF chairman Tucker and a group of evangelical family experts. Later, Regier submitted a list of 15 evangelical Christians—some of whom had been in the meeting with Tucker—for consideration as at-large delegates by the WHCF advisory committee. From that list, nine were chosen: Regier, Michigan State University professor Ted Ward, child psychologist James Dobson, singer Pat Boone, family counselor and author J. Allen Petersen, black leader John Perkins, Campus Crusade’s Vonette Bright, National Association of Evangelicals staff member Bob Dugan, and Raymond Moore of the Hewitt Research Foundation.

These, along with the 250 to 300 other at-large delegates, were assigned to attend the regional conferences in their areas. Later WHCF conferences were in Minneapolis (June 19–21) and Los Angeles (July 10–12). A national task force will draft and present a final list of recommendations to President Carter, probably sometime in September.

Will the proposals be taken seriously? Since the WHCF was Carter’s idea, observers believe he at least will give the WHCF recommendations serious consideration during his second term, if reelected. But because this is an election year, observers also expect that Carter won’t let the WHCF become an embarrassment, which slaps at traditional, Judeo-Christian views on the family and costs him votes in the Christian and religious community.

Regier believed evangelicals shouldn’t give up—and should continue to state their side in the subsequent WHCF regional meetings—despite the apparent setback in Baltimore. Still, he hoped the Minneapolis and Los Angeles gatherings “wouldn’t as much reflect the views of Eastern liberalism.”

North American Scene

Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) was scheduled to speak at an ecumenical worship service prior to the opening of the Republican National Convention in Detroit (July 14–18). A local 15-pastor steering committee invited Lugar, a United Methodist lay preacher, as part of full slate of religious events and services for conventioneers, including church tours, a church information telephone hot line, and even a special chaplaincy detail for any visitors who wind up in jail. Senator John Danforth (R-Mo.), an ordained Episcopal priest, planned to speak at the local Cathedral Church of Saint Paul.

Nearly 40 percent of American Protestants belong to a denomination different from the one in which they were raised, according to a study in the new edition of Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches. Theologically conservative churches with strong evangelization programs have benefited most by denominational switching, indicated Southern Baptist official C. Kirk Hadaway, author of the study. The trends indicated that persons most often switch for theological reasons—in order to meet personal religious needs—contrary to the most widely accepted past explanation linking church changes to economic or social mobility. The fastest growing churches in 1978, according to the yearbook, were the Presbyterian Church in America (11.09 percent) and the Free Methodist Church (6.2 percent), while the United Presbyterian Church suffered the highest rate of loss (1.6 percent).

Baptized children will be allowed to participate in Communion services in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. The PCUS general assembly last month voted down a standing committee’s recommendation to retain the former system, limiting participation to those who have gone through a confirmation ceremony. The PCUS assembly supported a committee decision that PCUS action to reaffirm Christ’s full deity was unnecessary since the church constitution covers the issue adequately. The reaffirmation had been proposed in light of the recent National Capital Union Presbytery (a merged PCUS-United Presbyterian unit) approval of Mansfield Kaseman to a Maryland pastorate, despite his refusal, during his examination by the presbytery, to affirm that Jesus is God. Elected as new PCUS moderator was former Austin (Tex.) Seminary president David L. Stitt—a strong supporter of the proposed PCUS-UPCUSA union.

Hare Krishna groups in California are under intense police scrutiny following disclosures that they have been stockpiling weapons and ammunition. Members also have been accused of offenses ranging from murder and drug dealing to credit card fraud and overzealous solicitation of donations. (They deny anything sinister in gathering weapons, and say it is necessary for self-defense.) Brought to the U.S. in 1965 as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness by Indian businessman Bhaktivendanta Prabhupada, the group teaches a non-materialistic lifestyle, achievement of enlightenment through study of ancient Hindu scriptures, and daily chanting of the mantra.

Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God faces a continuing probe of its finances by the California state attorney-general’s office. Last month the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block the investigation, despite protests by the WCG and a number of major religious groups that the probe violates First Amendment freedom of religion guarantees. The state began investigating 18 months ago—placing the church in receivership for four months—after accusations by former WCG members that Armstrong and chief adviser Stanley Rader had pilfered millions in church funds for their own use. The WCG reportedly has spent $2.5 million in legal fees so far, and last month doled out thousands more in order to present its case to the public in full-page newspaper ads.

Debts of the Pauline Fathers finally have been cleared up, Gannett News Service reported. Representatives of the order—Saint Paul the First Hermit—Philadelphia’s Cardinal John Krol, and the Knights of Columbus, handed over $2.9 million in checks, bank drafts, and securities to First Bank of Minneapolis, which had acted as trustee for some 1,500 Catholics who held worthless bonds bought from the Pennsylvania-based order. Many had lost money when the Pauline Fathers defaulted on the bonds in 1974. Gannett reporters won a Pulitzer prize for their investigation of the Pauline Fathers, in which they chrononicled a number of alleged financial abuses and cover-ups.

Personalia

Senator Mark Hatfield (R.-Oreg.) led an unsuccessful fight against the bill to revive draft registration. Hatfield spoke strongly in opposition during nearly a week of Senate debate, including an all-night, 32-hour filibuster, before the Senate’s eventual 58–34 approval of the $13.3 million needed to register 19- and 20-year-old men this summer. Hatfield, an evangelical layman, along with peace church spokesmen, had criticized the measure (expected to win final House approval and the President’s signature last month) as the first step toward reinstituting the draft, and as unnecessary in peacetime. A Hatfield amendment directing that the registration card contain a line for declaring one’s conscientious objector status was defeated.

Kefa Sempangi has been reappointed to his earlier post on the 24-man ruling council of Uganda, the Presbyterian Journal reported. Sempangi, a Westminster Seminary graduate, had been ousted from his position as deputy minister of rehabilitation by the new military government—apparently in its attempt to start with a clean slate. For a time, he and his family were under house arrest. Presbyterian missionaries expressed optimism that the new government will be tolerant of Christian witness within the country.

Fortunately for Campus Crusade for Christ, billionaire businessman Nelson Bunker Hunt has better results in evangelism fund raising than in his much-publicized speculations on the silver markets. Hunt was recently host to more than 500 millionaires for a weekend retreat in a luxury Houston hotel, where the group heard well-known evangelical politicians and entertainers and Campus Crusade staff members discuss the world’s need for the gospel. As a result, attenders pledged more than $20 million to Campus Crusade’s $1 billion Here’s Life world evangelization program, according to Here’s Life official Robert Pittenger. He reported that so far $170 million has been committed to the project—intended to present a gospel message to everyone on earth by 1982—giving chief fund raiser Hunt plenty of work ahead.

Paul Reeves, 47, has been appointed archbishop of the Anglican Church in New Zealand. The Auckland bishop is the first Maori (native islander) to become primate, as well as the youngest priest to hold the office.

World Vision has separated organizationally its United States operations from its international entity, although headquarters for both will remain in Monrovia, California. W. Stanley Mooneyham becomes international president of WV International, while Ted W. Engstrom becomes executive director of the U.S. body.

Deaths

Oliver R. Harms, 78, president of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod from 1962 until his 1969 reelection defeat by current president Jacob A.O. Preus—the latter beginning the move toward more explicit theological conservatism in the 2.7-million-member denomination: described as a pastoral leader, Harms helped establish the Lutheran Council in the U.S. A.; June 3 in Houston, Texas, of cancer.

Daniel Vestal, 61, Fort Worth, Texas, preacher sometimes called the “dean of Southern Baptist evangelists”; he preached in 40 states and more than 1,500 revival campaigns, while reporting an annual average of 1,000 conversion decisions under his ministry; May 24 in Mesquite, Texas, of a heart attack.

Nepal’s United Way Functions for Both Nation and Mission

Prompted by violent student demonstrations a year ago, King Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev of Nepal promised a national poll to determine whether his constitutional monarchy should be replaced by a multiparty “Western style of democracy.” His government spent the next year organizing the gigantic referendum—the first in Nepal in 21 years.

The resulting May 2 vote was made difficult since transportation and communications systems are poor to nonexistent in the tiny, mountain kingdom. Ballot boxes in some instances were carried by hand down treacherous mountain trails, and in other areas helicopters transported the ballots to major towns for counting.

Observers were impressed by the turnout of 4.2 million of 7 million eligible adult voters, considering that nearly 70 percent of the population is illiterate and that many had to walk several miles to a voting place. Many were just as surprised, however, by the result of tabulations, which took 12 days. The Nepalese voted to retain their present nonparty “panchayat” system of representation, subject to new reforms, and rejected lifting the 20-year ban on political parties. The vote was seen as a virtual endorsement of one of the world’s last remaining absolute monarchies.

Christian missionaries weren’t sure how the referendum will affect them. Yet most would be happy with even a fraction of the support for Christianity that was given Birendra—regarded by most Nepalese as the incarnation of the Hindu god, Lord Vishnu. In many respects, the spread of Christianity among the nation’s 13 million population has been as slow as its balloting process.

Hinduism is the official religion and dominant faith in the south, while Mahayana Buddhism is dominant in the Himalayan-peaked north of the country. Only about 7,000 Nepalese are Christians, and these are scattered among 70 to 80 congregations—with the largest in the capital city, Katmandu.

The national constitution states: “… the Nepalese, irrespective of religion, race, caste, or tribe collectively constitute the nation.” However, government laws prohibit conversions from Hinduism. Every new Christian faces the possibility of prosecution under the law (although sources indicate that few are jailed, since authorities don’t want other inmates to be proselytized).

While it has not been supportive, neither has the Nepalese government been particularly hostile toward Christian missions. The Bible-translating Summer Institute of Linguistics was expelled in 1976, reportedly because of several conversions. But a large number of mission agencies remain in the country. Most of these do evangelism by the example of lifestyle and through informal sharing, while being directly involved with the Nepalese government in various economic development projects. (Nepal is one of the world’s poorest nations. More than 90 percent of the population are dependent on agriculture, and the annual per capita income is less than $ 120. An estimated 70 percent are malnourished.)

The largest, and perhaps the most unique, missionary agency in the country is the 26-year-old United Mission to Nepal. The UMN is the combined effort of about 30 mission boards and agencies, with 260 personnel from at least 17 countries. These are working in nearly 20 projects (educational, medical, and economic) around the country.

The organization has a three-fold purpose: (1) to make Christ known by word and life; (2) to train the Nepalese in medical, agricultural, educational, and industrial fields; and (3) to establish the Nepalese church and strengthen its ministry. The mission has no official connection with the church; instead, missions workers participate as individuals in the local churches while encouraging leadership by nationals.

This behind-the-scenes approach reflects obedience to government restrictions. A clause in the UMN government agreement requires that UMN personnel confine themselves to “the achievements of the objectives of the project to which they are assigned and shall not engage in any proselytizing and other activities which are outside the scope of their assigned work.”

But the present UMN approach also reflects the designs of founder Robert L. Fleming, Sr., who began missions work in Nepal literally on a “wing and a prayer.” As a missionary science teacher based in Mussoorie, India, Fleming had traveled across the border into Nepal on bird-collecting expeditions. Seeing urgent physical needs there, he began taking with him doctors who did itinerant medical work. An appreciative government invited Fleming and his doctor associates to establish medical work in Katmandu and Tansen.

The missionaries and their respective Methodist and Presbyterian mission boards agreed, but desired the work to be undertaken by the ecumenical church movement and with all participants working as one mission. Biographer Grace Fletcher wrote that Fleming and his wife Bethel felt that going “with healing to Nepal” was more important than “what particular Christian creed first crossed the border.” Fleming’s philosophy was to “live the creed in deed, not words.” He frequently liked to say, “We Christians waited 2,000 years to get into Nepal. Then when the Lord was ready, he sent a bird to show the way.” (Except for a limited Catholic presence in parts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Nepal was closed entirely to Christian missions until 1950 when new King Tribhuvan led the overthrow of the ruling Rana family.)

The UMN formally organized in 1954, when 10 mission boards and agencies from India, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, Europe, and North America came together under a single board of managers. Since then, the mission has entered a series of multiyear agreements with the government.

The government requires that UMN agree to obey all Nepalese laws, obtain permission for all new work or expansion projects, receive no government subsidies, provide training for nationals, and acknowledge the government’s right at any time to confiscate mission property and terminate the mission’s work.

Nepalese Christian journalist David Singh reports that the “impact of [the UMN’s] health and educational thrust has been singularly impressive.” For 15 years a UMN headmistress managed a first “mission” school for girls—which now has more than 600 pupils in grades I through 10. In 1974 the school was handed over to the government under its New Education Plan, and the government has recognized it as a model school upon which others can be developed. UMN health services have been a boon to Nepal, where the knowledge and means to cure are scarce.

Some missions observers have criticized the UMN social programs emphasis, and say it is more ecumenical than evangelical. However, director Ralph Winter of the U.S. Center for World Mission asserted in an interview that the UMN’s inclusive structure has “allowed all kinds of evangelical missions to cooperate who otherwise would not have.”

Another criticism, reported by journalist Singh, is that UMN personnel are too tolerant of internal diversity, and expect too little commitment to the church. According to Singh, many Nepalese Christians want greater leadership from UMN workers. He supports in theory the indigenous principle, but says increased outside monetary and personnel assistance are needed to meet the urgent spiritual needs of the millions of unreached Nepalese.

He concludes: “It is now apparent that association with UMN has not contributed to the establishment of churches nor to strengthening them in their ministry, nor in providing meaningful inspiration to Christians.”

UMN officials, aware of criticisms, believe their style of ministry is a strength in a closed country such as Nepal. Frank Wilcox, UMN head from 1970 to 1976, says strong national leaders are emerging from within the Nepalese church. Since he left Nepal four years ago, the Christian population has grown from 1,500 to the present figure of 7,000. He attributes this growth to “the preaching of the gospel and the person-to-person sharing by the Nepali Christians.”

Mission agencies and personnel are hesitant about naming specific Christian leaders and projects in Nepal in order to protect their sensitive relationships with the government. The government has warned UMN officials against proselytizing once in the last several years, according to Wilcox.

Nepalese Christians may enjoy a loosening of controls if Dev’s openness to reform continues. Faced with chronic conditions of poverty and underdevelopment, the government is expected to continue seeking the participation of voluntary and Christian agencies in national development projects. At the same time, the Christian agencies hope the king gives them freedom to promote spiritual development projects of their own.

Roman Catholicism

Papal Solicitude for France’s Waning Faith

On his May trip to Africa, Pope John Paul II often encountered massive turnouts. Last month he arrived at Le Bourget Airport near Paris to a more modest reception to conduct an outdoor mass. Chill weather and intermittent gusts of rain were partly to blame. Church officials had expected as many as one million to greet the Pope. Less than half that number showed up; police who surveyed the scene by helicopter estimated only 150,000. For the rest of his four-day visit the crowds remained consistently below expectation.

The Pope was well aware that the reason behind the light turnout lay deeper than the weather. (In a poll, taken before his arrival, more than 50 percent said they didn’t care if he came at all.) He lost no time in addressing the malaise at the root of the Roman Catholic church in France. In a pointed reply to President Giscard d’Estaing’s remarks, he noted that the way of the gospel “did not pass through resignation, repudiation, or abandonment.”

He reminded France of its status as the first wholly Christian nation among the barbarian kingdoms that succeeded the Roman Empire. “France, eldest daughter of the church, are you faithful to the promises of your baptism?” he asked. “Forgive me this question,” he added. “It was asked out of solicitude for the church.”

The Pope’s question went to the heart of the French religious scene. Polls and surveys in recent months have confirmed that whereas up to 85 percent of the French people are baptized Roman Catholics, 15 percent or less practice their faith at all. In some cities, less than 7 percent attend church—many of them only go to mass on Christmas Eve and Easter. Le Point magazine found that only 50 percent of the French people believe in the resurrection of Christ, 46 percent in life after death, and 45 percent in the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

By 1995 it is estimated that the current, thinly spread 40,000 priests may be reduced by half again.

The historic visit was the first by a Roman Catholic pontiff in 166 years, when Pius VII spent about six years at Fountainebleu Castle as a prisoner of the Emperor Napoleon. But Karol Wojtyla (as he was often called in the French press) had visited France before, having spent time there in the Catholic Institute in 1949. He addressed the people during his visit in very passable—and sometimes eloquent—French. But the relations of Rome with France are not at all what they were under Pope John XXIII or Paul VI. Since the early death of his secretary of state, French Cardinal Jean Villot, the Pope has allowed the number of French adjutants on the Vatican staff to decrease considerably. And at the United Nations in 1979, the Pope abandoned French, the traditional diplomatic language of the Vatican, to address the forum in English.

The Pope’s rigorous schedule underscored his determination to arouse a new army of those faithful to the Catholic faith. He flew to Lisieux in Normandy where Sister Therese, a devout Carmelite nun, wrote the works that helped bring her sainthood in 1925, just 28 years after her death from tuberculosis. “Lisieux,” the Pope said later, “must become a great center of missions.” Paradoxically, Saint Therese never left the convent for missionary work.

John Paul made calls on Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac, the Elysee Palace, UNESCO, and a Polish church. He attended a “watch-night service” for 40,000 young people at the Parc des Princes. And he underlined his acceptance of “Mary worship” by visiting the little-known Chapel of the Miraculous Medal, rue du Bac, where it is affirmed that the Virgin Mary appeared to a young novice several times in 1830.

But as a corps of officers is critical to an aroused army, the Pope needs leaders to share his own uncomplicated, robust faith. At Notre Dame Cathedral he spoke pointedly to his 125 bishops, using Jesus’ words, “Do you love me?” Then he lashed out in equal measure at the reformists who want to relax Catholic bans on divorce, birth control, and marriage for priests, and at the traditionalists, led by rebel French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who reject all the liberalizing measures adopted by the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).

“These two extreme tendencies,” he said, “cause not only opposition but a grievous and damaging division.”

The reform-minded “progressives,” the Pope charged, want to adapt “even the content of the faith—Christian ethics, liturgy, and the organization of the church—” to “changes in mentality and to the demands of the world, without sufficiently taking into account … the essence of faith, which has already been defined since the beginning of the church.”

On the other hand, he went on, “the traditionalists are shutting themselves up rigidly in a given period of the church, and at a given moment of theological formulation [as defined at the sixteenth-century Council of Trent], or liturgical expression, which they had absolutized.” Such persons, he added, refuse to admit that “the Holy Spirit is at work today in the church with its pastors united around the successor of Peter.”

“The great majority of the Catholics in your country,” he concluded, “do not share these extreme and erroneous viewpoints.”

His observation was certainly true, considering indications that apathetic French Catholics have no viewpoint at all. Most observers expect it will take more than one papal visit to reverse the tide in France today.

ROBERT J. CAMPBELL

France

French Protestants Draw a Roman-sized Crowd

“All Christians into the arena!” Again the call rang out in Nimes, France, last month. But this time was different. This was a Gospel Festival and perhaps the first Christian rally to be held in the arena—once the scene of Roman gladiatorial combats, animal fights, and Christian martyrdoms—since it was built during Jesus’ lifetime. (Some 20 standing Roman amphitheaters have a larger seating capacity than this 20,000-seat arena, but Nimes is among the best preserved.)

Between 15,000 and 17,000 French believers attended, according to official estimates. Almost half were young people from 15 to 25 years old. The dominant theme, Christian fellowship, was emphasized and repeated in messages based on various aspects of the Lord’s Prayer. Musical groups from Belgium, Switzerland, and France presented a widely varying program underlining different contemporary trends, including choreography, gestures, and pantomime, in various rhythms, Though it might have become a festival of music—and music certainly was a major theme—there was frequent emphasis on Scripture readings and messages from representative Christian leaders from throughout French-speaking Europe.

The idea for the Gospel Festival, the first of its kind for France, was conceived by Pierre Courthial, dean of the Reformed Theological Seminary of Aix-en-Provence, and organized by the interdenominational monthly magazine Ichthus. Charles Guillot of Radio Evangile was an efficient, genial master of ceremonies.

Except for a two-hour rainstorm on Saturday, the audience relaxed under warm, sunny skies for the two-day gathering. Their numbers provided a singular witness to the saving power of the gospel of Christ—first brought to France about A D. 175—and placed them in the spiritual train of the apostle John through Polycarp and Bishops Pothinus and Irenaeus. It was an occasion to display evangelical strength in a land estimated to have only 50,000 evangelical Christians (or one-tenth of 1 percent of the population).

ROBERT J. CAMPBELL

Scripture Distribution

Iranian Believers Utilize Precarious New Freedoms

National social upheaval is usually assumed to be a detriment to the progress of the Christian gospel. But while institutional programs characteristically are disrupted or cut back, openness to new ideas and greater leeway for person-to-person gospel witness may actually increase.

That appears to be the situation in Iran. An indication is the current distribution of Bibles and Scripture portions within this Islamic republic.

The Iranian Bible Society’s staff has been severely reduced to five persons, with a temporary supervisor. But those who remain are hustling to take advantage of their expanded opportunities. The Bible society has encountered no administrative difficulties from the authorities or other groups as a result of the revolution, said the supervisor.

“Whatever previous means of distribution were blocked,” he said, “new and better ways have opened up. Through contact with young people from the churches, several groups have been encouraged and trained to distribute Scriptures among the people. This training has not only furthered Scripture distribution, but has also been a means of reviving some of the churches.”

A visiting consultant reported, “In front of the large Tehran University our young people have been selling Scriptures. There are many different groups selling books: Marxists, Muslims, and so on. It is amazing to see the freedom in distribution. We did not have this before the revolution”

Demand has been spectacular by local standards. More than 127,000 Scripture portions were distributed during a recent three-month period (November 1979–January 1980)—up by four times over the same period the previous year. The stock of Farsi (Persian-language) Bibles was exhausted by March. Replacement shipments were beginning to arrive, however, with only routine delays. Twelve new Scripture portion or selection leaflets have been published, with five more editions scheduled for the balance of 1980.

The supervisor (who remains anonymous due to political sensitivities in Iran) explained the dramatic distribution surge simply: “At such a time people are in need of the Word of God and more than at any other time turn to it to find peace and the solution to every kind of difficulty.”

World Scene

Nicaragua’s conservative Roman Catholic bishops served notice that the Pope’s ban on priests holding political office will apply there. The bishops directed a statement in mid-May toward the six priests serving in Nicaragua’s executive branch—two of them in the cabinet and one in the Council of State. The bishops had approved the priests’ participation in the new government because the country had just been through a civil war and because there were not enough trained lay people to put the new government on its feet. But now, the statement declared, “the exceptional circumstances have ended.” The priests should now “do what they were ordained for—taking care of the spiritual needs of people.”

Two national fellowships have withdrawn from the World Evangelical Fellowship because an official Roman Catholic observer participated in its general assembly in London this spring. They are the Italian Evangelical Alliance and the Spanish Evangelical Alliance. Also, the executive council of the European Evangelical Alliance has issued a resolution expressing regret that the observer was invited, and reiterating its stand against official relations with the Roman Catholic | Church by WEF member alliances.

No breakthroughs were achieved last month by the joint theological commission of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. The commission, set up last November by Pope John Paul II and Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrius I of Constantinople (Istanbul) met for a week on the Greek Islands of Patmos and Rhodes. The goal is healing of the 900-year-old rift between the churches, which, Dutch Cardinal Jan Willebrands declared, was the result of “sins and errors” on both sides. Areas of substantial agreement were tackled first. Three subcommissions, formed to examine such topics as the sacraments and the Trinity, will report back in two years. The critical issue of papal primacy, with its attendant Roman Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility was deferred until later.

Britain’s Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie and Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster George Basil Hume each visited shrines of his counterpart’s church in the village of Walsingham last month. The shrines both have origins in the eleventh century, and honor Mary, the mother of Jesus. Runcie, who is the first Anglican primate in modern history to join the annual Anglican pilgrimage to its shrine, encountered demonstrators of the Protestant Truth Society and the Protestant Reformation Society who carried banners proclaiming “Walsingham no place for Archbishop,” and “No sacrifice but Calvary.”

The inerrancy debate has spread to Britain. At its annual assembly, the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches revised the wording of its doctrinal basis concerning Scripture from “full inspiration” to “full and verbal inspiration” and from “reliability” to “wholly reliable in both fact and doctrine.” The reason given was that many who call themselves evangelical and “would have no difficulty in accepting our [previous] statement … teach and publish views that undermine its inerrancy.” Meanwhile, the former editor of Crusade magazine, David Winter, has published a book. This I Can Believe, which asserts that the literal interpretation of certain Scriptures, such as the story of Jonah, runs counter to the actual intentions of the Bible itself.

The “Siberian seven” completed two years of refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow last month. The two families of Pentecostal believers had rushed past the embassy guards after 16 years of trying to emigrate to the United States, and have resisted all embassy pressure to get them to leave. The U.S. government is apprehensive. More than 30,000 other Pentecostals have openly appealed to leave the country. If the Vaschenkos and Chymkhalovas succeed in leaving the Soviet Union from the U.S. Embassy, the embassy could be besieged by other applicants; mob scenes could be repeated in East European capitals as well.

A number of South African churches displayed increased militancy in May when 53 of their leaders marched through downtown Johannesburg to deliver an appeal to police headquarters. Their purpose was to protest the arrest without charge (at the time) of John Thome, a colored (mixed race) minister of the Bosmont Congregational Church. The 53—including Desmond Tutu, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, and his wife, Leah—were arrested, detained overnight, charged the next day with violating the Riotous Assemblies Act, and ordered to appear for trial this month. The peaceful but illegal demonstration was the most broadly based action by socially activist denominations in the country to date.

In the early 1970s it was the West African Sahel; this year drought has struck East Africa. The United Nations World Food Council predicts that 60 million Africans—mostly women and children—will experience prolonged hunger this year. In parts of Uganda, Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Southern Sudan the drought began last year. Robert Kitchen, the chief U.N. official in Kenya, says “If Kenya doesn’t have a bumper crop and Uganda doesn’t stabilize politically, this year is just a down payment on 1981 and 1982.” Northeastern Uganda is hardest hit, and since the government, convulsed by four leadership changes in 13 months, has provided little assistance, mission agencies have become the sole distributors of relief supplies.

Discovery of the plans of right-wing Jewish militants to blow up the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem led to the arrest of Rabbi Meir Kahane in May. That is the assertion—not contradicted by Israeli officials—of a Paris periodical. It reported that members of the Jewish Defense League hid explosives in the Old City in a plot to destroy the mosque, one of the holiest shrines in Islam. Kahane, the JDL founder, was jailed as a security risk without a trial. At the time, an official said he “was preparing to commit a horrendous crime,” but refused to elaborate.

Food supplies in Cambodia (Kampuchea) appear to have run out even earlier this year than in 1979. Deaths from famine are increasing. The next harvest is not due until the end of the year, and indications are that it will be small. Meanwhile, relief officials report a rapid population shift away from central and eastern Cambodia to Phnom Penh and the Thai border. Increasingly, people are coming to the Thai border not to get rice to take back to the interior but, accompanied by their families, to wait out the famine in a place where they can count on regular rations.

China’s rehabilitated Patriotic Catholic Association elected a new primate at the end of May—without any consultation with the Vatican. Bishop Zong Huaide of Jinan echoed the Communist party line but also revealed that some monasteries would be reopened. Reporting on the Catholic synod meetings—the first since 1962—the People’s Daily admitted for the first time that some Chinese Catholics had not always agreed with the policies of the government-sponsored church. Some dissident Catholics have been in jail since the 1950s, including Bishop Ignatius Gong Pingmei of Shanghai, who was convicted in 1955 for following the orders of foreigners.

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