Southern Presbyterians Challenge NCC Study

NEWS

CHRISTIANITY TODAY

North America

Citizens of Atlanta, it is said, look upon General Sherman as a fellow who was rather careless with fire. There were indications in the Georgia capital April 23–28 of a feeling on the part of the National Council of Churches that its Fifth World Order Study Conference in Cleveland had been playing with fire. The occasion was the 99th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (Southern), and the Cleveland conference’s pronouncements favoring U.S. recognition and U.N. admission of Red China in general overshadowed all other issues in producing the longest and most vigorous debate of the annual meeting in Druid Hills Presbyterian Church.

Chief firefighter on the scene was Dr. R. H. Edwin Espy, associate general secretary, National Council of Churches, who in committee session and before the assembly (as a fraternal delegate) emphasized the manifold services of the NCC apart from the study conferences it calls from time to time and which, by their nature, it cannot control. But his efforts were unavailing in face of opposing overtures from 11 presbyteries. A majority report of the Standing Committee on Interchurch Relations called upon the assembly to “register its disapproval” to the NCC for the action taken by the Cleveland conference on Red China. This the assembly did, the measure passing by a large majority after reports were heard concerning some repercussions of the Cleveland pronouncements in the Far East: divisiveness within the Southern Presbyterian church in that area and Roman Catholic pretensions in Formosa of being the only effective bulwark against communism. The majority report was amended to embrace a minority report which had “reaffirmed” the right of conferences of Christians to give “consideration to moral and spiritual problems inherent in world relations,” and at the same time expressed unequivocal opposition to “the atheistic dictatorship and other evils of communism, whether in recognized Soviet Russia or in unrecognized Red China.”

But this did not end the matter. A second minority report was presented, this one scoring NCC leaders for socialism and opposition to U.S. defense programs through the years, and voicing distaste for NCC political lobbying. “History … warns that, if the church presumes to dictate to the state, soon the state will control the church.” Five overtures had come to the assembly requesting withdrawal of the church from the NCC. This report asked that these overtures be answered by the assembly’s requesting each presbytery to “express its desire as to continued membership” in the NCC in order to give guidance to the 1960 General Assembly for proper action. (In 1931 the church pulled out of the Federal Council of Churches but returned in 1941.) After lengthy debate, the assembly rejected the minority report 341–116, and then approved the majority report which answered the five overtures in the negative.

At the assembly’s opening session, retiring Moderator Philip F. Howerton, a layman, distinguished himself with an address on the historic influence of the Reformed faith upon American political philosophy and upon citizens, emphasizing that the reformation of society can come “in no other way” than through reformation of individuals. As to the present, he challenged the more than 500 commissioners (evenly divided between ruling and teaching elders) with the fact that 1167 churches for an entire year have been unable to report a single profession of faith. And the report of the Board of World Missions spoke ominously of a continuous decline in proportionate giving for benevolent causes to the present “critical” point where the church’s past great emphasis upon world missions is in danger of becoming secondary in the denominational program.

On the other hand, the 872,000-member church, planning an emphasis on evangelism as part of its 1961 centennial observance, was able to report the organizing of some 60 churches per year in its territory of 16 states and the District of Columbia. And the assembly served notice that it had set no geographical boundaries for the church’s work, these being limited only by the ability of the synods and presbyteries, and urged these to extend their work to any “contiguous unchurched areas.”

Presiding over sessions of lively debate with a gifted impartiality was the newly-elected moderator, Dr. Ernest Trice Thompson, since 1925 professor of church history at Union Theological Seminary, Southern Presbyterian institution in Richmond, Virginia. The assembly paid special tribute to its stated clerk, Dr. Eugene C. Scott, retiring in June after 23 years in that office. His successor, Dr. James A. Millard, now professor at Texas’ Austin Theological Seminary, was elected last year.

The problem of divorce and remarriage faced the assembly this year as last. The 1958 assembly had voted to revise the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Book of Church Order to allow for remarriage of divorced persons when a pastor is convinced that there is repentance for earlier failure and determination to build a new marriage upon Christian foundations. Remarriage of divorced persons has previously been permitted only for the innocent parties in cases of infidelity or willful and irremediable desertion.

To the surprise of many, the individual presbyteries over the past year voted 69–13 to approve the revision. To be finally enacted as church law, it needed only the approval of this year’s assembly, which it got despite notable opposition.

The Rev. Robert Strong of Augusta, Georgia, eloquent in defeat, moved the appointment of a committee to restudy and rework the revision, charging ambiguity of statement and lack of adequate consideration of certain relevant Scriptures. It was not worthy, he said, of inclusion in the “marvelous piece of Bible study” which is the Westminster Confession.

In rejoinder, the Rev. E. L. Stoffel of Charlotte, North Carolina, saluted the revision as “containing the forgiving spirit of Christ” and being a great element in “evangelism and reclamation.” He suggested that the Southern Presbyterians were thus raising the Standard “much, much higher” than the level set by the Westminster divines on this matter.

The possibility of further revision of the Confession was requested by the Presbytery of Charlotte in relation to the subject of double predestination. The overture called for appointment of a committee to study the matter, and this was approved.

Another overture called for assembly reaffirmation of the church’s adherence to its doctrinal standards. This was prompted by critical statements on the floor of the 98th assembly, the extent of which some declared to be unprecedented. However, reaffirmation was declared superfluous.

But two other overtures asked appointment of a committee to prepare a “contemporary statement of faith,” with relegation of the Westminster Confession to the role of “historic statement.” These were answered in the negative.

But it would seem that dissatisfaction with the church Standards in some presbyteries extends beyond questions of divorce and double predestination. For a big jump is involved in moving from attempted revision of certain points in the Confession to a desire for a new statement of faith. Even the mightiest leap is unable to span a non sequitur.

F.F.

Anglican Communion

Number 2 Episcopalian

Delegates to last summer’s Lambeth Conference agreed on a bold, new bid for more centralized authority among the world’s 40,000,000 Anglicans. As made public last month, the bid provides for appointment of an “executive officer” for the global Anglican communion. The position is to be filled by appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Geoffrey Francis Fisher. Fisher’s first choice: The Right Rev. Stephen F. Bayne Jr., bishop of Olympia diocese in Washington.

Bayne will thus become the second most influential Anglican figure, according to church spokesmen. Anglicans have no international hierarchy. Fisher is respected as Anglicanism’s top spiritual leader, but he has no formal power outside the Church of England.

Lambeth delegates, it is now evident, felt that church ties across national borders need to be strengthened.

“The bishops came to a united mind,” Bayne says, “that unless our Anglican communion learned how to work together far more closely than we now do—work together, think together, plan together—we must increasingly fall short of the vocation with which we are called.”

Bayne added that if the Anglican communion “is to bring to the world the witness to Christ and his truth with which we are entrusted, we need far more than a meeting every ten years.”

“We need to learn to act together more and more as a world church rather than merely as a group of national churches of the same tradition,” he said.

The Lambeth Conference, a decennial meeting of the world’s top Anglican churchmen, cited especially the need of more coordination in missionary strategy.

Bayne’s specific tasks in his new post will include administration of the Advisory Council of Missionary Strategy, which serves as the central planning group for world-wide Anglican missionary work, and the Consultative Body of the Lambeth Conference, the organization behind the decennial meetings.

Presiding Bishop Arthur Lichtenberger of the Protestant Episcopal Church (U. S. arm of Anglicanism) said Bayne will also serve as head of the Convocation of American Episcopal Churches in Europe. In that office he will be bishop-in-charge of 11 Episcopal congregations in France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. In addition, Bayne will retain membership in the National Council of the Protestant Episcopal Church and his chairmanship of the council’s Christian Education Department.

Bayne, a native of New York City, will be 51 May 21. He holds a bachelor of arts degree from Amherst College and bachelor and master of sacred theology degrees from General Theological Seminary. He was rector of Trinity Church in St. Louis from 1934 until 1939, then went to St. John’s Church at Northampton, Massachusetts. After that he served as chaplain of Columbia University for four years and two years as a naval chaplain. He became bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia, Washington, in 1947.

Bayne will resign from the Olympia diocese as of December 31 and will move with his family to London, headquarters of the new post. He will assume his new duties early in 1960.

Roman Catholicism

Warning From The Vatican

The Vatican hierarchy is warning Catholics that they may not vote in elections for Communist fellow-travellers.

Vatican Radio said the decision was drawn up by the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office on March 25 and approved by Pope John on April 2 during an audience granted to Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, pro-secretary of the congregation, which is Roman Catholicism’s supreme tribunal in matters of faith and morals.

“In the choice of the people’s representatives,” the ruling said, “it is illicit for Catholics to vote for parties or candidates who in actual fact join the Communists and favor them with their action, although they themselves do not profess principles in contrast with Catholic doctrine and even describe themselves as Christians.”

The Vatican station said the decision of the Holy Office was taken on the basis of a previous decree of July 1, 1949, which replied to the question: “Is it lawful (for Catholics) to become members of Communist parties or to support them?”

“The most eminent and revered fathers,” the station said, “have decreed that the answer should be in the negative. Communism, in fact, is materialistic and anti-Christian. The leaders of communism sometimes declare that they do not fight religion, but in fact and theory and by action they show themselves to be hostile to the true religion and to the church of Christ.”

Vatican Radio said the latest decree is a move to block votes for “collaborators” of the Communists who, “while outwardly pretending to be everything but Communists, secretly and in many ways support them in election campaigns.”

Violation of the decree will be considered a sin, but there have been no threats of excommunication.

Time magazine called the situation that brought on the decree “essentially a local one.”

“In Sicily,” the magazine said, “an aggressive, spectacled politico named Silvio Malazzo had broken away from the mainland Christian Democrats to lead an alliance of Christian Democrats, Communists, Socialists and Fascists. He is facing his first electoral test in June, and Sicily’s Ernest Cardinal Ruffini had asked the Vatican for ammunition.”

Subsequently in Rome, the Italian Communist party tabled for debate in the Chamber of Deputies a question which challenged the new warning from the Vatican.

The party demanded to know whether the prime minister will take steps to “guarantee electoral freedom” and whether he does not “deem it his duty to protest to the State of Vatican City in the face of this fresh interference in the internal life of the Italian state designed to strike at the constitutional and democratic basis of the republic.”

Anniversary Events

Reformation In Retrospect

From Geneva to Grand Rapids, programs are being planned in memory of reformer John Calvin. This year marks the 450th anniversary of his birth and the 400th anniversary of the final edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion.

At Grand Rapids, Michigan, the Calvinistic Action Committee, affiliated with the International Association of Reformed Faith and Action, is sponsoring a “Calvin Memorial Conference,” to be held June 3–4. Speakers include Dr. Gwyn Walters, noted lecturer from Wales; the Rev. Harold Dekker, professor of missions at Calvin Seminary; and the Rev. J. Marcellus Kik, associate editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

In Geneva, Switzerland, a commemorative “Festival of Sound and Light” will be staged nightly, weather permitting, throughout the summer, beginning May 31. A local committee is planning the program, to be staged in front of the Reformation Monument, a wall set off by statues of Farel, Calvin, Knox, Beza, and other historical figures of the Reformed faith in Europe.

The figures on the wall will be cast into relief by lights. Recorded voices, accompanied by background music, will tell the story of the Reformation in retrospect. In deference to tourists, the program will be aired in several languages.

Other events planned by the Geneva committee, which is working with the World Presbyterian Alliance, include a Sunday morning rally at the Reformation Monument and the Swiss premiere of a new film on the Reformation by French director Roger Leenhardt.

Scofield’S Golden Year

A handsome booklet is being distributed by Oxford University Press to mark the 50th anniversary of the widely-known Scofield Reference Bible. Author of the booklet is Dr. Frank E. Gaebelein, headmaster of Stony Brook School, Long Island, whose father, Dr. Arno C. Gaebelein, was a consulting editor for the publication of the Scofield Bible in 1909.

Cyrus Ingerson Scofield was born in Michigan in 1843. In his early years his family moved to Tennessee. After a stint in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, Scofield took up law. He was converted in St. Louis in 1879 and three years later became pastor of the First Congregational Church of Dallas. Later he became pastor of a Congregational church in Massachusetts and president of the Northfield Bible Training School, but returned to Dallas in 1902. He retired a year later to devote his time to prepare the reference Bible.

The Scofield Bible sold steadily. In 1930 it became the first publication of Oxford University Press, New York, to pass the million mark and it has continued to be a best-selling Bible ever since.

Since 1954, a committee of nine Bible scholars headed by Dr. E. Schuyler English has been at work on a new edition. Publication is scheduled for 1963.

People: Words And Events

Death: Dr. Louis W. Pitt, rector of Grace Episcopal Church in New York and chairman of evangelism for the Protestant Council of the City of New York.

Elections: As Bishop of the Lutheran Church of Iceland, Dr. Sigurbjorn Einarsson … as chairman of the General Commission on Chaplains, Episcopal Bishop Henry I. Louttit … as first executive secretary of the Committee on Television, Radio and Audio-Visuals of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S., Dr. Ernest J. Arnold … as president of the New York City Mission Society, Jesse H. Blair.

Appointments: As associate professor of biblical theology at California Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. David Wallace … as deputy executive director of Church World Service, Dr. A. Russell Stevenson … as chairman of the music department at Philadelphia College of Bible, Alfred E. Lunde … as a secretary of the International Missionary Council, the Rev. Victor E. W. Hayward … as director of the Presbyterian National Missions Homes, Inc., Dr. Roy E. Mueller.

Nomination: For the presidency of North Park College and Theological Seminary, Dr. Karl A. Olsson.

Resignation: As director of ministerial recruitment for the Methodist Church, Dr. Harold T. Porter.

Award: To Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam, the Upper Room Citation for 1959.

‘Minimum Representation’

Eastern Orthodox Churches would accept an invitation to the Ecumenical Council summoned by Pope John XXIII only if the rest of the Christian world is invited to send representatives, Patriarch Athenagoras of Istanbul declared last month.

The supreme leader of some 150 million Eastern Orthodox throughout the world said the “minimum representation of the other Churches would be their collective representation through the World Council of Churches.”

Patriarch Athenagoras’ pronouncement was disclosed at the annual meeting of the U. S. Conference for the World Council of Churches by Archbishop Iakovos, the former Metropolitan James who is now head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America.

Earlier in his address, the archbishop told the conference that “it should always be remembered in all ecumenical circles that there are no churches, but one.”

He urged that the ecumenical movement “be brought down from the level of the ecumenists to the level of the people, from the complex terminology used by theologians to the language understood by the faithful.”

Several weeks before the WCC’s U. S. Conference meeting, held in Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania, Archbishop Iakovos became the first Greek Orthodox archbishop to have an audience with the Roman Catholic pope in 350 years.

Ecumenical Concern

A top ecumenical figure was expected to be on hand May 11 in Geneva for the foreign ministers conference.

Dr. O. Frederick Nolde said he would represent the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, a joint agency of the World Council of Churches and the International Missionary Council.

Nolde said his presence would be designed “to symbolize the concern of the churches and to offer to the principal participants—in person or by letter—the encouragement which can be provided by this expression of concern.”

Call For Evangelism

From Miami Beach last month came a Methodist plea, addressed to the World Council of Churches, for a “World Congress on Evangelism.”

At an annual meeting of the Methodist Church’s Board of Evangelism, General Secretary Harry Denman urged the WCC to call such an “evangelism congress” as a means of “stirring the several denominations to launch a world evangelistic movement.”

Denman also reaffirmed an earlier plea that Methodists themselves undertake a “Decade of Dynamic Discipleship for Evangelism.”

“If we are to be an evangelistic church,” he said, “our percentage of increase must not merely keep pace with that of population; it must be larger.”

Bishops In Washington

Fifty-one Methodist bishops spent four active days in Washington last month. They (1) conferred with top politicians, (2) broke ground for an eight-million-dollar hospital and nursing school, and (3) dedicated a 750 thousand dollar chapel-administration building at Wesley Theological Seminary.

At semi-annual business sessions, the Council of Bishops of the Methodist Church installed Bishop Marvin A. Franklin as new president, succeeding Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam. Bishop Gerald Kennedy was elected president-designate. Franklin is from Jackson, Mississippi, Kennedy from Los Angeles.

Kennedy’s selection means he will preside at the opening of the next quadrennial General Conference of the Methodist Church in Danver next year.

While in Washington, the Methodist bishops arranged separate sessions with such notables as President Eisenhower, Chief Justice Earl Warren, Vice President Richard Nixon, several cabinet members, and Senators John F. Kennedy, Hubert H. Humphrey, and Lyndon Johnson. The bishops were said to have discussed “public questions” with the government leaders, but details were not disclosed.

Bishop Herbert Welch, at 96 the senior Methodist bishop, spoke at the campus dedication. All the bishops were taken on a tour of the new seminary grounds, located adjacent to American University in Northwest Washington. Both schools are Methodist-affiliated. The seminary had been located at Westminster, Maryland, until last September.

A groundbreaking ritual written by Oxnam, now recuperated from injuries suffered in a Christmas traffic accident, was employed at the site of the seven-story, 350-bed Sibley Memorial Hospital, related to the Woman’s Division of the Methodist Board of Missions. Its school of nursing will be affiliated with American University. Site is near the Potomac River in Northwest Washington. The hospital until now has been located in downtown Washington.

A Year’S Respite

Princeton Theological Seminary narrowly escaped public censure from the American Association of University Professors last month. At an annual meeting in Pittsburgh, the AAUP voted to withhold censure of Princeton for a year despite a committee’s charge that the seminary “was clearly unjustified” in terminating the appointment of Professor Daniel Theron in 1957.

“No formal charge appropriate to the termination of a tenure appointment was brought against him,” the committee said. “The administration of the Princeton Theological Seminary is therefore censurable. However, under an incoming president there is an expectation of substantial changes in faculty-administration relations. [The committee] consequently recommends … that censure be withheld for a year to allow opportunity for (1) the adoption of an acceptable tenure system, (2) evidence of acceptable faculty participation in the formulation and operation of such a system, and (3) an offer of reinstatement to Professor Theron.”

Delegates to the AAUP meeting at the same time voted to censure Fisk University and New York University for actions related to faculty dismissals.

The AAUP action regarding Princeton bore similarity to a report brought by the American Association of Theological Schools against Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville. The AAUP and the AATS are not related.

AATS findings against the Louisville seminary likewise brought a year of virtual probation during which the Baptist school is expected to “repair the damage” caused by dismissal of 13 professors. The AATS questioned the “character of administrative procedures” which led to the dismissals, and still threatens to drop the seminary from its list of accredited schools, even though the dismissals have been rescinded and the professors asked to resign instead.

Although both the AATS and the AAUP have raised similar issues, the two groups have not shared each other’s concerns. An AAUP spokesman said there is no record of any investigation of the Louisville dismissals. The AATS, in turn, has never publicly expressed any anxieties about the Princeton dispute.

Unanimous Endorsement

Dr. Clyde P. St. Amant will become dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, June 1. The school has been without a permanent dean for several years. St. Amant has been professor of church history at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, having served at the school since 1943. He holds a doctorate from New College, Edinburgh.

Selection of St. Amant received the unanimous endorsement of the present seminary faculty, a spokesman said.

Announcement of the appointment came from seminary President Duke K. McCall, himself the recipient of a new distinction this month. On May 31, McCall will preach the baccalaureate sermon to the first graduating class of the new Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, Colorado. President Eisenhower was expected to deliver the commencement address.

Continent Of Australia

On To Adelaide

With the scheduled windup this week of a record-breaking, month-long evangelistic series in Sydney, Billy Graham and his team prepared to begin shorter campaigns in other Australian cities.

Response in Sydney appeared to have shattered all precedent for a Graham crusade—in attendance per service, decisions, and church support. Historians could rank the Sydney meetings with the greatest of evangelical impacts.

A crusade in Adelaide was scheduled to begin May 13. Associate evangelist Joseph Blinco was to conduct the crusade for the first 11 days, with Graham addressing the three final meetings on May 24, 25 and 26.

In Perth, meetings were to start on May 15 with associate evangelist Grady Wilson speaking at the first six meetings and Graham addressing the two final rallies on May 21 and 22.

The schedules represent an adjustment of the original Australian crusade timetable. Changes were made after consultations with crusade committees.

Associate evangelist Leighton Ford will initiate the crusade in Brisbane May 17. Graham will conclude the series there May 29, 30 and 31.

In Melbourne, where the opening series of the Australian campaign is still having positive effects, Dr. James Stewart, professor of New Testament at New College, Edinburgh, arrived from Scotland to take up a 16-week guest appointment at Scots Church. Stewart was quoted as saying that Scotland was feeling even yet the impact of the crusade there four years ago. The professor was reported to have said that Graham’s message is based upon “a fairly profound theology of the Christian faith.”

Protestant Panorama

• For the 1958–59 term, the U. S. Office of Education estimates an enrollment of 5,695,000 pupils in elementary and secondary grades of non-public schools. Nearly 90 per cent of these attend 11,170 Roman Catholic elementary and secondary schools. Missouri Synod Lutherans lead Protestants in the number of such schools with 1,188. Seventh-day Adventists are second with 1,115 and Episcopalians are third with 232.

• American Baptist missions officials announced last month that two Congolese nationals have become the first officially ordained pastors in the history of the denomination’s work in the Belgian Congo.

• Religious groups in many countries paid tribute last month to George Frederick Handel, one of the greatest of all composers who was noted for his religious works. The occasion was the 200th anniversary of his death.

• Hartwick College, located in Oneonta, New York, and related to the United Lutheran Church in America, is recipient of a bequest of $1,700,000 from the estate of the late Miss Marion Yager, former resident of Oneonta who died in Italy last February … Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia is designated to receive $473,000 from the estate of a Rochester, New York, woman who died last year.

• Hawaii’s first congregation of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. was organized last month at a service attended by some 400.

• A Roman Catholic archbishop’s edict prompted sponsors of the “Miss New Mexico” beauty pageant to cancel their public swim suit competition. Archbishop Edwin V. Byrne of Santa Fe ruled that no Catholic girls could enter beauty contests involving bathing suit competition.

• A Religious News Service comparison of government statistics shows that Americans spend about 15 per cent more for tobacco products than they give for religious and charitable purposes. Latest annual figures show: for tobacco products, $4,262,000,000; for charity (including all religious giving) $3,746,000,000.

• Upland (California) College announced last month that it has been accredited by the Western College Association.

• An agency of the United Church of Canada says 166 new church buildings will be needed in the next four years.

• A new four-year program leading to a bachelor of arts degree will replace bachelor of theology and religious education programs in the undergraduate division of Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, Chicago, beginning in the fall.

• Wheaton College will build a new chapel costing some $1,500,000. Officials hope the chapel will be completed in time for the June, 1960, centennial commencement.

• The Council of the Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia is suspending all youth conferences at its “Hemlock Haven” summer camp grounds for a year. Clergy and lay elements have failed to reach agreement on whether to integrate the youth camp.

• A 45-church Mennonite organization which dates back more than 100 years will henceforth be known as the Bible Fellowship Church. Its congregations are located in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

• Fresh fish from the Sea of Galilee were flown to Chicago to grace the menu at last month’s “National Church Design and Building Conference.”

• Miss Lillian Hamer, 47-year-old British worker for the China Inland Mission, was reported shot and killed, apparently by bandits, in Thailand’s northern Chiengmai province.

• The British and Foreign Bible Society is distributing a new translation of the four Gospels in colloquial Russian. A group of Russian scholars associated with the Orthodox Institute of St. Sergius in Paris had worked eight years on the project.

Far East

Anglicans In Japan

A public rally attended by more than 4,000 highlighted initial centenary observances of Japanese Anglicanism this month. (For other anniversaries, see page 36.)

A host of Episcopalian dignitaries from all parts of the world were on hand for the rally, held in a Tokyo gym. The three-day opening ceremonies of the year-long commemoration included a communion service held in conjunction with the 26th General Synod of the Anglican church in Japan.

Ceremonies to mark the 100th anniversary of Protestantism in Japan will be held in the fall.

The Nippon Seikokai (Japan Holy Catholic Church), as the Anglican organization there is called, has 10 dioceses, 33 educational institutions, and five hospitals. The Rev. Michael Hinsuke Yashiro is presiding bishop.

Dr. Geoffrey Francis Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, used the occasion to call for “an unparalleled conquest” over sexual habits so that families will not have more children than they can bring up decently and without making “undue demands” on society.

Also present were Dr. Arthur C. Lichtenberger, presiding bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, Archbishop Reginald Charles Halse of Brisbane, Australia, and Dr. Ivor Norris, bishop of Brandon, Manitoba, Canada.

The Anglican church in Japan was founded by two American missionaries, the Rev. Channing Moore Williams and John Liggins, in May of 1859.

Continent Of Africa

Christ And Islam

Eighty-three churchmen from 21 countries assembled at Asmara, Ethiopia, last month to pool ideas on what should be the Christian approach to Islam. Delegates came from many parts of Africa and the Near East and from as far as Indonesia and the Philippines.

Study groups considered “methods and implications of the experience of conversion,” “the church’s follow-up of conversion,” “the bearing of modern tendencies and developments in Islam today,” “religious experience in Islam and its relation to the Christian faith,” and “the relation of the churches of the Middle East to Islam.” Functional groups discussed other aspects of the missionary enterprise and Dr. Kenneth Cragg of St. George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem led a Bible study.

The conference was sponsored by the Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations of the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. and 13 other national church bodies with predominant Presbyterian representation.

Outcome of the assembly was a 10-point “message” to sponsoring churches and “all our brothers in Christ.”

“We call upon all the Christian churches in the Middle East to play a full part in national self-fulfillment,” the statement said, “and upon their members to share wholeheartedly in that disciplined citizenship which is the expression of true love of one’s nation.

“… We believe that the Christian church can and should play a prophetic role in the Middle East today, that Christian ideals of the dignity of man and of justice, and Christian programs of social welfare are vital to Middle East governments as they battle with the problems of poverty, disease, ignorance, and human greed.”

An appendix to the “message” called for high, modern educational standards in Christian schools operated by local churches and for promotion of Bible teaching wherever possible. The appendix stressed a need for renewed programs of “evangelism and church nurture,” for more competent Christian leadership among both laymen and clergymen, and for better literature and more student centers.

Frontier Facilities

A printing plant which can turn out 30,000,000 pages of Christian literature annually was dedicated at Lagos, Nigeria, last month.

The new building will house the printing and publishing facilities of the Niger-Challenge Press, operated by the Sudan Interior Mission.

Three hundred guests representing Protestant churches throughout West Africa attended the dedication. Congratulatory messages were received from a number of African government officials.

The Niger-Challenge Press is a merger of the eight-year-old African Challenge organization and the 49-year-old Niger Press. Its new staff numbers 38 Africans.

The African Challenge is an evangelical monthly with a popular appeal sold at hundreds of newsstands over the Dark Continent.

Guest speaker at the ceremonies was Sir Francis Akanu Ibiam, council chairman of Nigeria’s University College.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.