News Worth Noting: July 05, 1963

NORWEGIAN CENSORSHIP—A ban against the Lutheran motion picture Question 7 is creating a major national issue in Norway. The state censor ruled that young people under sixteen may not view the film, which depicts the Christian struggle against Communism in East Germany. He said the film would expose young people to a “one-sided impression” and would be a “confusing” and “harmful” influence.

PROTESTANT PANORAMA—First Methodist Church Society of Boston plans to restore the city’s famous West End Church, forced by the British in 1776 to remove its towering steeple so it could not be used to send signals to Yankee rebels. The church has been used as a branch of the Boston Public Library since 1896.

A new liberal arts college with Presbyterian roots is taking shape on a 300-acre site at Seneca Falls, New York. It will be named Eisenhower College in honor of the former U. S. president, a Presbyterian. The college, expected to open in 1965, has already been endorsed by the Geneva-Lyons Presbytery and will eventually seek affiliation with the United Presbyterian Synod of New York.

Irish Methodist Conference voted to begin conversations with the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and to welcome inclusion of other Christian denominations that may wish to join in the unity talks.

Lutheran World Federation reports that the number of German Evangelical overseas missionary personnel has more than doubled since 1952—from 499 to 1,155.

A draft constitution for a United Congregational Church of Southern Africa was approved at a meeting of representatives of Congregational groups in South Africa and Southern Rhodesia.

MISCELLANY—A Christian Communications Center to train future ministers in the use of radio and television is being established by the Church Federation of Greater Chicago and eleven denominational seminaries in the area. The center’s initial curriculum will be a course on “The Church’s Broadcasting Minis try” in the fall, for which seminarians will receive credit from their respective theological schools.

Four hundred thousand bushels of wheat are being made available to cyclone victims in East Pakistan through Church World Service. The World Council of Churches said its member denominations had donated nearly $50,000 to help the stricken area. Some 10,000 lives were lost in the storm.

A Venezuelan-born Roman Catholic priest, in making his last will and testament, remembered the “happiness I have enjoyed” in the United States and left $6,000 to the federal government. Father Jesus de Corcugra, a naturalized American citizen, died in March at the age of eighty-eight. He had been assistant pastor of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church in Schenectady, New York.

Christian Committee for Service in Algeria is stepping up its tree-planting program to provide work for the unemployed and to arrest soil erosion. The committee hopes to plant 70,000,000 trees and to continue its program until mid-1965. Some 1,200,000 have already been planted.

President Kennedy accepted honorary chairmanship of the sponsoring committee for the American Churchill Memorial, a war-damaged London church to be relocated at Westminster College, a United Presbyterian school in Fulton, Missouri, where Sir Winston Churchill made his now famous “Iron Curtain” speech in 1946.

Melkite Rite Archbishop George Hakim of Akka, head of the largest Christian community in Israel, called on President Zalman Shazar to offer congratulations on his election. The call marked the first official meeting between the new president and a leader of the Christian community in Israel.

A special plaque was presented by the Boy Scouts of America to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the denomination’s scouting program.

PERSONALIA—Screen star Dolores Hart, a convert to Catholicism who played a nun in a film on St. Francis of Assisi, says she is forsaking her film career to enter a convent in Connecticut.

Dr. Kenneth Watson resigned as executive director of the Religion and Labor Council of America.

Dr. Jon L. Regier appointed chief of staff of the National Council of Churches’ emergency Commission on Religion and Race.

Dr. Clemens C. Granskou retiring as president of St. Olaf College.

Dr. Wallace N. Jamison elected president of New Brunswick Theological Seminary, succeeding Dr. Justin Vander Kolk.

Resignation of Dr. Henry Bast as professor of theology at Western Theo logical Seminary to return to the pastorate was accepted by the General Synod of the Reformed Church in America.

Dr. Casper Nannes, religion editor of the Washington Star, presented with the annual Award in Religious Communications by Religious Heritage of America.

The Rev. Francis Kirkegaard Wagschal named chaplain of Waterloo Lutheran University.

The Rev. William J. Boone, 32-year-old Methodist minister, named chaplain of the Protestant Chapel to be built at New York International Airport.

Pastor Gerhart Nordholt elected president of the synod of the Evangelical Reformed Church of North-West Germany.

The Rev. Jaroslav J. Vajda appointed editor of This Day, monthly family magazine of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

Dr. James Allen Knight appointed professor of psychiatry and religion at Union Theological Seminary, New York.

Dr. Martin E. Marty appointed associate professor of church history at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.

Chaplain (Rear Admiral) J. Floyd Dreith appointed Chief of U. S. Navy Chaplains. He is a minister of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

Dr. W. A. Adams retiring as professor of New Testament at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The Rev. William Havenkamp elected president of the Christian Reformed Church.

Dr. Stewart Winfield Herman appointed first president of the new Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

WORTH QUOTING—“Roman Catholicism has moved further in the past three years than Protestantism has moved in the past fifty years.”—Dr. Samuel H. Miller, dean of Harvard Divinity School.

“It just swells a white man’s pride that he has integrated his church by inviting one Negro.”—The Rev. Denzil A. Carty, rector of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Deaths

DR. GEORGE P. MICHAELIDES, 70, director emeritus of the Shauffler Division of Christian Education at the Oberlin Graduate College School of Theology; in Oberlin, Ohio.

DR. E. GRAHAM WILSON, 79, retired general secretary of the United Presbyterian Board of National Missions; in Bronxville, New York.

DR. T. J. BACH, 82, general director emeritus of The Evangelical Alliance Mission; in Yucaipa, California.

RUTH F. WOODSMALL, 79, retired general secretary of the Young Women’s Christian Association world headquarters in Geneva; in New York City.

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