Churchmen Debate Ethics of Fallout Shelters

Public concern for fallout protection is touching off an intensive debate among American churchmen. Contention is most acute over the question of whether the use of force can be justified to avoid overcrowding of shelters during nuclear attack. But the scope of the debate is raising many other ethical problems and these become ever more realistic possibilities in view of Soviet terrorist tactics as exemplified by the explosion of the big bomb October 23.

“Does prudence … dictate that you have some ‘protective devices’ in your survival kit, e. g. a revolver for breaking up traffic jams at your shelter door?”

The question appears in a widely-quoted America article written by the Rev. L. C. McHugh, S.J., who once taught ethics at Georgetown University.

McHugh maintains that the Christian view upholds one’s right (but not duty) to employ violence in defense of life and that the principle is applicable to the situation wherein “unprepared or merely luckless neighbors and strangers start milling around the sanctuary where you and your family have built a refuge against atomic fire, blast and fallout.”

He lists several conditions, however:

“The situation is such that violence is the last available recourse of the aggrieved party … The violence used is employed at the time of assault … The violence is employed against an attack that is unjust … no more violence than is needed to protect.”

Disagreeing sharply with McHugh was the Right Rev. Angus Dun, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Washington, who said:

“This business of preparing to push your neighbor’s child out of the shelter, or even to shoot down a neighbor who clamors for admission, is the most utterly immoral thing we could do.”

Among evangelicals, who tend to leave such questions to the area of personal conviction, some key churchmen sought to provide leadership and a basis for grass-roots thinking. Others uttered a frank and honest “I don’t know.” Still others avoided the issue.

First indications were that evangelical opinion would largely take a dim view of any civil defense program relying primarily upon private shelters accommodating an individual family only.

“This is no clear-cut statement in evangelical beliefs that would cover such a situation,” said Dr. Herschel H. Hobbs, president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

“However, I think that a person ought to take into his shelter as many people as he could accommodate without jeopardizing the lives of his own family. His own life would be another matter. He might make a decision to endanger his own life to help others.”

Smile, Tear, Hand, And Heart

Christian believers ought to greet today’s almost morbid interest in fallout shelters with a smile, a tear, a helping hand and an open heart. A smile, because it challenges the popular fallacy that death is always a tragedy, that the essence of human life lies in mere physical survival. A tear, because man seeks refuge from atomic radiation more than from the fall of Adam and the fallout of evil.

And, of course, a helping hand and open heart. But how? By urging a government-financed shelter program? The very welfare statists who clamor to impose more “cradle to crematory” security seem silent about the state’s responsibility for the masses at the very moment when (if the alarmists are right) the peril of death is quite imminent. If government provision is no answer, how about Christian help?

First, believers can build regional shelters on their local church premises—multi-purpose structures that on a first-come first-served basis accommodate anyone in time of emergency. Surely such provision meets in principle the responsibility of neighbor-love. Should he choose also to build a private shelter, the Christian believer then has no obligation to harbor a neighbor who has failed to build his own, nor has such neighbor any right to demand or to share another’s private accommodations. Whatever additional or extraordinary course a Christian’s love may take is obviously a matter of individual conscience once he has provided for his own family. At any rate, the negligent neighbor admitted to a believer’s shelter is sure to find more than merely physical rescue, since the very first staple in a Christian’s shelter is likely to be a Bible.

C. F. H. H.

The Rev. Thomas F. Zimmerman, president of the National Association of Evangelicals and general superintendent of the Assemblies of God, refused to comment.

So did Dr. Carl McIntire, president of the International Council of Christian Churches.

Said Dr. Edward L. R. Elson, minister of National Presbyterian Church:

“Some very sturdy Christians will decide to live dangerously, to ignore preparation of shelters and to die with dignity as part of the brightly-colored cloud that will disintegrate thousands of feet above the surface of the earth. No Christian or any other citizen should be asked to provide an individual shelter for himself or his family. Even the widest possible development of this program would leave many people without adequate protection.”

Elson asserted that “only a program under public rather than individual auspices can be considered adequate. If a nation can conscript its men and its re sources to wage war, it ought also out of public resources to provide for the common defense by creating the best possible defense for the greatest number of people.”

The Rev. Peter Eldersveld, radio minister of the Christian Reformed Church’s “Back to God Hour,” said that it is impossible to predict accurately and comprehensively all the factors that would bear upon sound ethical judgments during a nuclear attack.

He suggested that it would be premature to specify a detailed course of action for a situation which has never before been encountered.

Evangelist Billy Graham saw it this way: “In the event of nuclear attack, restricted individual use of shelters would pose somewhat of an ethical dilemma. The dilemma might be avoided if the civil defense program would work on community shelters rather than urge personal shelters.” Graham added that “I feel a primary responsibility for my family. But I don’t believe I myself could stay in a shelter while my neighbor had no protection.”

Community shelters, he said, would also provide for people who cannot afford their own (“People should not have to die because of their poverty.”).

Lutheran-Reformed Talks

“Theological conversations” between representatives of Lutheran and Presbyterian churches in North America are scheduled to begin in January.

Plans for the discussions were announced jointly by Dr. Paul C. Empie, executive director of the National Lutheran Council, and Dr. James I. McCord, secretary of the North American Area of the World Presbyterian Alliance and president of Princeton Theological Seminary.

The announcement said that all major North American church bodies in both the Lutheran and Reformed traditions will be represented, including some which are not members of the National Lutheran Council or the World Presbyterian Alliance, for example, the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

“Our discussions have no immediate purpose in view other than an examination of the subjects chosen,” the announcement said. “There is no proposal that these conversations are to be directed toward a goal of pulpit and altar fellowship or union or similar objectives.”

Many observers understood, however, that merger moves could well evolve from such “discussions.”

Officially, the conversations were arranged to explore the theological relationship between the Lutheran and Reformed churches “to discover to what extent differences which have divided these communions in the past still constitute obstacles to mutual understanding.” The proposal for the conversations apparently began with McCord.

“My colleagues and I have been following with great interest the Lutheran-Reformed theological conversations in Germany and France,” McCord said in a letter to Empie last February, “and we feel that the time has come for us to begin them here in the United States.”

The proposal was addressed to the NLC’s Executive Committee in its capacity as a U. S. committee for the Lutheran World Federation. It was tentatively accepted last March.

The executive committees of the parent international organizations endorsed the idea in their respective meetings last summer.

It is expected that the discussions will be conducted by sixteen theologians. Their names have not yet been disclosed, but they will include six representatives of the American members of the World Alliance, six from the American members of the LWF, two from the Missouri Synod, and two from any Reformed or Presbyterian bodies that choose to participate but are not members of the alliance.

According to the planning committee’s proposed agenda, the first session will be devoted to the following topics:

—An historical review of relations between Lutheran and Reformed churches in the past with special reference to the controversial issues which have divided them.

—A theological evaluation of these issues in the light of contemporary thinking in both churches.

Topics proposed for consideration at subsequent meetings (tentatively scheduled for the spring of 1963 and the spring of 1964) included “evangelical faith,” “the authority of Scripture,” “Christology,” “the church and the ministry,” and “the Lord’s Supper and its observance in the church.”

Member churches of the North American Area of the World Presbyterian Alliance have a combined membership of more than 6,500,000. American member churches of the Lutheran World Federation have a combined membership of nearly 5,600,000. The Missouri Synod has nearly 2,900,000 communicants and is the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States.

Presbyterian Propriety

The United Presbyterian General Council issued a public criticism this month of six Presbyterian churches on the West Coast which had dissociated themselves from National Council of Churches pronouncements.

The 52-member council, in a unanimous action, expressed support of NCC policy but affirmed the right of individual churches to disagree. The council implied, however, that it was improper to adopt local resolutions of dissociation.

Involved are the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, California, the First Presbyterian Church of Fillmore, California, the Wilshire Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles, the South Hollywood Presbyterian Church, the First Presbyterian Church of San Diego, and the First Presbyterian Church of Tacoma, Washington.

All have endorsed or adapted a resolution which states that “this Session does not recognize the authority or right of the National Council of Churches to make pronouncements or statements of policy in any form for (this church) or in the name of its membership.”

The council reply asserted that avoidance of political and economic particulars contradicts the belief that “Jesus Christ is the Lord of all life. He may not properly be walled into any smaller area of influence.”

The reply said that “the proper manner in which to register criticisms of, or suggestions for, actions or policy of our church in relationship to the National Council of Churches is not by dis-association, but in the manner prescribed by the form of government.” This was a reference to the practice of sending overtures to the General Assembly.

25-Year Honors

Boston’s historic Park Street Church, one of the foremost evangelical churches in America, will honor its distinguished pastor with a testimonial banquet November 15.

The event will mark 25 years of service at the Park Street Church by Dr. and Mrs. Harold John Ockenga.

Ockenga’s ministry in Boston has been characterized by the priority assigned to the missionary enterprise. Its annual missionary budget, now amounting to some $270,000, is the largest of any U. S. church.

Union Without Uniformity

Establishment of a “United Church of Christ in America” as a “union without uniformity” was proposed last month by Dr. Perry E. Gresham, president of Bethany (West Virginia) College and immediate past president of the International Convention of Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ).

“I would propose,” said Gresham in a talk at Park Avenue Christian Church, New York, “that we call together all denominational leaders and declare that the United Church of Christ in America is now in existence.”

He urged that “Christian leaders operating through the existing structure of a National Council of Churches of Christ in America work out a program whereby our common tasks of mission work be merged into a united body that could speak and witness to the whole wide world.”

Benevolent homes, publishing houses, and pension funds, should be merged accordingly, Gresham added.

He specified that under this plan, local congregations would be “left free to worship Christ in appropriate ways according to custom and preference.”

“Instead of a merger of one or two bodies with a pious hope of more to follow,” Gresham said, “we could accomplish the purpose at one bold stroke by recognizing the Lordship of Christ, the primacy of Scripture, the fellowship of all devout followers of Christ, and the genius of E. Pluribus Unum!”

“The duplication of competing systems,” he asserted, “would be reduced to a more efficient coordination of organized effort.”

Gresham added:

“I can already hear the excited protests from both theologians and ecclesiastics. Such a proposal is an affront to the person who demands a uniform statement of faith and uniform ways of worship.

“Yet we must remember that there has never been theological agreement in the history of Christendom except under the military threat of Constantine.

“Had Peter and Paul withheld their witness to Christ until they were in full agreement the church would have been stillborn. Ecclesiastical dignitaries who have become institutionally involved in certain offices and structure might feel threatened by such a reckless proposal.

“Yet the time has come for us to take seriously the prayer of Christ. A union of Christians is the only logical outcome of our ecumenical meetings.

“Union without uniformity is an approach which commends itself to the American ways of thought where the heritage of Jefferson and Lincoln can show the secular counterpart of what could happen to the church if the Holy Spirit could lead us toward a common witness and a glorious fellowship which is man wide and God high.”

Plea For Preparation

A Lutheran leader makes a strong plea for proper spiritual orientation of prospective draftees in the November issue of National Lutheran.

The Rev. Engebret O. Midboe, executive secretary of the National Lutheran Council’s Bureau of Service to Military Personnel, warned that the buildup of U. S. military forces may continue and accelerate, and urged that home congregations give their young men “some down-to-earth counseling on what this struggle is all about.”

The National Lutheran is a monthly publication of the NLC.

Midboe’s article stressed that “while the church cannot identify itself with any form of human government, the church must teach her people what the Christian faith has to say about the current atheistic communistic aggression.”

He urged immediate action, warning that “it is too late to begin to prepare for this after the ‘greetings’ from the President have arrived.”

The Rial Campaign

The 13th annual national public service campaign on behalf of “Religion in American Life” gets under way this month.

The campaign is aimed at boosting church and synagogue attendance across the nation. It is supported by 28 national, religious bodies and a like number of service clubs and civic groups. It is conducted by The Advertising Council, a non-profit, non-partisan business organization which aims to serve the public interest “by marshaling the forces of advertising to promote voluntary, individual actions in solving national problems.”

The problem in this case is that, according to latest available statistics, 60 million Americans have no religious affiliation.

Volunteer coordinator of the campaign is Robert W. Boggs, director of advertising for the Union Carbide Plastics Company.

A leading international advertising agency, the J. Walter Thompson Company, is contributing its creative services for the 13th consecutive year.

Origin Of ‘Protestant’

The 400th anniversary of the first major conference between Protestants and Roman Catholic clergy after the Reformation—the Colloquy of Poissy—was commemorated in Washington, D. C., last month with a special service at St. John’s Church (Episcopal).

The commemorative service was held under auspices of the French Protestant Congregation and the Huguenot Society of Washington.

Worshippers heard Dr. C. Leslie Glenn, former rector of St. John’s, declare that “it is fashionable in some circles to be ashamed of the word Protestant.”

“It is called a negative word,” Glenn asserted, “but we need never be ashamed of the negative. Men don’t fight for freedom, they fight against tyranny.

“It was at this small conference in the sixteenth century that the decision was made that the Roman Catholic church could be allowed in Protestant territories but that the Protestant Church could not be allowed in Roman Catholic territories. Against this, the Protestants protested and there they first got their name.”

World’S Largest Dome

A church convention hall in Anderson, Indiana, will lay claim to having the world’s largest circular dome.

Scheduled for completion in May, 1962, the 7,200-seat Warner Auditorium will accommodate conventions of the Church of God, which has its international headquarters in Anderson.

Construction of the 3,000,000-pound dome, twice the size of St. Peter’s in Rome, was hailed as an engineering feat utilizing a number of recent scientific and technological developments. The dome was made by pouring a four-inch layer of concrete over a huge mound of earth. It was lifted into place atop 36 steel posts by hydraulic hoists.

Builders say the unique method of construction saved the church nearly half a million dollars. The total cost of the auditorium, $400,000, amounts to about $6.50 per square foot, or less than what it would cost to build a warehouse of comparable size by conventional building methods.

The dome has a diameter of 268 feet. There are no interior supports. The auditorium eventually will have a capacity of 12,000 persons.

A Seven-Year Plan

Development of a seven-year uniform lesson cycle was announced to some 8,000 registered delegates at the sixteenth annual National Sunday School Association convention in Detroit last month.

The new lesson cycle is a product of years of research by an NSSA Christian education committee headed by the Rev. Ralph Harris of Springfield, Missouri.

An NSSA statement called it “the first major challenge by evangelicals to the International Council of Religious Education uniform Sunday School outlines.”

“It is the result,” the statement said, “of growing dissatisfaction by evangelicals with ICRE’s stress on social aspects of the gospel to the neglect of personal spiritual application and the neglect of certain portions of the Bible.”

The new cycle will begin in 1965. It will cover every part of the Bible. Sixteen quarters will be spent in the New Testament and 12 quarters in Old Testament studies.

One feature is the cycle’s treatment of non-narrative sections of the Bible. These are woven into historical portions in a way designed to make the history more meaningful.

The NSSA is affiliated with the National Association of Evangelicals.

Educational Roundup

Baylor University of Waco, Texas, was given a virtual city block of property in downtown Dallas last month. It will eventually amount to the largest gift in the Baptist school’s 116-year history.

A trust established in honor of Dallas insurance executive Carr P. Collins will handle the transaction and give Baylor ownership of the multi-million dollar development. A department store has announced plans for a sprawling building and parking garage on the property. The entire operation will be subject to the usual commercial taxation.

Other developments in church-related education:

—The new Houston (Texas) Baptist College is scheduled to open in the fall of 1963. More than three million dollars have been raised in a drive for capital and endowment funds.

—Calvary Bible College of Kansas City was named beneficiary of a bequest valued at $285,000 from the late Arthur W. Rehfeldt of St. Louis.

—President Urho Keleva Kekkonen of Finland was given an honorary doctor of laws degree by Waterloo Lutheran University at an autumn convocation.

Controversial Bus Rides

Four Protestant ministers are appealing to the central school district of Hoosick Falls, New York, to stop bus transportation of elementary public school children to week-day released-time religious education classes at a Roman Catholic academy.

The ministers say such transportation “violates the use of public tax monies in that these monies are used for the support of private interests” and is contrary to the church-state separation principle.

The school district was urged to reconsider its decision to provide the bus transportation.

Lifting The Mandate

Air Force chaplains are no longer required to use unified Sunday School curriculum materials, according to a report in the Chaplains News Bulletin of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Executive Secretary Floyd Robertson of the NAE Commission on Chaplains said the requirement was revoked during a September meeting of Air Force command chaplains in Washington.

Chaplain (Major General) Terence P. Finnegan was said to have acted when denominational representatives at the meeting indicated unanimous displeasure over the requirement.

“These men represent the denominations which we serve,” Finnegan was quoted as saying. “They tell me it should not be mandatory and it will not be.”

Finnegan amended the regulation regarding the unified curriculum by deleting the mandatory clause and inserting that it “is recommended for use in the Air Force.”

The new policy will enable chaplains to select their own Sunday School curriculum materials from any religious publishing house.

Exempt The Amish?

Democratic Representative Wilbur E. Mills of Arkansas, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, says he believes it would be unconstitutional to exempt any group from payment of a tax because of religious objections.

The committee headed by Mills is the unit through which any tax legislation in Congress is channeled.

Mills told Republican Representative Paul B. Dague of Pennsylvania last month that he would call a hearing on Dague’s exemption bill only if it is recommended by the President.

Dague has sponsored legislation which would exempt members of the Old Order Amish from participation in social security and payment of the tax.

He told Mills in reply that it should be no more unconstitutional to exempt the Amish because of their religious beliefs than it is to permit voluntary participation for members of the clergy because of their beliefs in church-state separation. Clergymen qualify for social security and pay the tax only if they file a waiver of exemption.

The Amish, in appealing to Congress, contend that they pay all taxes asked of them but that social security is a form of compulsory group insurance which they reject because of their belief that the Bible imposes an individual responsibility upon Christians to care for their own aged and infirm.

Broadening The Code

The Motion Picture Association of America amended its production code last month to enable filmmakers to deal with the subject of homosexuality on the screen.

The change was made after several prominent moviemakers had gone into production with stories involving controversial sex themes.

The MPAA statement specifies that the production code administration may “consider approving references … to … sex aberrations, provided any references are treated with care, discretion and restraint.”

Affected by the ruling are the following films, none of which has as yet been premiered: “Advise and Consent,” “The Children’s Hour,” and “Lolita.”

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