Curriculum Crisis in Military Sunday Schools

Next Sunday morning will find seven-year-old Johnny with a new teacher—she is a Methodist. Johnny’s last Sunday School teacher, who has just been transferred, was a Presbyterian. The department head is a Baptist. At a previous base where he lived, Johnny was taught the lesson by a Lutheran lady.

Somehow Johnny just doesn’t understand things like communion and baptism (his parents send him to Sunday School), for his is the lot of a military dependent, the child of a career serviceman. For years the Protestant military chaplains have battled inadequacies in their 180,000-member Sunday School systems. The inadequacies stemmed from these factors: (1) Protestants lumped together; (2) rapid turnover of teachers and scholars; and (3) lack of continuity in the curriculum.

In a bold effort to cope with the peculiarities of military Sunday Schools, ranking chaplains have been quietly promoting a unified curriculum which may raise more problems than it solves. The plan was worked out by the Armed Forces Chaplains Board, which invited the Protestant Church-Owned Publishers Association to administer it.

The program works this way: Each year a team of chaplains and denominational consultants meet and preview Sunday School materials planned by PCPA members. From these materials they select those which they feel are best suited to use in the armed services. The unified curriculum is therefore merely a composite subject to annual change. Only one selection is made in each category of need. The materials are the same as those used within the denominations that produce them. Cover imprints identify the materials as belonging to the “Unified Protestant Sunday School Curriculum for Armed Forces.”

The unified curriculum was first made available in the fall of 1954 as a distinct option for chaplains who at that time were purchasing supplies of their own choosing. Subsequently the PCPA set up an office in Nashville to distribute the unified curriculum.

The first big showdown came in the Air Force. A new regulation issued last summer ordered that “ ‘The Unified Protestant Sunday School Curriculum,’ ‘The Catholic Family Program of Religious Education,’ and the ‘Religious School Curriculum for Jews of the Armed Services,’ will be put into operation in the Air Force.”

Provision was made that “the curricula may be augmented with religious literature, art, symbols, maps, films, and visual aids.”

How Program Is Administered

The “Unified Protestant Sunday School Curriculum for Armed Forces” is sponsored by the Armed Forces Chaplains Board and administered by the Protestant Church-Owned Publishers Association.

The PCPA maintains an office in the Methodist Publishing House in Nashville through which orders for materials are channeled. The office is responsible for stocking and supplying materials prescribed by the Armed Forces Chaplains Board. Order blanks bear the PCPA letterhead and checks are payable to the PCPA, which reimburses member publishing houses according to material supplied.

The PCPA was organized as a trade association about 10 years ago. John C. Ribble, associate general manager of the United Presbyterian publishing house, has been coordinator of the unified curriculum. Ribble, who was elected president of PCPA in February, calls it “the most representative group in Protestantism.”Denominational groups with member representation in the PCPA include the following: Pentecostal Holiness Church, American Baptist, Assemblies of God, Augustana Lutheran, Southern Presbyterian, Reformed Church in America, Church of the Brethren, Churches of God in North America, Christian Churches (Disciples), Missouri Lutheran, Evangelical Covenant Church of America, Cumberland Presbyterian, Evangelical United Brethren, Free Methodist, The General Baptist Press, Church of God, Reorganized Latter-day Saints, Mennonite, Methodist, United Lutheran, Nazarene, United Church of Christ, Protestant Episcopal, Southern Baptist, United Church of Canada, American Lutheran, Wesleyan Methodist, and United Presbyterian.

A number of religious leaders, including representatives of the PCPA, criticized the mandatory clause. Two months later, at a meeting in Washington between command chaplains and denominational representatives the clause was supposedly revoked by Major General Terence P. Finnegan, a Roman Catholic who is chief of Air Force chaplains.

No further word was issued, however, until November 22, when Brigadier General Robert P. Taylor, deputy chief of Air Force chaplains and a Baptist, sent an official letter to all commands saying, “The status of the Unified Protestant Sunday School Curriculum has not been changed. The Unified Protestant Sunday School Curriculum is the official Air Force curriculum.”

A regulation change dated December 27, 1961, affirmed that the curricula were now “official.”

The clause “will be put into operation in the Air Force” was deleted. A spokesman said, however, that chaplains are expected to use the material unless they give a written reason for refusing.

As for augmenting the curricula, the term “appropriate” was inserted before “religious literature.” Some observers have pointed to this passage as an escape clause for the mandatory order. Others say financial considerations rule it out.

A practical effect of the Air Force curriculum policy has been to eliminate evangelical literature. Chaplains no longer use materials from such independent publishers as Scripture Press, Gospel Light, Standard, David C. Cook, and Union Gospel Press.

A key official of the National Association of Evangelicals has denounced the unified curricula as “doctrinally and theologically unscriptural and pedagogically inferior.” He also questioned the right of the service to impose the material on chaplains. Army and Navy chaplains are not yet required to use it.

Another issue revolves on the fiscal aspect of the cooperative PCPA operation: Is the noncompetitive makeup of the arrangement a form of price-rigging?

Neither the Armed Forces Chaplains Board nor the PCPA office in Nashville have disclosed sales figures. Independent estimates, however, put total annual receipts as high as $500,000.

PCPA spokesmen vigorously deny monopolistic intent and stress that the operation is being carried out at the request of the Air Force. Military spokesmen say it is the most democratic arrangement possible, inasmuch as the PCPA is representative of virtually all denominations which supply chaplains. They point out that no contracts are involved.

Religious Issues

Two books with significant reflections of the American religiopolitical scene made their debut last month:

Richard M. Nixon, in Six Crises, accuses key associates of John F. Kennedy of contributing to and capitalizing on the religious issue in the 1960 presidential campaign.

The Rev. Robert I. Gannon, in The Cardinal Spellman Story, devotes an entire chapter to relations between the United States and the Vatican and discloses that Spellman was the first priest ever to say Mass in the White House.

Says Nixon:

“At every possible juncture and on every possible occasion, Kennedy’s key associates were pushing the religious issue, seeing to it that it stayed squarely in the center of the campaign, and even accusing me of deliberate religious bigotry.”

“They were, in short, contributing all they could to make religion an issue while piously insisting that to do so was evidence of bigotry,” he adds.

“I felt a responsibility to keep the lid on the boiling cauldron of embittered anti-Catholicism,” he says, adding that advisors had urged him to answer the attacks of Kennedy supporters.

Nixon refers to the much-publicized Citizens for Religious Freedom meeting in Washington September 7, 1960, as a “disastrous political development … over which I had no control.” However, he excuses the participation of Peale, whose church he had attended at one time while living in New York: “I know that he was heartbroken over the incident and I felt that while his judgment had been bad, his motives were above question.”

Nixon discloses that evangelist Billy Graham had been asked to write an article for Life magazine endorsing Nixon “largely on grounds of my experience in world affairs and foreign policy. He had mentioned the religious issue in the article only in order to deny explicitly that it either was or ought to be an issue at all.”

“My staff felt that a Billy Graham public statement might be very helpful in the closing days of the campaign,” Nixon says. “But I ended up vetoing the proposal because of my fear that, even though he was basing his support on other than religious grounds, our opponents would seize on his endorsement as evidence of religious bigotry, his own forthright denial notwithstanding.”

But sources close to Graham say that it was the evangelist himself, not Nixon, who made the decision to withhold the article because of the evangelist’s conviction that his is a spiritual and not a political responsibility. Both Nixon and Kennedy are reported to have said following the election that, had Graham’s article appeared, it would have swung the election.

Nixon’s book does not mention the fact that Francis Cardinal Spellman had stated publicly that he planned to vote for Nixon.

The book about Spellman makes no reference to the endorsement of Nixon either. It does contain a lengthy account of Spellman’s relations with the White House during the administrations of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

The book by Father Gannon, a Jesuit priest and former president of Fordham University, recalls that in 1937 Spellman was invited for an overnight stay at the White House. A portion of Spellman’s diary is quoted:

“Said Mass in the Monroe Room of the White House. It was the first time Mass was ever said in the White House. Miss LeHand, Miss Tully, Miss Eben and Miss Hackmeister present. Breakfast afterwards with them. The coffee cups were as large as bowls.

“Said good-bye to the President in bed. He said he had intended to get up for Mass.”

Turning The Corner?

A definite evangelical emphasis enlivened six annual area meetings of the National Council of United Presbyterian Men, a denominational laymen’s organization which has experienced rapid growth in recent years.

Paul Moser, executive secretary, cited two reasons for re-emphasis on Christian fundamentals.

“We know as never before that we don’t make a better world,” he said. “Only the Lord does.”

Secondly, he believes that some of the featured speakers were “more able to speak on this emphasis than those in the past.”

“In the past, we’ve discussed everything from automation to the image of the church,” he continued. “Now we’ve turned the corner, and are putting more stress on the important thing—faith.”

Moser stressed, “Strength of men can count through a laymen’s movement-men with a social conscience but solid evangelical emphasis and faith in Christ.”

Area meetings were held between mid-February and early April in New York, Sacramento, Wichita, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Evanston, each averaging more than 1,500 attendance.

Among the well-known ministers and laymen who addressed the area meetings on the theme “Show Me Your Faith,” were Drs. Charles Malik, Addison H. Leitch, Louis H. Evans, T. Christie Innes, Ralph D. Evans, and Federal District Judge Luther W. Youngdahl.

Dr. Louis H. Evans told the laymen, “Religion used to be what a layman did with his spare time—and he had very little of it,” he said. “But now it is very often what he does with his vocation. This can be a new day. I see thousands of men in all walks of life trying to weave their faith into their jobs.”

B. B.

The Big Problem

A church architecture jury aimed some well-chosen words at religious educators last month at the National Conference of Church Architecture in Cleveland.

The three-man panel said “the big problem, as yet unsolved in an enlightened and economic manner, is the 200 to 400-student educational unit, whose average occupancy is for one hour, one day a week.”

Confusion over the nature and function of the educational units, the jury declared, “might well indicate the necessity of a complete reanalysis of religious education by our churches.”

The comments were made as awards were given eight churches for the “realistic contemporary religious affirmation” of their architecture.

In giving the awards the Church Architectural Guild of America and the National Council of Churches’ Department of Church Building and Architecture said they attempted to “define some of the problems confronting church builders and architects and some of the means by which solutions might be achieved.”

Recipients of the awards, which had no order of rank, were:

University Reformed Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Westminster Presbyterian Church, Eugene, Oregon; Scottsdale Congregational Church (United Church of Christ), Scottsdale, Arizona; St. Anselm Roman Catholic Church, Chesterland, Ohio; Bethany Lutheran Church, Columbus, Ohio; Community Church, Chesterland, Ohio; St. Francis Cabrini Roman Catholic Church, New Orleans, Louisiana; and the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church, Marrero, Louisiana.

Of the 152 churches which were entered in the contest, the jury said the majority “suffered from both the indecision of the statement of the problem and the lack of an honest interpretation and use of forms and materials by the architects.”

“The complete disregard for simplicity and obvious quest for the sensational was most apparent,” the report said.

Members of the jury were Robert Inglehart, chairman of the University of Michigan’s Department of Art; the Rev. Hugh T. Kerr, Jr., professor at Princeton Theological Seminary; and Paul Hayden Kirk, Seattle architect.

Philip A. Wills, Jr., president of the American Institute of Architects, told some 1,200 persons attending the conference that “no church, however poor in worldly goods, should settle for less than greatness.”

He said client and architect must share a mutual understanding.

“The client, however, cannot expect us to be theologians as well as architects,” he added.

Wills chided church building committees for ignoring artistic considerations.

No Review

The U. S. Supreme Court refused last month to review a Florida state court decision in a property rights dispute at the First Presbyterian Church of Miami Beach. The action climaxes an eight-year legal battle which began when the majority of the congregation withdrew in 1954 and formed the Miami Beach Independent Presbyterian Church.

The group objected to Southern Presbyterian participation in ecumenical organizations.

The case is thus decided in favor of the minority element which maintained affiliation with the Presbyterian Church in the U. S.

The local presbytery was a partner in the case, but never claimed ownership. Under denominational law, the property of a church belongs to the congregation.

The ‘Acts Of God’

So-called “acts of God” may no longer be a defense in damages arising out of storms, heavy rains, or other natural disasters, according to a decision handed down last month by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Justice Michael A. Musmanno, who sat as a jurist in the post-World War II trials at Nuremberg, wrote the majority opinion of the court. He said:

“There is something shocking in attributing any tragedy or holocaust to God. The ways of the Deity so surpass the understanding of man that it is not in the province of man to pass judgment.

“There are many manifestations of nature which science has not yet been able to analyze, much less cope with.”

The decision was made in favor of a man injured by a falling telephone pole during a heavy snow. The man sued the telephone company, which argued that it was without liability because the pole fell through “an act of God.”

The courts decided otherwise, noting that the company had not inspected the pole for 15 years before it toppled.

Last month’s decision affirmed a county court award of $10,820 damages.

Aid For Religious Tv?

Should religious agencies be eligible for federal aid aimed at developing educational television? Both houses of Congress have passed bills providing for educational television grants. The House version rules out church colleges and other private agencies, but the Senate measure makes church-related agencies eligible for funds to the extent permissible by state constitutions.

If federal aid to educational television is to be forthcoming, the differences will have to be resolved by a conference committee.

The Senate bill authorizes $51,000,000 in grants to the states for distribution to nonprofit organizations concerned with educational television. The House bill authorizes $25,520,000 in matching grants to the states for organizations composed of state-supported school officials or state educational television agencies.

A Time Problem

Religious leaders in Chicago issued severe criticisms last month of the city’s absentee-owned network television stations. They charged in hearings conducted by the Federal Communications Commission that the stations failed to give adequate time to religious programs.

Among those who presented statements at the hearings were representatives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, the Chicago board of Rabbis, the Protestant Church Federation of Chicago, and the Protestant Episcopal diocese.

They said that the local stations were more cooperative and responsive to the need for live, local programs. Absentee-owned network stations were charged with indifference to religious programs and of giving the smallest and most inadequate facilities at the “worst possible time.”

‘Shared Time’ Views

In Kansas City, Missouri, a Roman Catholic newspaper announced last month the results of a spot survey conducted in behalf of the “shared time” school proposal. Both Catholic and public school educators were said to have reservations about the idea but believe it deserves serious consideration.

Two Catholic educators stressed that a completely Catholic education was the ideal from their point of view. They acknowledged, however, that shared time might be an acceptable compromise if the ideal cannot he achieved.

The shared time plan provides that children may attend public schools for some subjects and religious schools for others (see CHRISTIANITY TODAY, March 30, 1962, page 29).

James A. Hazlett, Kansas City superintendent of schools, said that shared time would help the financial situation of parochial schools, improve the quality of religious education in Protestant churches, and encourage unified community support for public school bond programs or tax increases.

Hazlett said, however, that with the public school curriculum already straining at the seams, the addition of religious instruction might mean that the three-month summer vacation would be shortened.

The Last Lecture

Dr Karl Barth delivered his last lecture at the University of Basel on the subject of love. The famed Swiss theologian, now 76, is retiring after more than 27 years as professor of theology at Basel. He is due to make his first visit to the United States later this month, with lecture series scheduled at the University of Chicago and at Princeton Theological Seminary.

In his concluding lecture at Basel last month, Barth told his class that theological work is certain only where it is carried out in love, but that it is no mere chance that the Apostle Paul used the word agape, not eros.

“In both uses of the word,” he said, “love means seeking someone else with one’s whole heart, but love in the agape sense can also mean being free for that other person, because one has oneself received freedom. This love is sovereign, long-suffering and patient.”

To compare agape and eros, he added, is “like comparing Mozart and Beethoven. In theology eros cannot be the dominating principle; it can only be the servant of theology.”

Barth’s successor at Basel has not yet been named. The university board is known to have favored Dr. Helmut Gollwitzer of Berlin, but his name was withdrawn after the Basel city council of education protested the selection because of Gollwitzer’s alleged pro-Communist leanings.

Chatterley In Canada

By a five-to-four vote, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled last month that the controversial novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover is not obscene.

The decision reversed two lower court rulings which had banned the book as obscene literature because it exploited sex unduly.

The case dates back to June, 1960, when copies of the book were seized by police from three Montreal bookstands. Judge T. A. Fontaine declared the book obscene and ordered all copies in circulation confiscated.

An appeal by the three dealers was rejected by the Quebec appeal court, but Canada’s highest tribunal ordered charges against the dealers dismissed.

Dual Synods

For the first time last month, the Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg held two synods, one in East Berlin and the other in West Berlin. It was a forced move resulting from the Communist sealing of the Berlin border, a move which contributed to Red determination to split the church. Results of the synods indicated, however, that the church leaders were not about to allow their organizational unity to be destroyed.

The East synod expressed “fraternal solidarity” with Bishop Otto Dibelius of Berlin and Dr. Kurt Scharf, chairman of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKID). In reply, the West synod deplored the circumstances which made separate synods necessary. Dibelius declared that the EKID was determined not to permit its unity to be destroyed by the Communist seal-off measures.

He stressed that the political borders “are not those of the church.”

The East synod adopted a resolution deploring the expulsion of Scharf and urging Soviet Zone authorities to permit him to return to East Berlin and maintain his office there.

At the same time, the synod spoke out against appointing a successor for Scharf in his capacity of administrator of the Berlin-Brandenburg church’s bishop’s office for East Berlin and the Soviet Zone portion of the church. As an East Berlin resident, Scharf had been appointed to the post when the Communists barred Dibelius from East Berlin subsequent to the seal-off last August 13.

Another resolution adopted by the East synod stressed the church’s determination to stand up for conscientious objectors and for those refusing to take the soviet Zone army’s conscription oath in its prescribed form.

The resolution said Christians could take the oath demanded of recruits only on the understanding that its wording would not be interpreted as obliging a soldier to fight for the victory of socialism (communism) or any other ideological objectives, because this would be irreconcilable with the Christian faith.

It said the oath should be interpreted only as “a very serious promise” by a soldier to risk his life in defense of the state in the event of military aggression.

Declaring that this understanding of the oath was the “utmost compromise the church was able to make,” the synod said that “if the state contradicts this interpretation, the church might be compelled to make a different decision.”

The conscription oath has been denounced by Roman Catholic and Protestant authorities as exceeding what was morally and ethically permissible. They criticized in particular its insistence on unconditional obedience to superiors and support of the socialist ideology.

In the West synod, a draft statement asserted that Christians have a right to resist the state if it demands anything that violates God’s commandments.

The draft was prepared by a committee set up in 1960 to find a solution to the question of “supreme authority” which had been raised that year because of a controversial booklet published by Bishop Otto Dibelius, head of the church. The draft is being sent to the church management for further consideration.

In his booklet, the bishop declared that neither the East German regime nor any other totalitarian government has a claim to the status of “supreme authority” in the biblical sense of the term.

The draft statement said that, according to the Bible, Christians are authorized willingly to submit themselves to the existing state order, since, in the Christian belief, God also governs men through the secular state power.

The obedience toward the state, the statement declared, is independent of the state’s ideology, or of the ways and means through which a state power came into existence. Christians are co-responsible, however, to see that the state makes proper use of its authority and, if necessary, must witness to the rulers that their government is wrong and warn them against passing laws and decrees seducing or coercing men to act against God’s commandments.

Protestant Panorama

• The Executive Council of the United Church of Christ urges preservation of sufficient military power “to deter Communist governments from further expansion of communism by force” in a letter issued last month to the denomination’s 6,659 churches. The letter also called for continued East-West negotiations to maintain peace. The essence of the plea was that the West maintain a position whereby it could negotiate from strength, a concept now rarely espoused in organized Protestantism.

• Only 14 new congregations were started by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) during 1961, according to a report made at a March meeting of the denomination’s Board of Church Extension. In January the denomination reported slight membership declines.

• Some 100 Methodist ministers in Ohio will leave their pulpits this summer to preach at county fairs, at state parks, on street corners, on church and courthouse steps, and in drive-ins and shopping centers.

• “Breakthru,” a new Methodist-produced children’s television series which utilizes a unique drama-discussion format, was unveiled last month. It is a project of the Television, Radio and Film Commission of The Methodist Church in collaboration with the Methodist General Board of Education, and the United Church of Canada. Distribution is being handled by the Broadcasting and Film Commission of the National Council of Churches. The premiere episode stars Broadway actress Patty Duke.

• The Presbyterian Church in the U. S. is curtailing missionary activities in several countries because of financial pressures. Budgetary problems are being felt most keenly in Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Brazil, and the Congo.

• Pacific Christian College is the new name of the undergraduate college previously known as Pacific Bible Seminary. The new name for the school, located in Long Beach, California, was adopted to fulfill requirements of accrediting associations. The school does not offer graduate study, with which the term “seminary” is usually associated.

• “Question Seven,” Lutheran film drama which depicts Communist pressures in East Germany, is now available as a novel in book form. The book, published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Co., includes 25 photographs from the film.

• NBC Television plans a half-hour color presentation of art masterpieces connected with Christ’s last days on earth. The program, “He Is Risen,” is an Easter sequel to a presentation of Christmas art which has been telecast for the last two years. The Easter program will be aired on Sunday, April 15.

• Among nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize are Methodist evangelist E. Stanley Jones and Bishop Rajah B. Maikam of the Tamil Church in India.

• The latest in gimmicks: The First Church of the Nazarene in Long Beach, California, offered free helicopter rides to all who bring a visitor to Sunday School. The Bellflower Community Church of Los Angeles is rewarding each family attending Sunday services with 100 trading stamps.

• The New Jersey Council of Churches voiced strong opposition last month to a proposal to extend the state racing season to help pay for rebuilding storm-devastated coastal areas.

• A confirmation service in the Lutheran Cathedral of Our Lady in Copenhagen was disrupted last month when church officials scuffled with 30 Danish students who invaded the building to stage a demonstration against nuclear testing.

• A new “floating hospital” was launched by Seventh-day Adventists in Brazil last month. The mobile clinic will provide medical care along a 300-mile stretch of the São Francisco River. The Adventists have 10 other such craft plying Brazilian rivers.

400 Years Later

“Our man in the Vatican,” said the headline in a Scottish newspaper.

What occasioned the blurb was the visit with Pope John XXIII of Dr. Archibald C. Craig, moderator of the Church of Scotland.

To a country which rebuffed Anglican overtures in 1958 and celebrated its Reformation Quatercentenary in 1960, the development in the Vatican represented a topic worthy of much discussion.

Craig arrived in Rome after a tour of the Holy Land, where he presented Israel’s national library with a 45-volume set of Calvin’s commentaries.

Referring to the presentation in a letter to The Scotsman, the Rev. Donald Mackay, a Free Church minister, said:

“If Dr. Craig’s … visit to the Pope were for the purpose of making a similar presentation … we might almost view with equanimity the moderator’s visit, instead of the intense apprehension with which we so far have been able to regard it.”

In a sermon on the eve of his audience with the pontiff, Craig declared that “the ecumenical effort must be made at a deeper level than the merely intellectual.”

Preaching at a thanksgiving service in the Scots Kirk in Rome on the occasion of its centenary, the moderator said separated churches “must learn to live in love of each other, laying aside things conflicting with love.”

“It is true,” he said, “that the ecumenical movement bristles with complexities and abounds in problems which tax the most learned thinkers and theologians. On that level, a long, laborious process of discussion must go forward between the churches in order that the issues on which they are divided may be clarified, patiently cleared of misunderstandings and prejudice, and resolved in the light of God’s Word. But meanwhile, there must be a spirit of love and mutual respect.”

A 200-member congregation attending the service included the British, Dutch and South African ambassadors to Italy, the wife of U. S. Ambassador G. Frederick Reinhardt, and leaders of the Waldensian Church and of the Methodist and Baptist churches in Italy.

Craig said the centenary of the Scots Kirk “has a special importance for us Christians, because it teaches us to forget the things which are behind and to reach for the things which are before.”

Recalling what he called the “difficult beginnings” of the church, he stressed that its congregation “adheres to the sixteenth century Reformation and to the theological and ethical tradition deriving from Calvin and Knox.”

At this point an interruption in the form of a stentorian “Amen” came from the Rev. M. A. Perkins, leading member of the National Union of Protestants in Great Britain, which took a strongly critical view of Craig’s plans to visit Pope John. Perkins had come to Rome with the professed aim of persuading Craig not to see the Pope.

Ignoring the interruption, Craig declared that “in the name of the General Assembly (of the Church of Scotland), I voice the prayer that in the future, this congregation will be more than ever illustrious and successful, both evangelcally and ecumenically.”

Following his audience with the Pope, the 73-year-old moderator disclosed that Christian unity was a major topic of discussion.

“The Pope,” said Craig, “talked about unity among the brethren of Christ. This expression recurred frequently and was enlarged at considerable length. What he said corresponded closely to what I had previously said at services in the Scots Kirk in Rome.”

Craig arrived for his audience with the Pope dressed in pulpit robes. The party accompanying him included Dr. R. S. Louden, head of the Church of Scotland’s Department of Overseas Churches, and the Rev. Alexander Maclean, chaplain of Scots Kirk.

The 80-year-old pontiff smilingly welcomed Craig at the door of his private library and escorted him inside. They were closeted together for more than a half hour while Craig’s companions waited outside. Acting as interpreter was Monsignor Igina Cardinale of the Vatican Secretariat of State.

One key layman at the Scots Kirk in Rome was so angered by Craig’s Vatican visit that he resigned his post as treasurer of the church and said he may also withdraw his membership.

John Herbison, a member of the Church of Scotland who is currently employed in Rome, said he had no quarrel with the church or its minister.

“My quarrel is with the General Assembly for permitting this visit,” he said. “I am completely against it.”

The 50-year-old Herbison has been in Rome since 1956 and has been church treasurer for three years.

He emphasized that he had many Roman Catholic friends. “It is not Catholics I dislike,” he said. “It is Catholicism.”

The Muslim View

Christian leaders in India are strongly criticizing the recent Pakistan constitution promulgated by President Ayub Khan because it states that the chief of state must be a Muslim, according to Religious News Service.

The constitution’s provision has been assailed by the New Leader, official organ of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Madras, as “a glaring violation of the basic principles of democracy.”

Some 80 per cent of Pakistan’s population of 90 million is Muslim. In a nationwide broadcast on the eve of Pakistan Day (March 23), President Ayub Khan said that the realization of the ideology of Islam was “the first national objective before Pakistan.”

According to Indian sources, the views of Christian leaders in Pakistan have not been published in that country because of government controls imposed on the press.

The New Leader’s editorial stated: “Under this constitution, the President, who will be the head of the executive government, should be a Muslim. A democratic government, which is among other things ‘a government by the people,’ involves the active and equal participation of all in its life and activities. The avenues of a political action should be equally free for use by all. Political equality implies that all the citizens, irrespective of their language or religion, should have an equal right to offer themselves for election to any political office, subject to the necessary minimum qualifications.

“The denial of this right to the non-Muslim citizens is a glaring violation of the basic principles of democracy.”

Netded by the criticism, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Mazur Quadir stated in Karachi that it would have been “anomalous, even hypocritical” to have allowed a non-Muslim to hold the office of President of Pakistan in the new constitution.

At a press conference, he was asked why a non-Muslim should be barred from holding the office of President when the constitution provided “equal rights to all citizens.” He replied that Pakistan was created on the ideology of Islam and on the express wishes of the Muslims of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent to “carve out a homeland for themselves and fashion their lives according to the tenets of Islam.”

It would be “anomalous, even hypocritical, to have a head of state who does not subscribe to that ideology,” he concluded.

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