Billy Graham in Hawaii

To the westernmost projection of U. S. soil, Hawaii, Billy Graham last month carried his crusades, and pastors in the fiftieth state agreed that never before in the 145-year history of Christianity on the islands had the churches been so united in a single effort.

From the first, a sense of spiritual urgency was felt in the churches. Some thought it was because the war in Viet Nam had suddenly heated up and the people of Hawaii—many of them from military families—knew they were part of the western defense perimeter. Others regarded it as an answer to more than a year of earnest prayer for the Hawaiian Islands. Strange as it may seem to mainlanders, Christianity is embraced by less than 10 per cent of the state’s population.

The Rev. Walter Smyth, director of crusades for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said that the Hawaiian crusade produced a record percentage of ministerial involvement. Dr. Thomas Crosby, pastor of the Central Union Church and co-chairman of the crusade, said more ministers turned out for a breakfast at which Billy Graham spoke than for any other event he had witnessed.

Not everyone was enthusiastic. Two voices were raised in public protest. One was that of an assistant professor of religion at the University of Hawaii who said Graham promoted a “happiness religion” and reinforced “religious prejudice, which is perhaps the most basic prejudice of all.”

A Unitarian minister said the effect of the crusade was to sidestep social reform and added that he suspected certain “unheralded sponsors” were financing the crusade for this reason.

Defense of Graham came from an unusual source. Rabbi Roy A. Rosenberg told his congregation at Temple Emanu-El that the criticism raised a basic religious question:

“Should religious institutions be transformed into secular societies whose primary function will be the debate of social and political issues? Or should religion retain its character as a way of life, teaching man about his God, the relationship of man to God, and, as a corollary, the relationship of man to man.”

The rabbi warned against the danger of churches’ losing their theology while concentrating on a social or political issue. While not agreeing with Graham’s theology, Rosenberg said he respects Graham because “he has a theology, and religion without theology is irrelevant.”

The crusade, held February 14–21 in Honolulu, was extended to three neighboring islands the following week; at each of these, associate evangelists preached for several days and Graham came in for the closing meeting.

The seven meetings held in Honolulu’s 8,300-seat International Center drew a nightly average of 7,100, with a turnaway crowd on the opening night. The closing meeting was held in Honolulu Stadium with 15,500 in attendance.

Crusade officials said 2,907 inquirers were counseled during the eight-day crusade.

STAN MOONEYHAM

A Page One Debut

The New York Times said last month that in considering a report from the United Presbyterian committee drafting a new statement of faith, the denomination’s General Assembly will be taking up a proposal “for the first major doctrinal changes in American Presbyterianism since its establishment in 1706.”

The newspaper, in a page one story in its voluminous Sunday edition, declared that the proposal “would support Presbyterians holding modern theological positions, as well as those with traditional views.” This the committee seeks to do by giving its new statement equal standing with a number of historic creeds (see CHRISTIANITY TODAY, October 23, 1964) and including them together in what has been called the “symbolical book of the church.”

A United Presbyterian spokesman says the final draft of the proposed new confession will appear in the denomination’s annual blue book due to appear about April 15. The General Assembly, to be held in Columbus, Ohio, will convene May 20.

The Times carried a complete description of the draft, paraphrasing major sections. It did not quote from the statement but directly attributed a considerable amount of comment on it to Dr. Edward A. Dowey, Jr., professor at Princeton Theological Seminary who has served as committee chairman. The newspaper quoted Dowey as saying that drafts of the proposal were widely discussed last year with seminary and church groups and that they had met with “vigorous criticism of specific points but general acceptance of the main outlines.”

When the proposal reaches the assembly floor, the newspaper predicted, “organized opposition from conservatives can be expected.”

The Times observed that the new statement will “reflect a ‘Christocentric’ rather than a ‘Biblical’ view of theology.”

“Proponents of the revision” were said to be complaining that the doctrines of predestination and the freedom of the Scriptures from error have limited the church’s ability to speak to the modern world. Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, stated clerk, was quoted as saying that the adoption of the proposal would “contribute to the movement for church unity by making our own confessional base more Biblical.”

Time and Newsweek magazines picked up the story the following week. Time asserts that the new confession does not have to deal with predestination because “an amendment to the Westminster Confession way back in 1903 effectively modified the Calvinist doctrine that some men are predestined for salvation while others are damned to hell.” Newsweek observes that “without denying the traditional Calvinistic theories of predestination, the proposed document will focus on salvation as the ‘reconciliation’ of the world to God through Jesus.”

Catholic Developments

One of the world’s leading ecumenists predicted last month that Pope Paul VI will “transform” or revise current Roman Catholic canon law on mixed marriages. The forecast came from Pastor Marc Boegner, for many years president of the French Protestant Federation and a past co-president of the World Council of Churches, after a meeting in Geneva. During that meeting, Augustin Cardinal Bea, president of the Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, announced that Roman Catholic authorities had accepted with “great joy” the World Council’s proposal that Vatican-WCC discussions explore the possibilities of dialogue and collaboration.

Mixed-marriage problems were discussed before the Vatican Council as part of a widescale schema on marriage. The bishops voted, however, to remove the schema from the council and send it to the Pontifical Commission for the Revision of the Code of Canon Law. Religious News Service says that during the course of the controversy there has been a general rise in the number of mixed marriages.

In Washington, D. C., last month, a Roman Catholic marriage ceremony was disavowed by the performing priest’s archdiocesan superiors because an Episcopal clergyman had also taken part. The bride is Catholic, the groom Episcopal.

Pressure was also building up for Roman Catholics on the religious liberty issue and the birth control question. A 25-year-old British priest was promptly called to task after he published an article advocating the use of contraceptives by married couples.

The Vatican celebrated something of a victory for religious liberty in the release of Josef Cardinal Beran, Archbishop of Prague, after more than fifteen years of internment and virtual house arrest.

In Rome, performances of The Deputy were banned, and police sought a link with a terrorist bombing at the Vatican.

Authorities in Spain, meanwhile, seem to be taking a harder line against Protestants. Twenty-six churches are reported to be waiting for government authorization. Police in Madrid refused to grant permission for a Protestant fellowship supper. At least two pastors have been fined for distributing Christian literature in recent months. Some Protestant engaged couples have waited from nine to eighteen months for marriage licenses only to be turned down.

Campus Awakening

A spirit of revival came down upon the campus of Wheaton College last month as the climax of a spiritual emphasis week that featured Dr. J. Edwin Orr as guest speaker. At the close of the last evening service, the evangelist-author with an Oxford doctorate invited members of the senior class to step to the front of the chapel to voice personal testimonies. A number did, and they were followed by many other students.

About 1,000 students gathered every evening for services at which attendance was voluntary. So many students lined up to give testimonies on the concluding night that the meeting continued until midnight. The testimonies were punctuated with personal confessions of sin, recalling a larger spiritual awakening that swept the same campus in 1950.

Orr went on to several smaller campuses for preaching engagements and reported somewhat similar responses. At Wheaton, prayer vigils marked a follow-up effort.

Dallas At Forty

Lacking only a charming heroine, the history of Dallas Theological Seminary invites attention from a serious playwright. The backdrop is the cultural center of the American Southwest. The plot is the perennial evangelical struggle to maintain academic respectability in the aftermath of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy. The subplot is the determination to expound both the evangelical faith and premillennial dispensationalism in reasonable and scholarly terms. The protagonists are a long list of learned Bible expositors including Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer, Dr. W. H. Griffith Thomas, Dr. H. A. Ironside, Dr. John F. Walvoord, and Dr. Charles C. Ryrie.

Incorporated forty years ago last month, Dallas Theological Seminary has earned a wide reputation for the caliber of its instruction. At least 13 per cent of its graduates now serve as missionaries, 23 per cent as teachers, and 46 per cent as pastors. Among its alumni are some noted evangelical leaders. The campus along Swiss Avenue in Dallas has expanded steadily despite a measure of denominational opposition and a comparative lack of wealthy donors. Some 600 persons helped to celebrate the school’s rich history at a founders’ banquet on February 26.

The seminary is a fountainhead of dispensational theology, a wing of evangelical thought that makes a seven-fold division of biblical revelation. Dispensationalism has vocal critics who charge some of its advocates with dividing churches.

Dispensationalists largely take the Bible literally, and they know their eschatology. A few take off on dogmatic tangents to the distress of more responsible advocates, and Dallas Seminary occasionally catches the backfire. Students once greeted a special lecturer who apparently went overboard on typology with a note on the chapel door, “How many types can you word a minute?”

Is Dallas itself too dogmatic in its promotion of dispensationalism? A scholarly, 256-page defense of the dispensationalist concept by Dean Ryrie of the Dallas graduate school is due from Moody Press April 15. The book, DispensationalismToday, defines dispensationalist teaching, traces its history, and offers detailed rebuttal of its critics. But it is not likely to silence anti-dispensationalists.

Although the seminary does not presently seek accreditation, few doubt its high academic priorities. The faculty members hold Ph.D. degrees from such leading universities as Johns Hopkins, Duke, Illinois, Boston, and Edinburgh. They seek to give students (current enrollment: 327) thorough knowledge of the Bible and to equip them with tools to preach it and teach it effectively. In contrast with three-year courses at other seminaries, Dallas requires four years for its first degree. It is doubtful whether any other seminary gives all its students the extensive grounding in Hebrew and Greek required at Dallas.

But intellectual preparation is not enough, says President Walvoord, “The work of the Holy Spirit is indispensable to effective preparation of the minister of the Word. The seminary, therefore, expects its students to be yielded to the Spirit of God, obedient to his will, and to recognize his divine authority in all areas.”

Anglican Cross Fire

The official responsible for controlling microphones fell asleep during a session of last month’s Church Assembly at Westminster. Under other circumstances it might have been hailed as a merciful release, but the just indignation that descended upon the luckless operator’s head was a reflection of the unexpected utterances of Englishmen on an ecclesiastical occasion.

Things got off to a lively start for the Anglicans when Mr. Ivor Bulmer-Thomas, a redoubtable warrior who favors the bludgeon over the rapier, again spoke his mind. “The spiritual state of the diocese of Southwark,” he declared, “is a matter of disgrace.” Amid gasps and some mirth the Bishop of Southwark, Dr. Mervyn Stockwood, asked for the chair’s protection, and finally the Archbishop of Canterbury ruled the remark out of order. But Mr. Bulmer-Thomas had not finished. He turned his attention to the Honest to God author, Dr. John Robinson, Bishop of Woolwich. The latter had criticized a measure that did not allow diocesan authorities to dispose of church property; he cited one instance where, if such powers had been held, a good price could have been obtained. Retorted Mr. Bulmer-Thomas, “The answer to the Bishop of Woolwich was given two thousand years ago—you cannot serve God and Mammon.” He criticized a recent statement of the bishop’s superior (Dr. Stockwood), who said he would like to pull down half the churches in his diocese. Mr. Bulmer-Thomas went on to say he had heard the Bishop of Woolwich “putting up a perfectly splendid defense of atheism. It is not from that quarter that we can look for guidance if we wish to proceed, and if the people of England are to return to the Gospel.”

A report on Crown appointments also provoked some word-slinging. The Bishop of Exeter, Dr. Robert Mortimer, objected to the proposal by which a suffragan bishop would be appointed on the recommendations of the two archbishops and the diocesan bishop, rather than (as now) by the latter only. Dr. Mortimer pointed to the absurdity that someone should have a large say in the appointment of a suffragan bishop in the West Country, whose only knowledge of conditions there might be that he had spent his honeymoon in the area some years ago.

This was an important point, and officialdom brought its big guns to bear on this rare episcopal revolt. The Archbishop of York, Dr. Donald Coggan, expressed polite skepticism that he and his colleague, Dr. Ramsey, should “gang up” on a poor diocesan in the choice of a suffragan—and added that even archbishops disagree on occasion. The argument, not a convincing one, was challenged by the Bishop of Southwark. It was not at all clear whether Dr. Stockwood intended a barbed shaft when he stated that if the two present archbishops continued in office, it would be very difficult for a young bishop to stand up against men of such great experience “as they would be in ten years’ time.” Finally an amendment was carried that in the appointment of suffragans left the initiative in the hands of the diocesan bishop, with the endorsement of the archbishop of his province.

The other major item of business came at the end of the week when the House of Laity met to discuss the proposed Methodist merger, and to make recommendations that will be considered when a final decision is made at the joint-Convocations meeting in May. Much of the misgiving voiced by lay speakers centered around the Service of Reconciliation (see CHRISTIANITY TODAY, News, March 15, 1963). Supporters of the services said they were not requiring Methodist ordination (cries of dissent from the High Churchmen) but adding episcopal ordination. The result, it was claimed pragmatically, would provide a ministry acceptable to all. The “studied ambiguity” of the form of service, suggested Mr. Jack Wallace, reflected some such prayer as, “O Lord, we know we are acting a kind of charade; please, do thou bless it.” Charade or not, the House of Laity duly approved it by 95–31, approved in principle the proposed merger by 128–8, and recommended the establishment of a joint Anglican-Methodist consultative body to consider and clarify doubts.

J. D. DOUGLAS

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