Israel—Fulfillment of Prophecy?

NEWS

Christianity in the World Today

“Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

Thus in Genesis 32:28 the name Israel became associated with God’s chosen people, called earlier (in Genesis 12:1) to “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto the land that I will show thee.”

Jews have always held that the “land,” with or without the name Israel, was in Palestine. In point of fact, there was no Israel as such between 721 B.C. and 1948 A.D. But for ten years now, the Jews have had a new autonomous Israel—in Palestine!

The end of the new Israel’s first decade prompted observances and varied tributes all over the world in honor of the blossoming desert country with an area comparable to that of New Jersey.

Many American newspapers saluted the tenth anniversary of Israel with editorials commending the state’s spirited progress. “Conceived in idealism and born in fire, Israel has already accomplished the impossible,” said the New York Times. David Ben-Gurion was called a “messianic” prime minister.

Both houses of the United States Congress heard speeches marking the occasion. Some 50,000 persons crowded into New York’s Polo Grounds for a “Salute to Freedom Rally” under auspices of the American Committee for Israel’s Tenth Anniversary Celebration. Protestant and Catholic clergymen participated in the event with Jewish rabbis. A New York luncheon by the American Christian Committee drew another 250 religious leaders and civic officials. A public observance in Washington, witnessed by a crowd of 2500 in Constitution Hall, was addressed by Senator John F. Kennedy, Catholic Democrat from Massachusetts, and Senator Clifford P. Case, Presbyterian Republican from New Jersey. In Israel itself, parades were held as thousands of tourists poured in from all over the world.

Communications media, particularly in America, were carrying prodigious accounts of Israel’s meteoric rise. Politically recognized first by the United States, the young state was now gaining recognition in new phases of achievement. Foodstuffs from Israel were coming to be a more common sight on supermarket shelves. One report said that more than two million wild gladiola bulbs will be imported from Israel to America during 1958. U. S. aid, which in turn has been the backbone of Jewish economy, was taking at least one strange twist: August A. Busch Jr., brewery magnate and owner of the St. Louis Cardinals, was to be honored at a New York dinner, June 4, “to hail his support of the introduction of baseball play in Israel.” A central baseball park, to be named Busch Stadium, will be built on a plot of ground overlooking the Mediterranean just north of Tel-Aviv.

From a secular standpoint, tension with the Arabs ranks as the Jews’ number one problem. Israel has difficulty staying within the frontier established by the United Nations, frontiers which left large numbers of Jews in Arab territory, while many Arabs remained in Israel. Jerusalem, the city through which the Israeli-Jordanian border runs, bears the brunt of the problem.

Neighboring Arab countries never have been reconciled even to the existence of a state of Israel, a point that raises a question pregnant with religious implications: Is independent Israel a fixture in Palestine? Are the Jews there to stay?

Last year more than 71,000 Jewish immigrants were received into Israel (only 180 of them were from the United States). The population has increased from 600,000 at the time of the end of the British mandate to about 2,000,000.

Does the current influx of Jews into a new Israel truly represent a scriptural preliminary to the second coming of Jesus Christ? Many dispensationalists think so. Others feel that the promise to Abraham concerning the land was conditioned upon obedience and that the Jews were oppressed in the land or driven out of it because of disobedience.

Some claim that possession of Jerusalem has tremendous significance; the opposing view can be stated this way: A believing Jew is just as near heaven in Jersey City as he would be in Jerusalem; an unbelieving Jew is as far from heaven in Jerusalem as if he were in Jersey City.

Whatever appraisal is more accurate, Israel still needs her Messiah! Evangelization in the Palestine area seems to hold a priority in the minds of Christians, yet the fruit is small. At last count, there were only 45,000 Christians in Israel, and almost all of them were Arabs. Some Hebrews profess Christ secretly, but only a handful publicly proclaim him as Saviour. Christian churches number 160.

Interested Christians will soon get a new opportunity to testify in person to twentieth century Israelites. A new Israel-American Institute of Biblical Studies is being established in Jerusalem under the direction of Dr. G. Douglas Young.

Assessing A Crusade

Advertisers call it “the hard sell.” Anthropologists call it “mana.” Average people call it “sincerity.” Christians of San Francisco insist on identifying it as the anointing of the Holy Spirit—God’s special preparation of a man uniquely set apart as his messenger in troubled times. By whatever name, the bay area has been exposed to a man and a message that are having an effect totally out of proportion to the brevity of time involved.

It is difficult if not impossible to apprehend the effect of the evangelist Billy Graham on the people of his generation without coming to the Cow Palace and witnessing the nightly miracle. After New York it was felt that superlatives were exhausted; the crusade to end crusades had become history; San Francisco could be only an anticlimax.

Before the first week was out it was apparent, however, that the Billy Graham team was breaking new ground in the West. On Thursday, “Youth Night” of the second week, a new high of 1243 decisions was recorded. The first crusade of the satellite age gave evidence of a yearning of God that threatened to develop into a hunger riot. Not only the breath of spring, but the spiritual breath of revival was in the air.

Dr. Graham told 18,000 listeners just before his first telecast, “I believe God is going to do something deeper here than we have sensed in any of our crusades. It may be that during these spring and summer months this nation will go on its knees before God.” Declared song-director Cliff Barrows as he prepared to lead a record-breaking 2500-voice choir, “This has surpassed anything we hoped for or even anything that we have ever seen.” A reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle said, “We’re giving this more coverage than we expected to. The size of the crowd demands it. It looks as if Protestants are getting rid of their inferiority complex around here.” (The city of San Francisco lists 800,000 population, 40,000 Protestants.)

The team reported not only more counselors than New York, but a new level of counseling. Two hundred ministers sat through the instruction of Charles Riggs and Lome Sanny; seven M.D.’s were enrolled in a single class. Said Riggs: “The counseling in the Cow Palace is the smoothest ever. We have more advisers than we ever had.” Ushering reached a new high; according to assistant director Bill Brown, San Francisco had more ushers at the start of its campaign than New York had at the end. “These men,” he said, “have a depth of purpose; their spirit of cooperation is unusual.”

Mounting statistics indicated that San Francisco will achieve new goals in television coverage (twice as many stations as New York), in churches cooperating, in bus transportation, in choir and counseling participation. New developments such as pastors’ prayer groups, local church Bible classes, special bus committees, telephone brigades are mushrooming. Negro churches are more active. On the first Saturday night telecast Dr. Graham reported “the largest audience at an evangelistic service in the history of the Christian church.”

There are other changes more difficult to assess. One is the change in Billy Graham himself. The evangelist said in Madison Square Garden that “Christ does not remove your problems; your problems may be even greater after you come to Christ, but you will have a capacity and power to face them.” He is saying it more emphatically in San Francisco. If the whole world were to become Christian, he tells his audiences, there would still be problems. “Even in a Christian home there are tensions—but Christ creates an atmosphere in which solutions can be worked out.” This new emphasis cuts across a familiar criticism: that Graham poses too simple solutions for the issues of life.

Evident also is a more discerning analysis of the motives of some of his listeners, and a new attitude toward his brother ministers. “Some of the things I say will make you cringe,” he told pastors at a breakfast the first week. “Just close your ears and eyes and wait for something you can agree with. I cannot devise a theology that will please all of you, for we come from different backgrounds.”

PEOPLE: WORDS AND EVENTS

Awards: To Lieutenant Colonel Roy H. Terry, the “Air Force Chaplain of the Year” citation of the Reserve Officers Association … To Dr. Samuel McCrea Cavert, retired U. S. executive secretary of the World Council of Churches, the 1958 “Upper Room” citation “for leadership in world Christian fellowship” … To Methodist Bishop Arthur J. Moore of Atlanta, the 1958 “Distinguished Service” citation of Georgia State College … To Rochester, New York, and Worthington, Minnesota, “World Brotherhood” citations.

Appointments: As commander of the Salvation Army in Ireland, Colonel Muriel Booth-Tucker, a granddaughter of the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth … As president of the yet-to-be-organized Alaska Methodist University at Anchorage, the Rev. Donald F. Ebright of Chicago … As general director of United Church Men, Samuel J. Patterson Jr. of Richmond, Virginia.

Distribution: Of more than 14,500,000 Scripture portions in 271 languages during 1957, announced by the American Bible Society.

Development: Program of building to cost $16,000,000 undertaken by Union Theological Seminary, largest interdenominational seminary in the world.

Election: As an associate superintendent in the Congregational Christian Church, Miss Janice C. Bennett, first woman named to such a high administrative post in the denomination’s history.

Nomination: As chief of Air Force chaplains, Brigadier General Terence P. Finnegan, Roman Catholic priest. Confirmation to the post would elevate Chaplain Finnegan to the rank of major general. He is to succeed Major General Charles I. Carpenter, who has been named Protestant cadet chaplain of the Air Force Academy.

What of the actual effect of the crusade upon individual lives? The Cow Palace “exhibit room” which has been taken over by the counselors has become a production-line of Christian love. The affectionate way these Westerners counsel each other is striking. One young man who responded to Graham’s invitation gave his occupation as “thief and gambler.” A salesman in a bar across from the Cow Palace saw the crowd, decided to have a look for himself, listened, and gave his life to Jesus Christ. A newly-released convict from Leavenworth, a girl from Czechoslovakia, a Dutch refugee mother, three girls—triplets—and their parents, a clean-up man at the Cow Palace, a student for the Roman Catholic priesthood, a Ph.D.-holding college professor are among those who have already yielded to the Lord their lives. The gentle, dignified way in which these inquirers are handled—even to the small children—and the spirit of their united prayer of confession are unforgettable scenes.

One delegation came by train from Nashville, Tennessee, and stayed a week. Other plane and train excursions were scheduled by groups from New York, Georgia and the Carolinas. The “Youth Nights,” Thursdays, and on week ends the crowds have been overflowing. To those on the scene it was clear that no newspaper, no broadcast or telecast could reproduce the spiritual milieu that is being created in the great auditorium. Says co-chairman Carl Howie, “Dr. Graham’s greatest effectiveness is not so much in his sermons as in his moment of invitation. Then it becomes apparent how uniquely God is using him.”

To watch these people of every race and color coming forward without pressure, quietly, reverently, some dabbing at their eyes with a handkerchief, all soberly, is to recognize that here is a work of sheer mercy that is unmatched in the world of our times. They come not to fill their stomachs or to cure an ache or an infection, but to lay their sins and their griefs on the Lamb of God.

Last year columnist John Crosby predicted in a telecast entitled “The Revivalists” that within two years Billy Graham’s popularity would begin to wane. San Francisco was providing little comfort for the prognostication.

S. E. W.

Tour of Russia

Interested in going on a tour of Russia?

The opportunity presents itself in a summer seminar which incorporates visits to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

The seminar is led by Dr. Charles F. Boss, executive secretary for United Nations and Intergovernmental affairs of the Board of World Peace of the Methodist church. The group will leave New York by plane July 22 and will return a day or two after Labor Day.

Invitations for inquiries have been extended to “clergymen, professors, graduate students and competent laymen.” The New York office of the Board of Peace is in Room 1016, 345 East 46th Street, New York 17, N. Y.

Seeking “civic unity” in the midst of “religious pluralism,” the so-called Big Four in American life (Protestants, Catholics, Jews, non-religious humanists) met May 5–9 in New York for a Fund for the Republic seminar to discuss and debate “Religion in a Free Society.” Provocative monologues by speakers of disparate viewpoints (Dr. Robert M. Hutchins, the Rev. John Courtney Murray, Dr. Leo Pfeffer, Dr. Will Herberg, Dr. James Hastings Nichols, Rabbi Abraham Heschel, the Rev. Gustave Weigel, Dr. Paul Tillich and others) propelled the 100 invited participants into dialogic discussion almost spiritlessly genteel at the outset but so ominously polemic by the third night that director John Cogley diagnosed an unscheduled three-hour autopsy of Protestant-Catholic tensions as a “rump session” rather than a technical aspect of the “dialogue.”

Rump meeting or not, the Wednesday night flurry marked a climax which the scheduled sessions failed to rival until the closing hours. With more than half the participants present, Roman Catholic and Protestant clergy and lay leaders engaged in spirited debate, frankly bared their anxieties, and hopefully looked to the future for solution.

Broad issues in national life shaped the five-day program: the meaning of separation of church and state, religion and education, censorship. These themes were prosecuted from diverse points of view. Shifting emphases reflected the cultural tension between supernaturalism and secularism, between Protestantism and Catholicism, as well as measurable disagreement within each religious grouping, American Jewry included. The attempt to delineate American life as a synthesis of supernaturalists (as by the National Council of Christians and Jews) was under fire by the non-religious humanists from the outset. Both the Western sequence of Jewish, Catholic and Protestant history as well as the American accommodation of Protestant traditions to enlarging Catholic and Jewish influence, had now to reckon with secularism. On the opening night Father Murray noted that civic unity would be much simpler “if our society were all Protestant, or all Catholic, or all Jewish, or all secularist”—he even called the secularist “a late comer” who owes his existence to the rejection of Christian values, and warned of the “intellectual barbarianism” of the age. He acknowledged, however, that civil order now requires a pattern of interlocking “conspiracies” united for a common end. The decline of the nation, said more than one, may stem from interreligious disharmony as easily as from irreligious solidarity.

Partisans of an “absolute separation” of church and state gained early momentum from Dr. Leo Pfeffer (who had represented the American Jewish Congress in the McCollum case and against Gideon Bible distribution in New Jersey). He warned that religious compromises (like “so help me God” in oaths, “in God we trust” on coins, “under God” in the pledge of allegiance; required chapel attendance at West Point) supply precedents that will nullify American freedoms and dissolve the Bill of Rights. He urged swift removal of “these impairments … lest they supply a precedent for inverting the whole intention of the First Amendment.” Dr. Pfeffer called the historic prohibition of a law ‘respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof a “uniquely American contribution to civilization.… When our constitutional fathers formalized this concept … they imposed on future generations … a great moral obligation to preserve their experiment and to adhere strictly to the principle they expressed.”

Episcopalian Dr. Wilber G. Katz of the University of Chicago Law School argued that “absolute separation” is “not supported unequivocally” by American historical and legislative traditions (“except for occasional flights of rhetoric, no one urges … this was intended”). He invoked the tradition of chaplains and of prayers in public life as establishing not a deviation but a principle of religious neutrality. President John A. Mackay of Princeton Theological Seminary commented that American tradition favors “the development of religion, but it may not promote religion.” Dr. Katz demurred: “It favors religious liberty, not religion; it should keep the exercise of its power out of the way.” Dr. Will Herberg of Drew University contended that religious institutions are entitled to government support in principle; however, the attempt to rationalize American practices is stifling: in the face of religious plurality “the Supreme Court has articulated a series of irrationalities … We are a religious people, but the government must not go ‘too far.’ Public opinion determines the appropriate limits according to time, place and circumstance.”

With an eye on Roman Catholicism, many Protestant speakers stressed that the First Amendment excludes the Catholic correlation of state and church, while some Roman Catholic participants protested any association of the amendment with a specifically Protestant theology. Dr. Pfeffer had argued that the American form of government is “the result of an alliance between Protestant dissent and secular humanism” (a designation of Jefferson and the Deists especially palatable to contemporary humanists), that “Judaism has accepted this alliance and become one of its sturdiest supporters,” that the alliance “is today challenged by a Roman Catholic philosophy.”

Protestant-Catholic Tensions

Discussion between Romanism and Protestantism heightened with the question whether Roman Catholic parochial education [Father Murray had said the first night that in respect to this an American injustice was now being committed in the distribution of public benefits] involves a system of values basically anti-democratic and somehow competitive with the American political philosophy. Editor Carl F. H. Henry of CHRISTIANITY TODAY proposed a sustained exchange of thought on Protestant-Catholic anxieties. Dr. James Hastings Nichols of the University of Chicago’s Federated Theological Faculty characterized Roman parochial schooling as “censored and irresponsible education.” “Protestants hear the argument for distributive justice with one ear, as an artificial formulation of a real problem,” he said. “The crux … is free education (of the dialogue) and censored education (intellectual segregation). Roman Catholic education is censored education; is irresponsible education (not subject to the review of the community); and is sacrosanct (its substantive content cannot be criticized) … Hence its graduates are crippled as participants in the great dialogue of modern life and … in the civic dialogue.” He bluntly called “the expansion of Roman Catholic controlled education a major threat to a free society.”

With this turn of events, group feeling ran high. The Rev. Neil G. McCluskey of America, who thought any special scrutiny of Catholic positions an “impertinent suggestion,” resented any reflection “on the quality of the citizenship of the Catholic body,” a phrasing that recalled Father Murray’s earlier sally that to a Catholic war veteran whenever the prejudice appears that Catholics are “among us but not of us … them’s fighting words!” After the coffee break, Father McCluskey announced: “It seems we really don’t fit … and we are leaving.… I’m busy getting names to get on the boat!” Inviting attendance at the National Catholic Education Association, and a reading of Catholic self-criticisms of parochial education, he added that Catholic institutions meet state requirements and are fully eligible to confer diplomas.

Paul Blanshard of Protestants and Other Americans United called discrimination against public schools, the hierarchy’s official establishment of parochial schools, undemocratic control, restrictions against texts critical of Catholic doctrines and traditions “undemocratic features” of the parochial schools.

As discussion increased, the special Protestant-Catholic conclave appeared inevitable. The Very Rev. George G. Higgins of National Catholic Welfare Conference dissociating himself “from a sort of hurt feeling,” said he was “not in the least offended by Dr. Nichols’ talk. The majority of Catholics welcome this type of talk if we have time …” He drew from Dr. Nichols the admission that he had not extensively examined Catholic schools. He assailed any notion that Catholics engage in “calculated slander of public schools” (“Is it any more severe,” he asked, “than slander of Catholic schools by secular educators and fundamentalist Protestant groups?”).

Dr. Edward A. Dowey Jr. of Princeton Seminary emphasized that criticism of Romanism is socio-political, not theological. “It involves authority, solidarity and comprehensiveness What worries me is the socio-political implications of a large group in society subject to dictates of the church in matters of the body politic … From this issues a kind of front expressive of an official church opinion within a free society. Moreover, the Roman church seeks to be more fully related to culture in its own particular way (Catholic veterans, Catholic nurses, and so on). Such a large bloc … isolated from ‘the dialogue’ reduces to a power bloc in society, hence the danger of ruining ‘the dialogue’ is clear if not yet present.…” President Mackay asked “what could happen” if the classical Roman Catholic view of religious freedom (and freedom in general) and of church-state relations “were to become dominant in the U.S.A. and if the state were to subsidize their schools and make them contributory to the triumph of that view … which assumes and proclaims the superiority and authority of one particular church over the state and society wherever the Roman church represents the dominant view?”

Roman Catholic participants in turn asked: what values should be taught by all educational enterprises?

Although discussion continued in a psychological and emotional atmosphere that “sounds cool and dry but feels volatile,” the issues waited for head-on debate until after the evening reception and buffet dinner. During the day, several priests had already indicated that the Roman church is re-examining its church-state position, and now values religious freedom in a way heretofore unrecognized. (Pope Leo XIII wrote: “Although in the extraordinary conditions of these times the Church usually acquiesces in certain modern liberties, not because she prefers them in themselves, but because she judges it expedient to permit them, she would in happier times exercise her own liberty.” In the encyclical of 1885, Leo XIII also said: “It is not lawful for the State to hold in equal favor different kinds of religion.”) President Mackay acknowledged that some Roman Catholic scholars repudiate this dominant view as an historical accident and not an essential expression of the inner logic of the church. Would Roman Catholicism in the U.S.A., he asked, repudiate the historic view and give an absolute guarantee of religious freedom?

This issue was prominent in the night meeting on Protestant-Catholic tensions, moderated by a humanist. Asked for an opening statement, Dr. Henry noted that the work of scholars like Father Weigel and Father Murray who are now seeking to adjust its application to meet the unique political situation in America is tacit admission of conflicting interests in the present Roman church-state formula. He said ten per cent of the Roman clergy and an even greater proportion of the laity in the United States are now said to favor the more liberal view. Paul Blanshard stated that the Vatican has in principle repudiated the view of the German Jesuit Gundlach (that the church-state thesis is not final but rather one of several possible theses). Catholic spokesmen admitted “there is a crisis in Catholic thought in this field … We do not know the main thrust for the future … But if Protestants push too hard, the answer may not be what we want.”

Catholic participants protested what “seemed” an uncharitable disposition to put them “on the spot”; to them the Protestant expression of “vague and unprecise fears” was “amusing” and due to “lack of Protestant comprehension.” Dr. Martin Marty of The Christian Century ascribed these fears to Protestantism’s quest for security in a day of shifting political balance and asked “what background explains this ‘nameless, faceless dread?’ ” Dr. Pfeffer noted Rome’s attempts “to utilize the coercive arm of the state.”

Catholic leaders said they were targets of two unreasonable demands: first, that they subscribe to the political notion (of Reinhold Niebuhr, whose participation during the week was precluded by illness) that religious freedom requires a theology of doubt; and second, that the Roman Catholic as a man becomes secular by divorcing himself from religious commitment in his social actions. In a summary statement ending the almost three-hour session Dr. Henry called these problems not the actually central issues (the early Americans whose consciences were informed by Scripture, he said, “were not representatives of a theology of doubt,” and theological commitment properly and even inevitably reflects itself in social attitudes and actions); rather, the main concern is the authority the Roman church assumes in the political order and its corollary authority over the conscience of its members in socio-political affairs. “The question is not one of affection and love for Roman Catholics—priests and laity—as individuals; it is a matter of concern over organization. The Roman church is a principled church, and its principles and their application are at stake.” He noted appreciatively the restatements by contemporary Catholic scholars of the traditional church-state thesis, but pointed out that “the determination of the hierarchy’s official doctrine does not lie with these scholars.”

Two days of the seminar’s larger dialogue remained. James O’Gara, editor of The Commonweal, voiced private anxiety lest excesses on both sides of the recent debate had opened wounds that now required time for healing. Most participants felt, however, that while sometimes intemperate, the exchange cleared some differences, and marked an advance over repressed feelings. But when the Rev. Walter Ong of St. Louis University framed his discussion of religion and society in personalistic rather than Thomistic categories, Professor James Luther Adams of Harvard Divinity School renewed the inquiry: Does Roman Catholicism grant the right of voluntary secular associations to be freely formed and to exist? Does it promote free personal relations? Does the nature of Catholic authority allow this in the structure of that church? Father McCluskey replied that Catholic conscience does not cease to be free when it is voluntarily informed by the authority of the church, and that nothing in the U. S. Constitution is repugnant to a Catholic commitment.

With Protestants obviously leading the thrust for democratic values, the Rev. Raymond T. Bosler of The Indiana Catholic and Record proposed that a half hour be allotted the last day in the general sessions for a recital of Catholic fears. (“In protecting the Protestant status quo, Protestantism in relation to its own principles seems to bend backwards in defending secularists … Protestants hold they can reverse themselves … and lack stable principles of morality …”) But the following day, when President Mackay urged that Roman Catholics be given a full opportunity for “an expression of concerns regarding Protestant attitudes and positions,” Father McCluskey of America disowned any anxieties or worries about “what Protestants will do to Catholics” and Father Bosler waved aside the opportunity (“I simply wanted to reflect some of the emotions we Catholics feel … so that for a second you were ‘on the spot’ ”). Norman St. John-Stevas of Yale University, nonetheless admonished fellow Catholics: “We must beware of being carried away by a tidal wave of metaphysical good will. Criticism of the Roman Catholic church bulks large … This gives the American Catholic a solemn warning that the image created in the American mind is that of a power structure rather than of the Church of Christ.” Last word in the debate fell to Theodore Powell of the Connecticut Department of Education, who spoke to the conscience of Protestant and Catholic alike:

“If Protestant dominance grows, what will the Protestants do to the Catholics?… They will use the force of law and other means of social organization to promote Protestantism, to give advantage to Protestants and to impose disadvantages on Catholics; they will attempt to make the public schools Protestant schools. They will seek laws to make Catholics adhere to Protestant views on gambling and alcohol, while objecting to Catholic insistence on maintaining laws against birth control. They will frown on and will not encourage … the growth of Catholic schools.

“These are not things that might happen. They are happening right now …

“Protestants have not welcomed with much enthusiam, Father Bosler, your Legion of Decency. But I suggest that you ask them to join Catholics in a Legion of Political Decency. A Legion to guard against improper—that is, political—means of proselytizing by religious bodies …

“A League that would insist that the religious mission is advanced most speedily, not by coercion of law, but by reasonable persuasion and spiritual appeal.

“A League that would insist that there are areas where the Church alone exercised authority and the State could neither forbid nor permit—in fact, areas where the State was not competent to act.

“Ask your Protestant brethren, Father Bosler, to agree that the command to go and teach all nations was given to the Apostles and not to Caesar’s legionnaires.

“In short, I urge you to seek general recognition that the Church (of any faith) is working against itself when it permits legal or quasi-legal agencies to take over part of the Church’s responsibilities …

“With such recognition, with such agreement, we could then place our faith in the free response of men’s hearts to the divine message.”

Dismissing the conference, President George N. Shuster of Hunter College acknowledged that the Fund for the Republic had sponsored the seminar “with great trepidation” lest it lead to “meaningless assent,” but the discussion of “religion in a free society” had proved “the most distinguished undertaking yet,” lifting its participants to “the verge of a new era of inter-group discussion.”

C.F.H.H.

Worth Quoting

“I am aghast as the Harwell Thinkometer, which by a system of buttons placed before each member of a group, permits group decisions without the embarrassment of discussion. You press a button, yes, no, or maybe; and the machine calculates the total reaction.

“I am aghast at the Dynamucator, which is alleged to be able to teach you through your pillow while you sleep. Without any intellectual effort, you may learn to be an aggressive salesman, or to speak Russian.

“I am even more terrified by the Dial-A-Prayer movement, by which a machine performs your devotions for you, and you do not have to make any personal exertion to get in touch with the Deity beyond giving Him a ring.”—Dr. Robert M. Hutchins on “Religion in a Free Society,” at a seminar sponsored by the Fund for the Republic.

Which Way Now?

Senate Commerce Committee hearings had hardly begun when the adverse odds became evident. At stake was a bill to ban interstate liquor advertising. Similar measures had died in committee during the last nine Congresses.

“Is the bill constitutional?” The question had already been raised, Committee Chairman Warren G. Magnuson observed in opening remarks. The Democratic Senator from Washington also noted quickly that several federal agencies were on record against the bill, namely the Departments of State and Commerce and the Postmaster General. The Department of Justice declined to comment on the merits of the bill, but pointed out that such a law might favor foreign liquor dealers over domestic interests. The Interstate Commerce Commission took no position other than recommending an exemption for common and contract carriers if the bill was to be favorably reported to the floor of the Senate. No endorsements came from any administrative government source; neither was there any comment from the White House.

The first morning’s testimony opened before 13 of the 15 members on the committee. Subsequent committee attendance never approached that figure, and at times only the chairman and one other member were present. Even the bill’s sponsor, Republican Senator William Langer of North Dakota, missed much of the testimony.

“I made extra efforts to have committee members here,” said Chairman Magnuson. “They don’t seem to be interested or something, I don’t know.”

Committee members found it difficult to attend primarily because afternoon hearings were held simultaneously with Senate sessions. The committee still gets a chance to study testimony, for all remarks are subsequently published in a comprehensive report.

The biggest obstacle for the bill was brought out pointedly in a sharp exchange between Senator Magnuson and Dr. Charles X. Hutchinson Jr., general superintendent of the International Reform Federation and president of the National Temperance and Prohibition Council:

HUTCHINSON: The bottling up of this legislation in this committee session after session raises up a question about the democratic process. Unfortunately, thousands of our citizens have blamed their senators because the liquor advertising bill has not been passed. It is difficult to explain that the bill has perished in committee and that their senators never have had a crack at it. I urge the committee, in the name of democracy, to report this bill at long last to the Senate—favorably or unfavorably. Then if the Senate as a whole is unwilling to do anything about this vicious liquor advertising business, the people will know it and will fasten the blame where it belongs. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the hearing you have given me, and urge this committee to report S. 582 to the Senate, favorably I hope, and facilitate its consideration by that distinguished body.

THE CHAIRMAN: Dr. Hutchinson, this committee is composed of 15 members. Any time eight of the fifteen want to report this bill, or any other bill, favorably or unfavorably, it will be reported.

HUTCHINSON: I recognize that, sir.

THE CHAIRMAN: We have taken votes in the committee on this bill on several occasions, and the votes have always been against reporting it, favorably or unfavorably, and that is the democratic process of the United States Senate.

HUTCHINSON: I recognize that, Senator. I did want to raise the point, and perhaps I did it in a little bold fashion.

THE CHAIRMAN: YOU know the processes of legislation.

HUTCHINSON: That is correct. But, sir, I did want the members of this committee to know that there is a feeling abroad in the minds of many people that the Senate as a whole has refused to pass on this measure when as a matter of fact they have never had the opportunity.

THE CHAIRMAN: It is up to the people who understand that to tell them otherwise. Many of the senators have received telegrams, and the word “bottled” is used in the telegrams, a little perversely in this case. This committee functions on all pieces of legislation. Any time eight members of this committee, a majority, want to bring up a bill or pass it out, the bill is passed out, favorably or unfavorably. I would suggest, maybe, that you find the eight members.

HUTCHINSON: Thank you, sir. That is what we are trying to do today.

THE CHAIRMAN: Are there any questions of Dr. Hutchinson?

There were none.

Proponents spent much of their time pleading the evils inherent in the use of alcohol. They appealed to the consciences of the legislators, and while such presentations may have carried some weight, the senators appeared more concerned over the bill’s legal ramifications.

“The problem is a legislative one,” said Magnuson who, at another point in the proceedings, had extra words of appreciation for a legal brief filed by Dr. Edward B. Dunford, legal adviser for the National Temperance League.

A number of witnesses called for legislation to prohibit all liquor advertising because it can be considered false and misleading. Magnuson commented that if this was the case, remedial authority was then in the hands of the Federal Trade Commission and the Alcohol Tax Unit of the Internal Revenue Service. He conceded, however, that there is precedent for congressional legislation in cases where administrative agencies fail to act even when given proper authority.

Langer’s bill would not ban liquor advertising per se. It would outlaw liquor advertising which crosses state borders. Liquor advertising in the mails and on the air would be prohibited. Though national magazines could no longer carry alcohol promotion, local carrier-delivered newspapers could.

Opponents of the bill charge that this would amount to discrimination, that the result would be a shift from national to local advertising, that interstate liquor businesses would be losing out while local interests flourished.

How good were the chances that the bill would get to the floor of the Senate? Liquor interests did not seem worried in an election year. Even temperance leaders did not seem too hopeful, but they did see the hearings themselves as a force for good. They were serving public notice on the alcoholic beverage industry that advertising needed to be restrained.

Among those who testified in favor of the bill were several congressmen, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, Dr. Daniel A. Poling, Dr. George W. Crane, and Dr. Sam Morris. Methodist Bishop Wilbur E. Hammaker introduced the proponents.

Placed on record against the bill were brewery officials, liquor group leaders, labor representatives, the publisher of the American Legion magazine, advertising legal advisers, and the National Association of Broadcasters.

Free Organs

Spinet model electric organs are being given away to 700 needy churches in Ohio by a retired 85-year-old Cleveland industrialist at a cost of about half a million dollars.

The organs which retail at $1,300 each are going to churches of more than a dozen denominations in the state’s 88 counties. Installation of the organs will be at the rate of 15 a week.

Philanthropist Claude Foster, the donor, first offered to give away about 500 organs on a first-come, first-served basis. But in four months he received about 1,200 appeals from Ohio churches and hundreds from out of state. Said he: “I only wish I had enough money to give an organ to everyone who asked.”

In 1957 Foster became ill and promised that if he recovered he would do something “in the Lord’s service.” The organ gifts are the fulfillment of that promise.

College Move

Furman University, the South’s oldest Baptist college, will move next fall to a new 1,200-acre campus five miles north of Greenville, South Carolina, in sight of the Blue Ridge mountains. The liberal arts institution, founded in 1826, will have expended some 8 million dollars on building and grounds by moving day and plans to spend $14,900,000 more for its complete program, providing accommodations for 2,500 students.

T. M.

Accc Meeting

At a semi-annual national meeting in South Carolina last month, the American Council of Christian Churches espoused the conservative South’s view of segregation and called on Protestants to oppose the election of a Roman Catholic president.

The council’s executive committee also adopted a resolution endorsing the continuance of all nuclear tests “necessary to the defense of the United States from foreign attack.”

An ACCC statement said segregation within the church on racial, linguistic and national lines is not unchristian.

Another of the group’s statements said, “There are, no doubt, some Roman Catholics who would place their country before the wishes of the Roman hierarchy,” but in view of Romanism’s “religio-politico” character and record in Spain and South America, all identified with her “must be considered suspect.”

The council’s stand on nuclear tests drew sharp attacks from radio stations in Communist Hungary. The stations especially criticized Dr. Carl McIntire, president.

Council meetings were held in Greenville and at the nearby campus of Bob Jones University. Dr. Bob Jones, founder of the university, has been closely associated with the ACCC, along with author John R. Rice.

There were some heart-warming periods of testimony and inspiration. Many of the delegates bore the marks of suffering for the Gospel’s sake; some expressed a longing for true revival.

T. M.

Evangelism Mission

Some 160 Missouri Synod Lutheran congregations in western Iowa will participate in an October evangelistic mission. Never before has there been such “all-out” mobilization of a segment of the denomination’s membership.

Forty-six per cent of western Iowans reportedly lack church affiliation. The Lutheran program seeks to make a thrust into this unevangelized area plus reaching delinquent church members.

In St. Louis this month, the Missouri Synod assigned 901 new full-time workers to teaching and preaching posts. The workers are graduates and undergraduates of the synod’s 14 North American education institutions.

The 202 ministerial candidates assigned to various congregations and mission stations included 156 graduates from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, and 46 graduates from Concordia Seminary in Springfield, Illinois. Because there were not enough graduates to go around, an additional 22 requests went unfulfilled. The synod reported 258 bona fide vacancies in its 5,857 congregations.

Canada

Church Progress

The cornerstone of the $1,750,000 national headquarters building of the United Church of Canada in Toronto was laid this month by the denomination’s first moderator, the Very Rev. George C. Pidgeon.

The church, meanwhile, reported that more than 700 men and women are studying in its colleges throughout the dominion, compared with 659 last year. This year’s figure represents an all-time high.

T. W. H.

Montreal Morality

An inter-faith committee will make moral cleanup recommendations to the Montreal city council.

Long known as one of the “wide-open” cities of North America, Montreal was openly rebuked last January by Cardinal Paul Emile Leger for allowing objectionable night club shows and obscene literature. Growing sentiment prompted the cardinal to bring together a number of Protestant and Jewish leaders who joined in setting forth a manifesto “deploring the moral and spiritual conditions” of the city.

City fathers responded by ordering police to enforce rigidly both municipal and provincial laws governing closing hours, liquor permits and types of shows. Some entertainment activities were curtailed.

Finally, a committee of Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Jews was appointed to investigate local cabaret shows and obscene literature.

W. S. R.

Europe

Seal Of Disapproval

A matter of principle placed a brick wall between the Rev. Umberto Righetti and his congregation in Fondi, Italy.

Pastor Righetti had rented two rooms in an ancient castle for a church. The only entrance led through the apartment of Mrs. Gemma Rasile, a Roman Catholic who soon decided she objected to continuing intrusion. A court ruling gave Mrs. Rasile permission to have the only door leading to the church apartment walled in, and the pastor tried to have a new doorway cut, but the Italian General Superintendent for Fine Arts denied a permit on the grounds that the door would “ruin the palace.”

This month the showdown came. As bricklayers arrived, the pastor declared he would not abandon the premises as a “matter of principle.” Sealed in his church apartment, Righetti conducted his next service through the window to an outdoor congregation. Parishioners supplied food with the help of a 20-foot rope and a bucket. He said he was confident that “sooner or later” the door would be reopened.

Righetti’s predication came true. Three days later Mrs. Rasile relented and a doorway was hacked open by a mason.

“It was the only reasonable way to put an end to all this fuss,” she said.

Native’S Return

Evangelist William P. Nicholson’s return to his native Ireland recalled memories of a remarkable movement of the Spirit of God in the early twenties. The 82-year-old Nicholson has been living in Glendale, California. He returned to Northern Ireland for a series of evangelistic missions during the summer and autumn.

In a television interview, evangelist Nicholson referred to some of the missions held in Belfast in the early twenties when conversions led to large scale restitution. He received a letter from a firm which could not find adequate room to store stolen tools being returned.

Nicholson was ordained by the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. in 1914.

S. W. M.

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