Religious Communications: A Blow at Secrecy in the Churches

Ever since the murder when Cain pleaded ignorant of his brother’s whereabouts, man has been trying to suppress information that he regards as unfavorable. Even in the modern-day church, which has a communications revolution at its disposal, little progress has been made toward achieving the biblical norm of a candid record of history. If King David had been anything like leading twentieth-century figures, he might have persuaded his biographer to omit the episode with Bathsheba. If the writer of Acts had been as wary of truth as are some of today’s prominent churchmen, he would likely have chosen not to reflect the divisions that arose between Peter and Paul and those between Paul and Barnabas.

In Bossey, Switzerland, earlier this year, a group of forty communications specialists met at the Ecumenical Institute for five days to thrash out the problems of information. Out of the consultation came a recommendation and a statement that may be something of a landmark in the church communications process. The statement calls upon the World Council of Churches to produce a document on communications at its next assembly. More important, however, it asks churches to “conduct their activities openly so that the world may know not only the ultimate decisions and declarations of policy but how those decisions were reached.”

But observers who find such a disavowal of ecclesiastical secrecy impressive must also take into account the fact that not even these communications specialists seemed to be altogether sold on the idea. No public announcement was made as to which of the participants endorsed the statement. Some apparently refused to sign it. The hope, therefore, that the churches will ever implement such a principle seems remote. That some did sign, however, and that the consultation was sponsored by the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ and the Department of Information of the World Council of Churches, is significant.

The statement asserts that “more than any other institution the Christian Church has the duty to reveal its aims and activities truthfully, clearly, and promptly to its own members and the public.”

“Churches must be willing to open their group and plenary discussions to representatives of the mass media. Closed sessions should be reserved only for matters of personnel and administration.”

One participant contributed a timely warning of his own: “Churches and their agencies must not retreat behind the protection of official communiques.”

Said another: “Interpretation and full explanation of different positions held in meetings are a more effective means of preventing distortion of the news than secrecy and the use of mysterious communiques.”

Although the Bossey consultation was geared to mainstream denominations, its concerns also reflect situations in the more independent bodies. Religious secrecy today is not confined to any theological or ecclesiological stratum. Some observers feel that continual suppression of information by churches and religious leaders dilutes the religious impact as a whole.

Addressing himself to another but perhaps related concern was Dr. Truman B. Douglass, executive vice-president of the Board for Homeland Ministries of the United Church of Christ. He asserted that the churches have been surrendering their historic role as molders of public opinion.

Studies show, Douglass said, that Americans derive more than 80 per cent of their new ideas from mass communications media and that “sermons were not even mentioned as a source of ideas.”

Prelude To Ecumenics

Controversy is sometimes the ingredient of material success. And if it is a favorable indicator, the Christian Pavilion planned for the Montreal World’s Fair in 1967 should do pretty well. The ecumenical project has already become the butt of considerable criticism.

The Canadian Churchman, Anglican national newspaper, noted recently the way the projected cost of the building has gone up. Estimates started at $1 million and $2 million. The most recent, published in the Expo Journal, was $7 million.

“Anyone like to try for ten?” asked an editorial in the Churchman.

A United Church of Canada presbytery has also had some harsh criticism for the pavilion, which involves Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, and Protestants. But the Rt. Rev. Ernest Marshall Howse, moderator of the United Church of Canada, has defended the $2,000,000 figure.

Said Howse: “Considering the astronomical millions that Canadian church people will spend on cigarettes and alcoholic liquors, on pleasure boats and ski resorts, on cosmetics and even on funerals, an average of less than ten cents per citizen for a unified Christian witness at Canada’s centenary exposition need not be too mordantly criticized.”

Davey And Goliath

“All right,” says a father to his son, “What’ve you done you shouldn’t have done?”

“I lost a ski,” the boy confesses after some hedging.

“All those good works were to soften me up so I’d forgive you,” says the father sternly. “Carrying and shoveling and washing can’t buy forgiveness.”

“No sir.”

“But I forgive you.”

“Huh?” says the boy, astonished.

“Do you know why?… Think.”

“Is it—is it like you said God forgives us because he loves us?”

Father nods, then says, “And not because you what?”

“Not because I try to buy it,” says the boy. “I’m a dope,” he adds happily to himself.

So runs an excerpt of a weekly television program called “Davey and Goliath,” an attempt by the Lutheran Church in America to tell children what God is like through the experiences of a boy (Davey) and his dog (Goliath). The idea was born about seven years ago when Richard Sutcliffe, now associate director of the denomination’s Commission on Press, Radio and Television, asked himself how he would tell a child about God if he had only one month to do it in. Together with Nancy Moore, a writer with an ear for dialogue, Arthur Clokey, a Hollywood cartoon “animator,” and others, he came up with Davey and Goliath.

Clokey built seven-inch-high models with movable limbs and a variety of facial expressions, and his crew took “moving” pictures of them by positioning them on a tiny stage, shooting two frames, moving the models a fraction of an inch, shooting two more frames, and so on.

Improvising as he went along, Clokey achieved ingenious effects; he once used the pond in his back yard to stage a storm scene. A hard day’s work produced about forty-two seconds of film. A single fifteen-minute episode, from idea to finished product, took about three months to make and cost $15,000.

The indications are that the money has been well spent. Currently on about 100 television stations, the program has proved an appeal to children. Some time ago, “Davey and Goliath” calendars were offered on several stations. The 10,000 that had been printed were quickly gone. In 1961 “Davey and Goliath” was a United States entry in the Venice film festival.

Sutcliffe says he wanted the appeal to be broad enough to make Davey welcome in non-religious and even anti-religious homes. (Despite its success, however, he frankly doubts whether “Davey” is effectively reaching this audience.) Making talk about God sound interesting to children accustomed to more mundane TV entertainment was a formidable task; nor was it found easy to steer between the extremes of sectarianism and theological blandness. It was decided, for example, not to mention the name of Christ on the program. However, says Sutcliffe, “we dealt with the God we saw in Christ.”

The reports are that children not only like the show but want to talk about its implications afterwards. A Sunday school teacher once had to abandon her carefully prepared lesson plan because her children wanted to talk about Davey and what he was learning about God.

One television executive has called the series “the only religious films for young people that come anywhere near their objective.”

GEORGE WILLIAMS

The Doorway Of Literacy

Dr. Frank C. Laubach is urging formation of “companies of compassion” to push forward the fight against illiteracy. Laubach, noted literacy expert who originated the “each one teach one” reading program, told a banquet audience in New York last month that groups of 100 people are needed to take up the task. He projected an “army of 10,000” dedicated to teaching and raising spiritual values in the world.

Having reached his eightieth birthday last September, Laubach has been honored at several events across the country. Last month’s banquet was sponsored by the Laymen’s Movement for a Christian World and Laubach Literacy, Inc.

In his address, Laubach underscored the pressures of the population explosion in areas where “the hungry, writhing masses” are also desperate for education.

“We have a wide-open door in the underprivileged countries where the government cannot enter,” he said. “These governments are desperately eager for help because they do not have teachers or books or money or know-how.”

He pointed out that the Soviet Union has “lifted one-half of its people out of illiteracy” in the past twenty years. Urging that Americans become teachers wherever they happen to be abroad, Laubach noted that this is the practice of the Communists in many places.

Americans should not be so afraid of being “subverted” by Communist propaganda, he declared, but should do some “subverting” for the Christian faith and a better way of life wherever they are.

Results achieved in the thirty years he has been teaching adults in 103 countries were reviewed by Laubach. Everywhere, even in Muslim countries, he said, he has found the “wide-open door.”

As one example of what can be achieved, Laubach quoted from the new book, Literacy, the Essential Skill, by four teachers who reported changes that have taken place in human response and community action in scores of Egyptian villages as the people learned to read and write.

“There is a new light in their eyes, and the idea of progress is in the air,” Laubach quoted from the book.

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