CHRISTIANITY TODAY NEWS

NCC’s Fifth World Order Study Conference made staggering commitments in foreign and domestic policy.CHRISTIANITY TODAY’Scoverage of the four-day conference, held in Cleveland, Ohio, last month, follows:

Special Report

By sharp criticism of American foreign policy and demand for softer approaches to Russia and Red China, the Fifth World Order Study Conference virtually repudiated major facets of Free World strategy shaped by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, one of the National Council of Churches’ own elder statesmen.

Searching for ecclesiastical “middle ground” in the tense international crisis, 600 delegates from 33 communions met in wind-swept and word-swept Cleveland (where the NCC was formed 8 years earlier) and nudged “the ecumenical Church” to fuller involvement in political affairs. Unanimous support was given early U.S. recognition of mainland China and her admission to the U.N., bolder moves toward U.S. disarmament, and enlarged reliance on the U.N. (see Message to the Churches, Plenary Conference Resolutions, Report on Power Struggle and Security below). The spirited “social action breakthrough” was hailed as an effective prelude to a $35,000,000 ecumenical peace offensive scheduled June, 1959, to June, 1960, in 144,000 NCC churches.

Mr. Dulles himself addressed delegates in Cleveland’s half-filled Music Hall (reflecting grass-roots disinterest in ecumenical affairs). Recalling his participation as an NCC official in earlier studies of world order, he credited mobilization of religious support after the 1942 conference as “a decisive contribution” to formation of the U.N., and described the 1942 “guiding principles” as of enduring worth. In the face of its political overtones, he summoned the 1958 conference on “Christian Responsibility on a Changing Planet” to an “indispensable contribution to the spiritual redemption of our nation.”

Noting American materialism and moral license, Dulles stressed that “we must not ignore the need to change ourselves.” To delegates eager to modify foreign policy, he voiced a firm call to consistency in political morality: “Nothing could be more dangerous than … the theory that if hostile and evil forces do not readily change, it is always we who must change to accommodate them. Communism is stubborn for the wrong; let us be steadfast for the right.… We resist aspects of change which counter the enduring principles of moral law.”

Dulles affirmed the responsibility of the churches to proclaim “the enduring moral principles by which governmental action as well as private action should constantly be inspired and tested.” But he noted that the churches “do not have a primary responsibility to devise the details of world order.” He emphasized “dependence of our policies upon individuals” and welcomed “development by and through the churches of a citizenry … alert to promote and assure that result.” America was founded, he said, “by those who felt it their personal mission not just to accommodate themselves to change brought about by others, but to be themselves a force for change. Their sense of mission derived largely from their strong religious faith.”

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Message To The Churches

The 5000-word message, which was drafted by a 23-member committee headed by John C. Bennett, and adopted in plenary session, urged:

• U. S. recognition of Communist China.

• Admission of Communist China to U.N.

• Progress toward universal disarmament by multilateral (i.e., U.N.) agreement.

• “Competitive co-existence” and limited cooperation with Communist nations.

• More liberal, imaginative foreign aid to under-developed lands.

• Full support for the U.N. as the “best flexed instrument of reconciliation now available to the nations.”

• Strong support of Supreme Court decision on school integration.

• Selection by churchmen of political leaders who will challenge defiance of the Court’s decision.

• Clergy initiative to end segregation in churches, housing, public services, economic or occupational opportunities.

• Support by churches of U.N. Genocide convention and other covenants on human rights.

Plenary Conference Resolutions

With less than half of the 600 delegates attending in the final plenary session, the NCC Study Conference on World Order adopted these resolutions in addition to the Message to the Churches:

Birth Control: Urged “an agreed Christian basis” for understanding and action regarding population control and family life.

Race Relations: 1. Urged national and state leaders in government to vigorous enforcement of the law. 2. Urged President Eisenhower immediately to call them to confer on faithful compliance with the Supreme Court decisions, considering local problems and need for progress. 3. Called NCC churches, laymen, ministers and councils to meet locally across racial lines to detail plans for implementation in local churches.

Red China: Supported right of press to travel in other lands.

Soviet Russia: Urged NCC inquiry into reports of intensified Communist persecution of Jews and Moslems.

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Roman Catholicism: Urged NCC inquiry into reports of persecution of Protestants in Spain.

Genocide Convention: Urged State Department to present to the U.S. Senate and to support the U.N. Genocide Convention, and other U.N. conventions for the enforcement of human rights.

Foreign Aid: 1. Urged support of self-determination of all peoples by peaceful means. 2. Urged foreign aid on condition that recipient nations promote rather than impede the human rights of their populations.

Middle East: 1. Urged efforts to negotiate agreement through U.N. or directly; implement U.N. resolutions for return of Arab refugees, or compensate for loss. 2. U.S. support for legitimate aspirations for Arab unity, Israel’s survival in peace; political and economic progress of both. 3. Supported U.N. recommendation for internationalization of Jerusalem.

War and Weapons: 1. Categorical rejection of the concept of preventive war. 2. Acknowledgment that peace presently rests in part upon capability for nuclear retaliation. 3. Asked earnest study of the question whether Christians ought to participate in a nuclear war.

Report On Power Struggle And Security

Of the four sections into which the Study Conference on World Order divided, Section II on “The Power Struggle and Security in a Nuclear Age” was most controversial. Its report was received by the plenary session and commended to the churches for appropriate action:

• Declared its non-support of the concept of nuclear retaliation as well as preventive war.

• Would abolish military conscription and allow Selective Service System to lapse in June.

• Declared obsolete a nationalistic approach to freedom, social welfare and security.

• Urged greater U.S. willingness to resolve its disputes through U.N. and World Court.

• Required that the U.N. sanction and control the use of military force.

• Supported international disarmament and security to supersede regional alliances.

• Approved permanent U.N. police force.

• Urged more U.S. initiative in effecting international arms inspection and control; that U.S. propose a comprehensive disarmament plan and extend suspension of nuclear tests, even if unilaterally.

• Proposed that U.S. disarmament savings be used for U.N. allocations to undeveloped countries.

• Supported extension of trade and travel with mainland China, Eastern Europe and Soviet Union.

• Urged more seminars between social scientists as well as scientists from East and West.

• Suggested exploration of more effective use of U.S. surplus food in Communist lands.

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• Urged more World Council meetings of East-West clergy.

• Proposed U.N. determination of peace in Formosa area and Nationalist China’s evacuation of exposed positions.

• Urged U.S. economic and technical assistance to India.

• Urged U.S. support for unification of Germany.

• Supported U.N. proposals to internationalize Jerusalem.

A Clash of Perspectives

Dulles’ words provided an unwitting rejoinder not only to facets of earlier keynote remarks by Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, but anticipated much of the later conference discussion. Oxnam deplored refusal to recognize Red China and to admit her to the U.N. “Try the hand-clasp instead of the fingerprint,” he implored, urging that Russians be allowed to visit by “tens of thousands.”

Oxnam had few approving words for American foreign policy. “Too much of our policy is based upon fear of communism rather than faith in freedom.… We built bases in a great circle, and we cooperated with dictators who had the bases to sell, and we paid our thirty pieces of silver to tyrants who had already betrayed our Lord.” He called justification of foreign policy by national self-interest rather than altruism “pagan realism.”

“Let us so change the planet,” he urged, “that when our first visitors from Mars arrive they will find a society fit to be called the Kingdom of God.” The bishop’s highly applauded blueprint bore its usual marks of revolt against free enterprise traditions. Chairman of NCC’s Division of Life and Work, he defended the Tennessee Valley Authority as non-socialistic, supported federal aid to education, and labeled critics of Walter Reuther as “men who seek to set labor relations back half a century.”

Social Action in a Theological Void

Lack of theological orientation was a characteristic feature of the sessions. Study groups (Section IV on Human Rights was an exception, holding in view the God of creation, history and redemption) deliberately shunned a theological basis in view of NCC’s inclusive commitment. Discussions operated in a theological vacuum; connections between a fixed theology, governing axioms and tentative policies (given the priority) were usually obscure. The theological prelude to the “Message to the Churches” was superimposed.

From the outset, assuredly, the social strategy of Union Theological Seminary’s Professor John C. Bennett (“the absolutizing of ‘compromise’,” one delegate called it) shadowed the sessions. Conference initiative, though not necessarily majority identification, lay with the so-called “realists” who stressed the sinfulness of man and history, shied away from revealed principles, urged reliance on temporary axioms, and proclaimed the inevitability of sinful choices.

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To Princeton President John A. Mackay this approach was “profoundly pessimistic or agnostic” when evaluated by the norm of biblical-historical Christianity. “To suggest that within history nothing can represent God’s order, that faith in Christ’s redemption projects us only into a period beyond history where God will win out,” he protested, contradicts what is “deepest in our Christian faith: that sooner or later God’s purposes will be fulfilled in history through the manifestation of inexorable moral law and divine power. Discard this, and … nothing in history fulfills the prophetic dream.” Summarized Mackay: Bennett’s social philosophy leaves man hopeless against the power of the view that history moves inexorably to a Communist climax, and it deprives the Christian Church of its dynamic in the historical order.

Program for the End-Time

But others found Bennett’s “theology of modern weapons” realistic and hopeful: “It gives a modus vivendi for 1958. Nuclear war may strike tonight. What does the Christian do?” The “real world situation” now requires recognition of “the facts of life in the power struggle.”

Dr. Ralph W. Sockman’s address noted that “the names of Nasser and Nehru and Khrushchev have become household words among us.” In the study sessions, in fact, the modern Herods and Pilates crowded God out of centrality in ecumenical deliberations. Demanded one participant: “What is the attitude of the Church toward U.S. policy on Quemoy and Matsu? Our people won’t be helped by telling them we agreed on the Ten Commandments and Sermon on the Mount and not much else.” The “Message to the Churches,” in fact, shared the New Testament sense of end-time only in a secular way (“We find ourselves always on the brink of annihilation”) and lost priority for the apostolic commission to evangelize the world through its speculative and pragmatic formulation of Christian duty:

“The immediate task of every Christian is to seize the initiative in the prevention of war and the advancement of peace.… We cannot sit complacently and hopefully behind the moral subterfuge which divides the world into ‘good and bad’ peoples (the context referred to West and East rather than Church and world—ED.), waiting for the ‘bad’ ones to be converted to our position. To do this is to insure the inevitability of war. The processes of peace … are the concern of every Christian … dedicated to ‘the sovereignty of love’ in human affairs.” Thus delegates tied their hopes to a revival of social gospelism and turned from the redemptive legacy of Christ (“My peace give I unto you; not as the world giveth give I …”).

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New Socio-Political Thrust

Although the line between liberalism and neo-orthodoxy at first became more intransigent as presuppositions were clarified, the conference soon saw a fusion in which pacifist forces of many shades cooperated at certain levels. In contrast with the old social gospel, this maneuver no longer expected to usher in a millennial age, nor was there a reigning concern to formulate fixed principles of social morality. It was enough to seek peace in our time, even if by action based on “axioms” whose validity was hardly self-evident. Alongside the flight from reason there remained an excessive trust in the reformation of unregenerate human nature, and a readiness to rely on massive political action independently of the message of spiritual redemption.

Protestant Panorama

• Italian Catholic Bishop Pietro Fiordelli, fined for branding as “public sinners living in concubinage” a young couple married in a civil ceremony and not in church, was acquitted by the Court of Appeals in Florence.

• Alberto Castello, Assemblies of God lay preacher from Copiague, New York, was kidnapped during a visit to Sicily by two bandits who demanded $8,000 for his safe return. Castello was held captive in a cave for six days before fleeing to safety, unharmed.

• Police in Konitsa, Greece, arrested Gregorious Moulaites, 36, of the Evangelical Church, for allegedly trying to proselytize a fellow villager and “deceiving him” with a bribe of more than $300. Moulaites labeled the charge “completely groundless.”

• King Olav V of Norway dropped in on the 50th anniversary celebration of the Free Theological Faculty, founded to counter liberal theology by championing true biblical teaching.

• Prime Minister John Diefenbaker of Canada was received in private audience by Pope John XXIII. It was the new pontiff’s first audience to the head of a government … The annual convention of the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches in Canada proposed further study of a move to merge with the British Columbia Regular Baptist Convention and the Regular Baptist Fellowship of the Prairies. A combined church would have a membership of some 24,000.

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• Southern Baptists plan to open missionary work in Viet Nam. They may also aid Baptist work in Portugal … The Indonesian Ministry of Religious Affairs reports that the number of Christians in the island nation has increased from 4½ million in 1950 to 6 million this year.

• The winner of the 1958 Nobel Peace Prize, the Rev. Dominique George Pire, 48-year-old Belgian-born Dominican priest, says he will use his $41,420 award to aid displaced persons. He has been active in refugee work since 1949. He became noted for his resistance to the Nazis during World War II … Belgium newspapers ceased publishing Sunday editions after a government order banned Sunday distribution.

• The Free Methodist Church’s Board of Administration voted to create a world-wide body by bringing into full fellowship with the parent organization its mission conferences. World membership of the church is about 90,000, more than one-third of which is in mission areas.

• Cleveland Police Chief Frank W. Story warned newsstand proprietors that unless the November issue of Playboy magazine was removed from display, they ran “the risk of criminal prosecution.” Last month’s number of Playboy was branded obscene by the Post Office Department, which said legal action was being instituted.

• The eighth National Assembly of United Church Women called on the United Nations to establish permanent and well-armed police to inspect and enforce any future disarmament agreements. Some 2,500 delegates at Denver also urged development of warning systems against all forms of aggressive attacks, elimination “insofar as practical” of nuclear weapons testing and manufacture, control of outer space and all scientific discoveries to ensure their peaceful uses, and full U. N. entry in areas where peace is threatened.

• B’nai B’rith President Philip M. Klutznick warned some 1,000 delegates attending the 60th biennial convention of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America against splintering by “sectarian differences” among Reform, Orthodox and Conservative branches of American Jewry.… Trustees of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations announced a comprehensive program to strengthen Reform Judaism, the goals of which include the winning of 500,000 new adherents among an estimated 2,500,000 unaffiliated Jews in America.

• An average of 13,493,462 Scriptures in more than 270 languages were distributed annually during the last five years by the American Bible Society.

In this circumstance evangelical Christianity paid heavily for its failure to elaborate a social ethics conformable to the theology of redemption. Beyond criticisms of vulnerable features of Western policy, and rejection of extreme NCC positions, most evangelical delegates—and they were few in number—lacked an effective counter-thrust. Or, if they had one, the gathering winds of official commitments swiftly reduced them to a scattered minority, and frustration led to silence.

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The Cleveland conference in its expressions did not preserve centrality for the Church’s revealed commission; it assumed, rather than justified, the propriety of specific Church positions in political affairs; it did not establish the rightness of its positions by any norm beyond the majority vote of delegates; and it left in doubt whether those delegates fully expressed the views of constituencies they represent. The crucial question now is whether the “Message to the Churches” will be hailed as a legitimate definition of Christian responsibility.

Between East and West

Delegates went far beyond criticism of U. S. foreign policy (alliances with totalitarian rulers; Israeli guarantees promotive of Arab anxiety; exploitation of Near East oil reserves; pursuit of inordinate self-interest; and so forth). Sympathy for the Soviet orbit was easier to detect than censure. References favorable to America were so qualified, sputtered one delegate, they were “like pronouncing heaven a relatively good place for Christians.”

While few questioned Dr. Bennett’s challenge to “the assumption of the world’s division into two ideological blocs,” observers (more than delegates) wondered whether the antithesis between Christianity and unbelief had now been diluted. Long a critic of free enterprise traditions of the West, and a champion of “competitive coexistence,” Bennett headed the 23-member committee that prepared a 5000-word closing message. The report on “The Power Struggle and Security” generously incorporated his background papers. His plea for abandonment of the U. S. “black and white moralistic approach” seemed to some, however, to yield a moral shadowland indifferent to many legitimate concerns, and indisposed to chide the Soviet bloc without simultaneously censuring the West. Dr. G. Frederick Nolde, director of the NCC Commission on International Affairs, told delegates likewise that negotiations will be fruitless “if Communist officials are obviously and patently dealt with as … adult delinquents.” Some observers thought such emphases would not only weaken faith in American policy, but bemist the ideological divide between East and West.

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From the first a major revision of policy on Red China and foreign aid had behind-the-scenes approval.

The Section III report (“Overseas Areas of Rapid Social Change”) endorsed “substantially larger sums of money … through the government as well as individuals and voluntary groups for economic development in the areas of rapid social change” to help “underdeveloped countries establish their own sound economies.” The plenary session protest of John Nuveen (Baptist) of Chicago, that this would allow aid “behind the iron and bamboo curtains” permitting Communist use of it for their own ends, was unavailing. “We may be making the nations strong and Communist, rather than strong and free; we should be as interested in human freedom as in human abundance,” he said. Nuveen also warned against overemphasis on multi-lateral (U.N.) as against bi-lateral aid, because a “multi-lateral program cannot take cognizance of political factors.” Nuveen had also cautioned Section II that its projected seating of mainland China in the U. N. would assign Red China the permanent Security Council seat originally reserved for Nationalist China as a World War II ally. His warning, however, gained nothing. In closing moments of the plenary session, Dr. Ernest Griffith (Methodist) of Washington, D. C., sought to tie U. S. recognition and U. N. admission to “relaxation of aggressive posture” in view of mainland China’s recent history in Korea and Formosa straits, but the effort was overwhelmingly defeated. Conference chairman Ernest A. Gross, head of NCC’s Department of International Affairs and former U. S. Ambassador to the U. N., when sketching the dilemma of admission or rejection of mainland China, failed even to mention the implication of such admission for the Security Council.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: Dr. Frank H. Yost, 64, Seventh-day Adventist theologian and editor, newly-appointed to the chair of religion at La Sierra College, Arlington, California, of a brain tumor, in Los Angeles … the Most Rev. H. W. K. Mowll, 68, Anglican primate of Australia, Archbishop of Sydney, and president of the executive committee for next year’s Billy Graham crusade in Australia, in Sydney … Jorge de Oliveira, Baptist missionary to Portugal … Dr. William Gaius Greenslade, retired Presbyterian missionary to Lebanon, in DeLand, Florida … William P. Phillips, Baptist Sunday School leader.

Elections: As president of the Canadian Council of Churches, the Very Rev. George Dorey … as president of the new National Methodist Theological Seminary to be established in Kansas City, Missouri, Dr. Don W. Holter … as president of the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association, Dr. R. T. Davis … as treasurer of the Board of Home Missions of the Congregational Christian Churches, Dr. Howard E. Spragg … as president of the Christian Business Men’s Committee International, Harry W. Smith, vice president of the Bank of America, San Francisco … as president of the Association of College and University Ministers of the Methodist Church, the Rev. Darold Hackler … as president of the Northern Missionary Council, Danish Bishop Halfdan Hogsbro … as honorary president of the Christian Writers Association of Canada, Alan E. Haw; as president, George Bowman; as editor of the association’s quarterly, Earl Kulbeck.

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Nomination: As moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Dr. Robert H. W. Shepherd.

Appointments: As chairman of the radio and television department of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., Dr. John K. Mitchell … as associate publisher of the Methodist Publishing House, Dr. George M. Curry … as assistant professor of Old Testament interpretation at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Dr. Jerry Vardaman.

Awards: To James D. Zellerbach, United States ambassador to Italy, the World Brotherhood Gold Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews for “promoting good will and understanding among all the peoples of the world” … to Mary Jo Nelson, religion editor of the Oklahoma City Times, the first press citation of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma for “outstanding reporting of church news.”

Correction: Dr. Jesse H. Ziegler, listed in CHRISTIANITY TODAY for October 27 as having been appointed to a professorship at Bethany Biblical Seminary, actually has been on the Bethany faculty since 1941. It should have been noted that Dr. Ziegler was named associate secretary of the American Association of Theological Schools. CHRISTIANITY TODAY regrets the error.

Former U. S. Ambassador for Disarmament Harold Stassen, who was to have aided Section II throughout the study conference, arrived only in time to hear the section report presented in plenary session and made the closing comment on it. He found the report “much too dogmatic” in its view of communism as God’s judgment on the West; said he was “troubled” by its agreement that military force be sanctioned and controlled by the U. N., since this would subject it to Soviet veto; said that in the “overall context of the present struggle” he would be reluctant to approve the section’s opposition to present U. S. reliance on nuclear armaments and the request for a slowdown in military time-table; and noted that negative appraisal of American policy in the Far East might well include some things to be expected from Communist China.

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Overall Trends in Cleveland

What overall trends were discernible at the NCC conference? The historic American principle of separation of church and state is clearly on the wane. Not even 30 Baptist delegates (NCC currently has a Baptist president) rose in its behalf, being seldom vocal. Nor did the prospect of enlarging Roman Catholic exploitation of church-state opportunities act as a deterrent. Direct pressure upon government policies by religious leaders of institutionalized Protestantism (“the Ecumenical Church”) is more and more approved, despite lack of a mandate at the grass-roots level (conferees were reminded of the “mandate from the National Council” to constituent churches, councils and agencies) and frequent conflict with convictions of lay constituencies, and the inherent risks when political influence and power is concentrated in any religious collectivity. However, the Big Church allows itself to become enmeshed more fully in state procedures, and identifies the Christian message with specific positions and policies on state matters, some anxiety rises lest the churches become mere agencies to accomplish government objectives. The evangelical wing of NCC was not strongly represented; its frustration mounted in attempting a counter-position, until at last its voices became silent. Pacifist-minded delegates, far from satisfied with the outcome, nonetheless viewed many resolutions as significant gains for their cause. What Cleveland dramatized most, however, is a lack of a uniform and approved Protestant theology of church-state relations, and the willingness of many delegates to move only with the rising tide. Cleveland delegates spoke much of world order, but they halted far short of a Christian agenda for civilization.

C. F. H. H.

Rally In Retrospect

The peak of excitement is past. The charges and counter-charges are being forgotten. Considered now, what did evangelist Billy Graham’s climatic Carolinas crusade meeting leave to be remembered? HereCHRISTIANITY TODAYCorrespondent Tom McMahon reflects on the big integrated meeting at the Fort Jackson Army post near Columbia, South Carolina. These are his impressions:

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Mass Evangelism

The statistics were impressive—60,000 present; 1,243 decisions for Christ—adding up to Billy Graham’s largest rally on an armed forces base.

But the Reformation Sunday service at Fort Jackson had a significance far deeper than numbers, amazing as these were for a meeting that was shifted from the South Carolina capitol grounds, less than four days before.

A prominent Presbyterian minister said the rally’s outstanding contribution was that it raised a landmark for moderation in the race relations controversy.

Nearly 200 ministers, some of whom were rather cold to Graham’s ministry, rallied behind the one-day crusade after Governor George Bell Timmerman, Jr. charged that it was planned to boost an “integrationist” preacher.

The small flood of vicious criticism which followed the governor’s attack was stemmed by the obvious success of the meeting and by the presence, on the platform, of James F. Byrnes who was the state’s chief executive when Timmerman was a pale and inconspicuous lieutenant governor.

Byrnes changed some plans in order to attend the meeting and entertain Graham afterward in his home. His action threw back into Timmerman’s face the twisted charges that the evangelist’s presence at the state house would have violated laws and would have been misinterpreted as a sign of softness on the racial issue in South Carolina.

There was tragi-comedy in the one-sided controversy which Timmerman launched two weeks before the rally and intensified 10 days later in apparent violation of his initial promise not to try and stop the meeting.

In the face of prominently-displayed newspaper stories to the contrary, the governor charged that the state house site was chosen solely to boost an “integrationist.” The fact was that sponsors tried first to get Carolina Stadium, scene of Graham’s first great outdoor service in 1950, but were turned down because of “too much state fair and football” just before the only possible date.

Actually, the racial issue probably was involved in the stadium decision. Prominent University of South Carolina alumni were heard from a few hours before the decision and the attitude of a key university official changed radically.

Then, some garden club ladies, long zealous for the integrity of the capitol grounds, began to protest in fear that grass and shrubs would be trampled. The rally was moved, perforce, from the spacious north side of the capitol to the south steps, almost on the street.

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To cap it off, extremists began to second the governor’s stand, but in a more vicious fashion. Some of their letters were unprintable. A Ku Klux Klan spokesman threatened to make trouble for pastors who stood by Graham.

There was a strange note in the governor’s attacks, especially when he practically forced removal of the rally from the capitol by calling its sponsors liars and lawbreakers and by charging that Graham would be a trespasser if he mounted the platform which had been up only a few hours.

This strange argument, coming from a politician who is not deeply religious, said an evangelistic rally on state property would violate the principle of church-state separation. Added evidence that some of Graham’s “fundamentalist” critics had captured the governor’s ear was Timmerman’s claim that he had been applauded for his stand by a number of ministers and ministerial students.

So the site was changed, as the early apostles sometimes changed their preaching places when persecution arose. But the sponsors of the rally, and Graham, stood pat on the message.

The evangelist himself made a brief statement on the racial issue at a press conference, then closed the door on questions regarding this matter. He said:

“Some have been so unbalanced on the whole issue that segregation or integration has become their one gospel. God pity us if we let our differences about this prevent us from presenting Christ to a lost world. My only motive at any time in coming to Columbia was to preach the Gospel and that is what I intend to do today.”

The racist, and “fundamentalist” opposition was joined later by other religionists who protested in newspaper letters and tried to bring pressure to bear on Fort Jackson’s commander for throwing wide the post’s facilities for the meeting.

But evangelical pastors stood firm. Their singers overflowed the choir stands and hundreds of ushers and counsellors turned out. The rank and file of citizens, white and Negro, responded to the situation by clogging the roads two hours ahead of time and standing, 60,000 strong, around the platform from which Graham preached. In closing he invited people to come forward as a token of the fact that at the foot of the Cross all are equal and all problems must ultimately be solved.

The rally took on the nature of a state-wide crusade. With the interest of news media whetted by the controversy, the meeting achieved new significance in the eyes of millions. A state-wide network of some 23 radio stations broadcast the service. Highlights were presented the next morning on a television network.

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It is highly probable that the fellowship forged during the preparations, and the impetus of the meeting itself, will result in a city-wide, and perhaps even area-wide, program of visitation evangelism and preaching missions next spring. If such comes to pass, it may be the first time such a broad effort has stemmed from a one-day Graham stand.

Greeting From Moscow

Evangelist Billy Graham turned 40 last month. Most surprising among hundreds of greetings was a telegram from the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians (Baptist) in Moscow:

“We heartily congratulate you on your 40th anniversary. Our hearts are full of gratitude to God for your birthday and for the years of your blessed ministry. We pray that God may give you the longest life and the richest blessings and success upon your furtherances of the Gospel.”

The message was signed by Jakov Zhidkov, president of the council, the only organized religious group in Russia other than the Orthodox church, and Alexander Karev, general secretary.

Graham is preparing for a crusade in Australia early next year.

His next U. S. crusade will be in Indianapolis, a month-long effort to be held at the State Fairgrounds Coliseum next October.

A 10 to 12-week crusade is tentatively planned for Chicago during the summer of 1961.

Anxiety Over Arms

The Canadian Council of Churches called for international control and inspection of nuclear weapons at its 12th biennial meeting in Winnepeg.

Dominion Of Canada

A Committee on International Affairs report adopted by the 100-odd council delegates urged the Canadian government to press for development of nuclear power for peaceful purposes only. Another resolution urged a more generous immigration policy.

Although refusing to urge Canadian diplomatic recognition of Communist China, the council expressed a feeling of “deep concern about the unsatisfactory position of China in the community of nations.”

A special commission of the council claimed that it is necessary to develop an “ecumenical approach” to the role of churches in universities. The council resolved to call a conference to consider how Christian work on the campus can best be inter-related.

In an address to the convention, Dr. Emlyn Davies, outgoing president, said strikes are outmoded as a means of settling industrial disputes. He called the strike an anti-social weapon because it involves “the whole community.” He said he had a great sympathy for workers who have been “shockingly exploited,” but added that the church cannot be a party to strike violence.

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The great problem in evangelism, delegates were told, is “the half-awakened, indifferently-trained and lethargic members of congregations and parishes.” Nominal religion is not sufficient for those who live in a “world of fear and indecision,” said the Rev. P. P. W. Ziemann, chairman of the council’s department of evangelism.

A Move For Merger

Expressing “firm intention and desire” to continue merger talks with the United Church of Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada Executive Council voted to convene the full 35-member Anglican reunion committee and the 33-member House of Bishops for a joint meeting next February to discuss union.

Merger negotiations between the two bodies, initiated by the Anglicans 15 years ago, have been at a standstill for some time. The full Anglican reunion group has not met since the talks were begun.

Meeting in Toronto with the church’s Council for Social Service, the Anglican council also urged the abolition of capital punishment and endorsed sections of the Lambeth Report favoring abolition of war and nuclear weapons.

The five-day sessions of the executive council, which meets between the triennial General Synods, were attended by 33 archbishops and bishops and 77 priests and laymen. The action for merger undoubtedly grew out of an appeal from the United Church General Council in September that the Anglican church “make it plain whether it really wishes to continue these [merger] conversations, or whether it now desires to terminate them.” [See CHRISTIANITY TODAY (October 27 issue) for earlier story.]

Electoral Rock ’N’ Roll

The National Assembly of the Church of England tangled with the laity at its fall session.

Great Britain

A lively debate marked discussion of the role of the laity in the life and work of the church. A resolution was adopted welcoming “closer association of the laity with the clergy in the synodical government of the church.” However, the laity’s association would be “subject to the advice of the Convocations of Canterbury and the House of the Laity of the Church Assembly,” the resolution added.

Earlier, the assembly agreed that the resident of a parish must attend church at least once every six months in order to keep his name on the church’s electoral roll.

“Only too often,” lay delegate Oswald Clark argued, “electoral rolls contain certain names entered years ago of persons, who, in spite of frequent approaches, decline to enter into the family of the church, yet these names cannot be removed.”

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Another speaker had called the electoral situation “unreal.” His illustration, presumably real if obscure, cited the case of a woman who was asked if she would like to be on the roll. “No,” she was quoted as having replied, “I am the rock ’n’ roll of the next village.”

Then there was the lay delegate who suggested that a good way to raise money for the church’s teacher-training colleges would be to sponsor football pools. Cries of “shame” greeted the proposal.

The assembly decided to ask the Ministry of Education to increase state grants for aided schools from 50 to 75 per cent. It was agreed that the church itself should accept the task of raising an extra $2,800,000 for expansion of the teacher-training colleges.

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