Global Survey: Thanksgiving in a Needy World

This year’s Thanksgiving season finds an estimated 20 million people hungry. Not since World War II has there been so much suffering in the world.

Storms, floods, droughts and earthquakes have taken a staggering toll. Political crises have added to the misery. In Hong Kong alone there are said to be some 1,000,000 refugees. An estimated 5,568,000 have fled Communist countries of eastern Europe since World War II.

In contrast, the U. S. horn of plenty was running over, despite more than 3,000,000 unemployed (strikers excluded). A record crop of 82 million turkeys is bringing farmers more than 320 million dollars during 1959.

As a representative national gesture of gratitude, and to perpetuate a tradition far older than the country itself, President Eisenhower issued the annual Thanksgiving proclamation. The first such proclamation to set aside the last Thursday of November was issued in 1863, one of the darkest years in U. S. history. Actual observance of a day of thanks dates back to an order handed down by Governor Bradford of Plymouth colony in 1621 and affirmed by George Washington in 1789.

“The time of harvest turns our thoughts once again to our national festival of Thanksgiving,” began the President’s proclamation for 1959, “and the bounties of nature remind us again of our dependence upon the generous hand of Providence.”

Here is the remainder of the proclamation:

“In this sesquicentennial year of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, it is fitting and proper that we should use his words contained in the historic proclamation of 1863, establishing this annual observance, to express anew our gratitude for America’s ‘fruitful fields,’ for our national ‘strength and vigor,’ and for all our ‘singular deliverances and blessings.’

“The present year has been one of progress and heightened promise for the way of life to which we, the people, and the Government of the United States of America, are dedicated. We rejoice in the productivity of farm and factory, but even more so in the prospect of improvement of relations among men and among nations. We earnestly hope that forbearance, understanding, and conciliation will hold increasing sway among us and among all peoples everywhere.

“In the enjoyment of our good life, let us not forget the birthright by which we reap the fruits of life and labor in this fair land. Let us stand fast by the principles of our republic enunciated in word and deed by the statesmen, teachers, and prophets to whom we owe our beginnings. Let us be thankful that we have been spared the consequences of human frailty and error in our exercise of power and freedom. As a token of our gratitude for God’s gracious gift of abundance, let us share generously with those less fortunate than we at home and abroad. Let us at this season of Thanksgiving perform deeds of thanksgiving; and, throughout the year, let us fulfill those obligations of citizenship and humanity which spring from grateful hearts.

“Now, therefore, I, Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States of America, in consonance with the joint resolution of the Congress approved December 26, 1941 … designating the fourth Thursday of November in each year as Thanksgiving Day, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 26, 1959, as a day of national thanksgiving. On that day let us gather in sanctuaries dedicated to worship and in homes devoted to family sharing and community service, to express our gratitude for the inestimable blessings of God; and let us earnestly pray that He continue to guide and sustain us in the great unfinished task of achieving peace among men and nations.”

Eisenhower normally sets the example for the nation by attending a church service Thanksgiving morning.

Across the land, many churches scheduled Thanksgiving services and ministers sought to rouse a greater sense of appreciation for the U. S. abundance. Christians will be asked to search their attitudes: Are these attitudes mere pious sentiment? To what extent do they epitomize the high ideals expressed in the President’s proclamation?

The phrase, “We have a lot to be thankful for,” has deteriorated into a cliché in America, but clergy the country over will resort to its key premise in contrasting their parishoners’ prosperity with sobering deprivations in other lands.

CHRISTIANITY TODAYpinpointed areas of need in a global survey, which revealed that these were among the hardest hit in recent months (casualties represent authoritative estimates):

MEXICO: As many as 2,000 were feared dead in floods and storms which swept Pacific coast states last month. Ten communities were wiped out. In one village, survivors were attacked by swarms of scorpions and tarantulas whose nests had been unearthed by a landslide.

JAPAN: Typhoon Vera left 1,500,000 homeless. Some 100,000 homes were destroyed, 5,000 persons killed, and another 15,000 injured. There was an alarming spread of disease.

KOREA: Typhoon Sarah drove 625,000 from their homes.

INDIA: Floods caused some 5,000,000 to flee their homes.

FORMOSA: Three days of rain and the resultant flooding, effects of Typhoon Ellen, left 240,000 homeless. The government instituted food rationing to meet the emergency.

PAKISTAN: Approximately 5,000 square miles were inundated as floods, an annual occurrence in Pakistan, came early this year.

CEYLON: With the assassination of Premier S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, the country’s Buddhists were asking crucial questions about their religious leaders. Widespread public revulsion is reported as corruption in the Buddhist clergy becomes more apparent. The premier was shot by a bona fide Buddhist clergyman even as he was in the very act of bowing to the saffron-robed visitor.

MADAGASCAR: A cyclone, perhaps the worst natural disaster ever to hit the country, left 3,000 dead.

NORTH AFRICA: Civil strife has prompted an estimated 120,000 Algerians to flee to Tunisia, another 200,000 to Morocco, and more than 1,000,000 have been displaced from their homes in Algeria.

GREECE: A series of earthquakes left 90 villages destroyed.

JORDAN: The country’s worst drought, which ended last year, was followed by violent snowstorms. About one-half of all grazing animals perished.

SCANDINAVIA: A summer drought left severe water shortages in a number of communities. Crops were affected.

POLAND: Droughts brought on a shortage of feed grains and a meat shortage was feared.

HAITI: A famine precipitated by prolonged droughts, particularly in the northwest part of the island, threatens to take the lives of thousands.

CUBA: Fighting in Oriente province left 52,000 in need of food, clothing, and shelter. At least 200 were executed after trials by the Castro government.

URUGUAY: Floods last spring drove 50,000 from their homes.

BRAZIL: Widespread flooding deprived some 60,000 of their homes. Destruction of property resulted in a wave of unemployment.

COLOMBIA: This country, scene of much Protestant persecution, is also plagued by internal strife and banditry. Within the last 10 years, 100,000 are said to have been killed in bandit raids.

To alleviate suffering caused by the recent “constellation of disasters” (so characterized by Executive Director R. Norris Wilson of Church World Service), Protestant relief organizations are stepping up campaigns for funds, food and clothing.

In launching a Thanksgiving season drive in behalf of the “Share Our Surplus” program, Wilson said $865,210 was needed immediately to offset depleted stocks of relief materials.

An equally urgent appeal came from Wendell L. Rockey, executive director of the National Association of Evangelicals’ World Relief Commission.Church World Service, a National Council of Churches agency, uses local churches as pickup points. The NAE World Relief Commission has headquarters at 12–19 Jackson Ave., Long Island City, New York. Relief materials can also be sent in care of the World Relief Commission to Brethren Service Centers at Nappanee, lndiana, or 919 Emerald Ave., Modesto, California. Rockey cited the need for large amounts of “clean, wearable clothing.”

People: Words And Events

Deaths:Dr. Walter Freytag, 60, vice chairman of the International Missionary Council, in Hamburg, Germany … the Rev. Noel O. Lyons, home director of Greater Europe Mission.

Appointments: As president of Taylor University, Dr. B. Joseph Martin … as pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio, Texas, the Rev. Buckner Fanning, widely-known evangelist … as preacher to the Avenue Road Church of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Toronto, Dr. A. W. Tozer (a somewhat unique appointment which does not entail pastoral responsibilities) … as editor of Youth for Christ Magazine, Warren Wiersbe … as director of immigration services of Church World Service, James MacCracken.

Elections: As Primate of Australia, Anglican Archbishop Hugh Rowlands Gough … as president of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (Congregational Christian), Mrs. Douglas Horton.

Nomination: As moderator-designate of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Dr. John H. S. Burleigh.

Award: To Dr. Theodore F. Adams, president of the Baptist World Alliance, the 1960 Upper Room citation.

The Roman ‘Summit’

The first “summit conference” of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in the Western Hemisphere took place on the campus of Georgetown University in Washington, D. C., this month.

Twenty-two bishops, representing 220 million Catholics in North and Latin America, assembled for three days of closed door talks.

Comparatively little was released on the nature of the discussion, but many regarded the occasion as a very important strategy conference.

The Bureau of Information of the National Catholic Welfare Conference issued a statement which said that Latin American problems occupied much of the bishops’ time. The Roman Catholic church is known to have been sustaining serious losses in South America.

Protestant Panorama

• Billy Graham’s month-long crusade in Indianapolis drew an aggregate attendance of 350,000, with 9,320 individuals making decisions for Christ.

• U. S. temperance forces lost a key proponent in the death November 8 of Senator William Langer of North Dakota. Langer several times sponsored Congressional legislation aimed at banning liquor advertising.

• The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod says it is ready to meet with the National Lutheran Council to explore relationships between the two groups which represent about 90 per cent of the Lutherans in North America.

• The pilot of the Piedmont Airlines DC-3 which crashed near Charlottesville, Virginia, October 30, was a member of the Cherrydale Baptist Church in Arlington, Virginia. George Lavrinc, 32, among the 26 victims, had also edited a monthly paper for Northern Virginia Youth for Christ.

• At an annual meeting in Chicago last month, the Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges gave full accreditation to Western Baptist Bible College, El Cerrito, California; Bethany Bible College, Santa Cruz, California; London (Ontario) Bible Institute; Berkshire Christian College, Lenox, Massachusetts; Lee College, Cleveland, Tennessee; and Midwest Bible College, St. Louis.

• All 85 performances of the world-famous Oberammergau Passion Play in 1960 are sold out.

• The Methodist Publishing House reports net sales, rentals, and advertising for the past fiscal year of $25,616,249. Net income: $1,174,059.

• The Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society plans to send missionaries to western Borneo.

• WNEW-TV sponsored the first New York City television showing of the “Martin Luther” film on Sunday evening, November 1.

• The General Council of the American Baptist Convention voted last month to receive into membership churches from the South. The move was obviously a counter-measure taken to offset northern inroads of the aggressive Southern Baptist Convention.

• Four Presbyterian missionaries and one representing the Reformed Church in America are back at their posts in Iraq after an absence of several months following political disturbances in the country.

• A petition signed by more than 14,000 Protestants “and other Colombians” was presented to the House of Representatives at Bogotá last month. The petition called upon the government to make effective the religious liberty guaranteed in the country’s constitution.

• Providence-Barrington Bible College is changing its name to Barrington College. The school’s 110-acre campus is located in a suburb of Providence, Rhode Island.

• “Facing the Unfinished Task” will be the theme of the Congress on World Missions to be held in Chicago December 4–11, 1960. The Congress will be sponsored by the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association. The group, which includes 42 societies with 8,000 missionaries, held its annual convention in Racine, Wisconsin, last month.

• An exhibit of the Arkansas Child Evangelism Fellowship at last month’s state Livestock Exposition in Little Rock was tabbed “the best on the show grounds” by teen-agers.

• Church property valued at $18,166,000 was destroyed by fire during the past year, according to the National Fire Protection Association. Though the total of 4,200 fires in U. S. churches showed an increase of 1,100 over the previous year, total monetary loss dropped by about $2,500,000.

• The Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches in Canada voted at a convention last month to cooperate with Western Regular Baptists in “a programme of united action in areas of (a) home missions, (b) publications, and (c) evangelism.”

Vatican Postponement

The Vatican announced last month that the ecumenical council summoned by Pope John XXIII will not be held until the end of 1962 or the beginning of 1963.

Originally, the council had been expect had to meet late next year or early in 1961.

A Vatican source said it will take a minimum of three years to process suggestions for topics of discussion which are coming in from cardinals, archbishops, bishops and religious superiors around the world.

President and Pope

President Eisenhower’s scheduled meeting with Pope John XXIII on Sunday, December 6, will make him the second U. S. chief executive to be received in audience by a Roman Catholic pontiff. The only other was Woodrow Wilson, who visited Pope Benedict XV on January 4, 1919, prior to the Paris Peace Conference. Like President Eisenhower, Wilson was a Presbyterian.

President Theodore Roosevelt, after he had retired from the White House, scheduled a meeting with Pope Pius X while on a trip abroad in 1910. Roosevelt never did see the pope, however, because of an incident involving Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks. Fairbanks, a Methodist, was visiting Rome shortly before Roosevelt was due and arranged a meeting of his own with the pope. But Fairbanks wanted to visit Methodist headquarters in Rome, too. Pius declared the visit would have to be exclusive. Fairbanks refused to accept the condition and Roosevelt followed suit.

Crucial Omission

Recent controversy among Unitarians over whether to consider themselves Christian came to a head in Syracuse, New York, where delegates of the 110,000-member American Unitarian Association met October 31-November 2 with representatives of the 75,000-member Universalist Church of America to vote on a constitution uniting the two bodies as the “Unitarian Universalist Association.” The merger carried overwhelmingly, but the constitution gave scant comfort to those who considered themselves somewhat Christian-oriented.

The document which was presented to some 1,000 delegates by the 12-member joint merger commission stated this aim: “To cherish and spread the universal truths taught by the great prophets and teachers of humanity in every age and tradition immemorially summarized in their essence as love to God and love to man.” Previous documents of the two church bodies have singled out Jesus as a major prophet and teacher.

An amendment inserting mention of Jesus and the Judeo-Christian tradition in the above statement was defeated. Its sponsor, Dr. Walter D. Kring of All Souls Unitarian Church, New York, said he found himself in a meeting “where Jesus is anathematized.” It was suggested that the issue was important enough to make some Unitarians and Universalists desert to the Congregational Christian churches. The merger must still be ratified by the autonomous local churches and assemblies of both denominations by next May, with final union scheduled for May, 1961.

Amid secession rumblings came a dramatic last-minute reversal. First the Universalists and then the Unitarians in separate sessions voted to substitute the words “the Judeo-Christian heritage” for “their essence.” Universalist spokesmen said the change was made for unity and to avoid offense. But one Unitarian delegate resented “being steamrollered by the Universalists,” and a woman charged she was “browbeaten” and had her “arm twisted” in an effort to change her vote.

Some evangelicals see evidence of the “offense of the cross” in the continued refusal to name the name of Jesus. Yet delegates expressed dissatisfaction with the “exclusiveness” involved in singling out any one teacher for special mention. “Let’s hope to include everybody,” said one. But orthodox Protestants point to the excruciating confines of an exclusiveness which expels the Christian God. They see in the current debate an illustration of the toboggan slide of Unitarianism from its early convictions as exemplified in such as William Ellery Channing, who believed in the preexistence (not Godhead), miracles, and physical resurrection of Jesus.

Following merger approval, denominational heads issued this statement: “We do not disavow our Judeo-Christian heritage but affirm the universality of real religion and recall the words of Jesus: ‘Not he that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, but he that doeth the will of my Father shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.’ ” But on the content of the Father’s will, Unitarians and Universalists confess crucial differences with Jesus Christ.

F.F.

Missionary Heroine

As the end of her four-month U. S. tour drew near, missionary heroine Gladys Aylward was appealing for concentrated Christian witness in the Far East during the next two years.

Miss Aylward, whose articulate and dynamic British delivery challenged church audiences from coast to coast, fears that current missionary opportunity among Orientals may not last.

She vigorously opposes recognition of the Chinese Communist regime by the United States and the United Nations.

Her challenge to American Christians was that they develop a vital, personal concern for the witness abroad. Collecting money for a select few and bidding them, “Off you go,” falls short of true evangelical responsibility, she said.

Miss Aylward plans to return next month to Formosa, where she operates orphanages and preaches regularly. (Formosa currently has some 180,000 Protestants and 145,000 Roman Catholics. Buddhists number about 1,000,000.)

Born near London nearly 60 years ago, she was converted while in her twenties. “I was not only saved, but the Lord shook me,” she recalls.

With no training in language or missionary techniques, she set out across Asia and finally settled in a mountain town in Northwest China. There she founded an inn which later doubled as a missions station. Her great work was in a ministry to children.

Miss Aylward says she does not know what became of the inn when Communists moved in. She estimated that half her converts have been executed.

Her trip to the United States and her speaking tour of churches was sponsored by World Vision. Her exploits are described in The Small Woman, written by Alan Burgess, and in the film, “The Inn of the Sixth Happiness.”

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