Thirty Years Later: Haile Selassie in Berlin

Thirty years after he earned a niche in history with a poignant appeal to the League of Nations, Haile Selassie I this month appears before another international forum with a much different purpose.

The short-statured Selassie, whose titles include “Emperor of Ethiopia,” “Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah,” and “Elect of God,” will be the ranking statesman among participants in the Berlin World Congress on Evangelism (see story, page 55).

At 75, Selassie has held his office longer than any other active national leader on earth. Most experienced and traveled leader on his continent, he is host and sponsor of the neophyte Organization of African Unity, whose $3 million meeting hall is in his capital city of Addis Ababa. Yet Selassie is a monarch in a democratizing age who traces his royal line further than any other ruler—3,000 years, through 224 other emperors, to the union of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church, of which Selassie is titular head, is equally storied. From the conversion of the Ethiopian recorded in Acts, it developed to official status in the fourth century. The church survived the advent of an aggressive new world faith, even though Ethiopia has for centuries been, as Newsweek put it, “a medieval Christian fortress in a Moslem sea.”

Selassie took control of the fortunes of his primitive, isolated nation in November, 1930, after a struggle with two other regents, one of whom embraced Islam. The new emperor then adopted his present name, which translates, “Instrument and Power of the Trinity.”

The young monarch, who was raised in a French mission school, abolished slavery, wrote the country’s first constitution, and went on to other reforms that ground to a halt when the troops of the Fascist government of Italy invaded in 1935. On June 30, 1936, Selassie symbolized victims of aggression in this century as he appealed to the League of Nations for help:

“Apart from the Kingdom of the Lord, there is not on earth any nation superior to any other.… It is international morality which is at stake.” He predicted the league was “digging its grave” by inaction, and he was right.

After the Italians had been driven out, Selassie returned to a land where most of the educated elite had been butchered. There were only two doctors left in the nation, and malaria and syphilis were rife.

Although he still holds near-absolute power and liberal elements have agitated to overthrow him (most notably in 1960), Selassie is highly respected in Africa and credited with considerable reform.

The emperor’s relations with the official Ethiopian Orthodox Church are interpreted variously, but most feel he has drawn church-state distinctions, and non-Orthodox Christians have recently gained considerable freedom. The Ethiopian church ended its affiliation with the Coptic (Egyptian) Church in 1959 and established its own patriarchate.

Religious News Service Correspondent Jeff Endrst reported from Addis Ababa last month that the rich church is “completely apolitical,” in contrast to its campaign of resistance during the Fascist occupation. He estimates 40 per cent of the nation is Orthodox, another 40 per cent Muslim, and the rest pagan.

Though trinitarian, the Ethiopian church retains some customs from its ancient Jewish roots, such as circumcision, Sabbath observance, an ark in places of worship, and ceremonial sacrifice of goats or lambs. Its scriptural canon includes several books found in neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant Bibles.

Bridging Gaps For Evangelism

Church historians will probably be obliged to distill some conclusions from the World Congress on Evangelism which begins in Berlin this week. Rarely have so many come so far in the interests of gospel proclamation.

The most dramatic world figure on the program is Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia (see story, page 54), an Orthodox believer who is scheduled to bring greetings and deliver an address. The emperor and world-renowned scholars will join humble grass-roots preachers from frontier churches. Besides such crosscurrents of culture and class, there will be a mingling of men from more than 100 nations. The congress is sponsored by CHRISTIANITY TODAY, an American magazine, but the great majority of the 1,200 participants will be from other continents.

Although delegates were chosen from within the framework of historic Christian beliefs, on other criteria they form perhaps the broadest Protestant assembly yet on a world scale.

Virtually every denomination is represented. Anglican bishops in vestments will confer with such contrasting figures as Pentecostal faith-healing evangelist Oral Roberts. The session will also transcend affiliation or non-affiliation with the World and National Councils of Churches and with organic-union plans. Competing and divisive affiliations will be sidelined as a wide variety of independents break rarely crossed boundaries to stress evangelism with ecumenical Christians.

Ecumenical representatives who specialize in evangelism will include Walter Hollenweger of the WCC, Ralph Holdeman of the NCC, and home and foreign missions executives from major denominations.

Among observers will be reporters from New York, Washington, London, Jerusalem, Saigon and other major world cities. Besides reporters, Roman Catholic observers include Father William Joseph Manseau, a 30-year-old Boston priest particularly interested in evangelical Protestantism. A Jewish observer will be Rabbi Arthur Gilbert, expert in interfaith relations and religious freedom for the National Conference of Christians and Jews and, more recently, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.

An effort was made to draw delegates from every nation, but late word from Poland and Burma is that Christians there are unable to get passports. Congress planners held out hope that some Communist Bloc believers will be able to attend.

The congress is to start October 25 with a half-night of prayer. At the formal opening ceremony the next morning, the Bible-bearer will be Bishop Alexander Mar Theophilus of India’s Mar Thoma Church, regarded by many as the oldest Christian communion in existence.

From there, the congress is to follow a general daily pattern: reports on evangelistic conditions around the world, “position papers” on theological aspects of evangelism, committee sessions, and plenary assemblies.

Besides Selassie, major speakers at those assemblies will include Chairman Carl F. H. Henry; Honorary Chairman Billy Graham; Dr. Kyung Chik Han, minister of the 8,500-member Young Nak Presbyterian Church in Seoul, Korea; Dr. Ishaya Audu, vice-chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria; the Right Rev. Chandu Ray, Anglican bishop of Karachi, Pakistan; Dr. John R. W. Stott, Anglican rector in London and a chaplain to Queen Elizabeth; and Dr. Oswald C. J. Hoffmann, “Lutheran Hour” preacher.

Delegates and observers were to be kept busy with a packed program of activities. But Henry has stated publicly that no attempt is being made to determine what will come out of the congress. “It is completely in the hands of the delegates,” he says.

Overture In Berlin

Although the World Congress on Evangelism (story above) has not been called to ratify Billy Graham’s efforts, the climate for planning evangelistic strategy should be set by Graham’s third crusade in Berlin.

Graham was scheduled to speak nightly October 16–23 in the 13,000-seat Deutschlandhalle in the western sector of the divided city. The services won the blessing of the city’s most respected churchman, retired Bishop Otto Dibelius. A street meeting was planned for the heart of the city. Few East Berliners were expected in view of current border restrictions.

Reviewing difficulties involved in the Berlin locale, Graham’s Decision magazine this month adds these notes: “Affluence has lifted the material standards of the Berliners and has rendered some indifferent to the spiritual aspects if life. And the teachings of Rudolf Bultmann and other German theologians, seeking to ‘demythologize’ the Bible, have deeply influenced some of the 500 state church pastors and even some of the 150 free church pastors in Berlin. Letters from overseas critics have also sought to discredit the Crusade.”

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