Churchmen Weigh Causes and Effects

Evil spewed out of the urban ghettos this summer in a torrent of violence that battered at the consciences of even the most complacent Christians. Riots in dozens of cities left scores dead and hundreds maimed and injured, as well as untold property destruction. An alarmed Lyndon Johnson became the first U. S. president in many a day to call a special day of prayer for a domestic crisis. And even before the smoke cleared, new misery stalked the inner city as thousands of homeless sought food and shelter. It was hard to believe that this was really happening in America.

In the inevitable effort to assign the blame, a wide assortment of factors were cited: subversion, the new morality, plain old mischief, the liquor traffic, lack of firearms control, and Christian indifference. The truth undoubtedly lay in a combination of some of these and others. But the fiery glow of the fury made the dust jacket of Billy Graham’s best-selling World Aflame all too real and pointed with new force to the cause that underlies all the rest: human sin.

Many Christians responded to Johnson’s prayer plea on Sunday, July 30, and some went a step further, searching their own hearts in a spirit of repentance, realizing that the summer’s sin was not exclusively that of the sniper and the slum lord but extended as well to the insensitive suburbanite.

Christians may not condone violence but “must understand it,” and will be “gravely in error” if they seek a “scapegoat in order to feel relief from our own guilt in all of this,” said Methodist Bishop Dwight E. Loder of Michigan.

A number of other individual churchmen spoke out on the causes and effects of the riots. But corporate ecclesiastical statements were few and far between. Normally vocal ecumenical and social-action groups, preoccupied with Viet Nam, were silent.

Among personal viewpoints expressed, none is more to the point than that of the Rev. Louis Johnson, pastor of Friendship Baptist Church in Detroit. “We need a new boldness in the preaching of the Gospel, and a new emphasis on love to counteract the hate proclaimed by militant black-power advocates like Stokely Carmichael and Rap Brown,” he says. But Johnson also pleads for evangelical churches to turn their eyes back to the city and to attack the problems of inadequate housing, education, and employment. “Churches have been closing down Christian centers in the inner city while the government is opening them up,” he said. He is critical of denominational programs that emphasize social action to the point that the presentation of the Gospel is either shallow or non-existent.

According to Johnson, Detroit rioters spared churches and public buildings. He said attendance at his church was up the Sunday following the riots. He gave credit to both Negro and white church people who acted quickly after the unrest to provide relief. And he urged suburbanites to identify with inner-city dwellers in normal times as well as abnormal.

In Minneapolis, St. Joseph’s Catholic church and school were extensively damaged by arsonists, who set fires to both ends of a tunnel connecting the two plants. Clergymen attending a “post-mortem meeting” on the riots were urged by one speaker to declare a moratorium on church building projects for 1968 and use the money for social improvements. A pastor told the group, “Your stained-glass windows keep you from seeing the scum of our society. If you didn’t have the cold winters of do-nothing, you wouldn’t have the long hot summers of violence.”

The biggest church controversies rising out of the rioting resulted from the use of Episcopal Church property for black-power meetings in Newark, New Jersey, and Washington, D. C. The National Conference on Black Power, planned for Newark long before the rioting there, was held July 20–23 with the Episcopal diocesan headquarters as its administrative center. Episcopal Bishop Leland Stark later mailed “a letter of explanation” about the meeting to the 32,000 families in the diocese. He said that “neither the diocese nor its urban department was in any sense a sponsor of the conference” and expressed his disappointment at the outcome.

In Washington, extremist H. Rap Brown spoke at a rally in St. Stephen and the Incarnation Church the day after his arrest in connection with a burning in Cambridge, Maryland. Rector William A. Wendt said “the church should be a place where differing opinions can be expressed and discussed, where dialogue can take place.”

At a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee rally held in the church, Brown was quoted as calling President Johnson an “outlaw” and saying, “I agree there should be more shooting and looting. If you’re going to loot, you’ve got to arm yourselves, brothers.… If Washington, D. C., don’t come around, Washington, D. C., should be burned down.”

The man behind the black-power meeting in Newark was actually a relatively conservative Episcopal churchman (see story following) whose five degrees included one earned at Harvard under Pitirim Sorokin. Dr. Nathan Wright, Jr., 44, chairman of the meeting, currently serves as executive director of the department of urban work of the Episcopal diocese. He contends that the meeting was a responsible gathering that was poorly reported and given a distorted image.

‘Creative’ Black Power

Dr. Nathan Wright, Jr., who chaired the controversial black-power meeting in Newark last month, is an open advocate of black power, and is probably its most articulate spokesman. He argues that the term “black power” is widely misunderstood, that basically it symbolizes merely the Negro’s chance to seek his own identity and rightful place in the economic and social structure. His thesis is that black power creatively used can and should be a movement vital to the growth, development, and peace of the entire country. The riots, he emphasizes, are in no way related to the term.

Wright was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, and raised in Cincinnati. On July 14, Hawthorn Books came out with his Black Power and Urban Unrest, an analysis of the Negro’s plight in the inner city. His next volume, Ready to Riot, is due soon.

Wright calls the riots a “form of insanity,” and quotes Negroes as saying, “We don’t want anything. We just want to be people.”

He is severely critical of the reaction of civil authorities toward the rioting Negroes and points out that virtually all of the actual killing was done by the whites at the expense of the Negroes.

Wright’s black-power book takes sharp issue with long-term government relief: “The conservatives are right when they decry a growing bureaucratic trend which is self-perpetuating, and which is beyond both critical re-examination and curtailment … At some point a determined assault on useless or destructive functions in government must be made. There is no better point to begin than with our present far too highly involved and debilitating system of long-term relief.”

Sour Grapes In California

With the peak of harvest only a few weeks away, an “ecumenical conciliation service” worked out at least a temporary truce between the warring United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (AFL-CIO) of Cesar Chavez and the powerful Teamsters in California. The rival unions had argued bitterly for months over which was to organize farm workers in the nation’s most populous state. But even before a formal pact was signed, a new and equally acrid controversy erupted between religious leaders and the Council of California Growers.

Many teeth have been on edge in California’s sprawling San Joaquin Valley since the Delano grape strike—spurred by organized church support—soured on the vine late in 1965. The strike, which later affected other crops, was transformed into a civil-rights struggle by outside groups. The debate as to whether the churches should take sides in the farm-worker unionization drive raged hot and heavy. Later demonstrations and altercations and the activities of the Migrant Ministry (which lent some of its staff to Chavez’s union) received national attention.

Last spring, an ad hoc committee of prominent San Francisco Bay area clergymen began a series of quiet, private meetings to “resolve the situation” that existed between the AFL-CIO farm-worker group and the Teamsters. Both unions were vying for the loyalty—and dues—of the state’s estimated 80,000 field hands.

Union representatives met with the clergymen and agreed that Chavez’s union would organize field workers and leave cannery and creamery workers, employees of frozen-and dehydrated-food plants, and warehousemen and truckers to the Teamsters.

The truce paved the way for the world’s largest wineries to agree to union elections. It also provided a vitriolic response from many vintners and growers, who called the mediation effort “a cleric-union cartel … designed to literally bludgeon California farmers until they respond to the whims of the powerful bosses of organized labor.”

The growers’ spokesman, California Growers executive O. W. Fillerup, said that the same church people who for the past two years have “attempted to exert their influence in all phases of the farm-worker organizing drive” apparently now have “appointed themselves the ultimate authority as to who will decide what contracts are valid, who should be boycotted, who should be picketed, and literally who does what to whom.”

In reply, the religious leaders said they regretted the “unwarranted attack” and insisted they only intend to bring peace to farm-labor disputes. Members of the committee include the Rev. Eugene Boyle of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, the Rev. Richard Byfield of the Episcopal Diocese of California, Rabbi Joseph B. Glaser of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Methodist Bishop Donald Tippett, Episcopal Bishop C. Kilmer Myers, United Church of Christ executive Richard Norberg, and United Presbyterian executive J. Davis Illingworth.

How were the clergy able to press the two union giants to a jurisdiction settlement when even the state conciliation service had been unable to break the deadlock? Informed sources believe the clergy pitch appealed to Teamsters International Vice-president Einar O. Mohn, a leading Missouri Synod Lutheran layman. Observers on the labor scene see Mohn’s church-influenced move as a step toward national reaffiliation of Teamsters and the AFL-CIO.

Meanwhile, Glen Hofman, a legislative advocate hired by the California Council of Churches, asserted that the Church must get more deeply involved in politics, labor disputes, and “the legislative process on all levels.” This appears to advocate church backing for mandatory collective-bargaining laws, unemployment insurance, and higher minimum wages for farm workers.

RUSSELL CHANDLER

Graham’S Rousing Red Welcome

Extraordinary scenes accompanied Billy Graham’s visit last month to Zagreb, second city and biggest economic, cultural, and scientific center of Yugoslavia. Never has the American evangelist known a welcome quite like what he received on this first preaching visit to a Communist country, made on the invitation of Christians working with Dr. Josip Horak, president of the Yugoslav Baptist Union.

Among the 10,000 who heard Graham during the two-day meetings were some who had made long, tedious journeys by coach from east and south, and even from other socialist republics. They surged round him after each meeting with tears of joy and kisses of welcome, holding copies for autograph of Peace with God, newly translated into Croatian. One woman from Macedonia gave the American an enormous bag of walnuts, another some fragrant roses.

At a press conference attended by local secular journalists, among others, Graham invited questions of a nonpolitical nature. In a most friendly atmosphere (characteristic of his whole visit) he dealt with relations between Christians and atheists, follow-up work, why he had come, by what authority he preached, and his attitude toward Roman Catholics.

The Yugoslav hosts had arranged a reception for him at the Esplanade Intercontinental Hotel, at which local government officials were present. Earlier the Roman Catholic archbishop had cordially greeted the evangelist after a crowded meeting in the Lutheran church.

But it was those Sunday meetings that were most memorable. Held on a football field owned by the Roman Catholic Church, beside an army hospital administered by that church, these first open-air services in Zagreb for many years drew more than 7,000 people. The rain poured down relentlessly that morning, but no one moved. From the hospital balconies, pajama-clad convalescents (Graham wished them a speedy recovery) saw and heard the proceedings with nuns and other staff. “Such a wonderful opportunity,” murmured a choir member. “Praise the Lord!”

By afternoon the weather had cleared, and the sun was shining when Graham mounted the temporary rostrum with Dr. Branko Lovrec, who shared the work of interpreting with Horak. The evangelist spoke for forty-seven minutes on Luke 14, citing some of the excuses men still have for not heeding God’s invitation, one that should be accepted above all other demands. As in the meetings that morning and the previous night, scores of hands were raised on all sides when he invited people to make a commitment to Jesus Christ.

“We never dreamt that such meetings would be possible,” said a greatly moved Horak in the closing minutes. He proffered a strong invitation to return, and the resounding response from the audience left no doubt that he was speaking for all.

After the Lutheran pastor had pronounced the benediction there was a poignant scene when everyone linked hands for “Blest Be the Tie that Binds,” led by the choir first in Croatian, then in English. That Graham is a truly ecumenical force was seen in one platform group, hands linked, that consisted of five clergymen: a Roman Catholic, a Lutheran, two Orthodox, and a Presbyterian.

When Graham left Zagreb two hours later, a great crowd filled the railroad station, singing and waving. Some had a banner: “DR. BILLY GRAHAM, COME BACK SOON TO ZAGREB.” It was clear from his response that the evangelist would like nothing better.

Earlier that week Graham had spoken twice and given a press conference in Turin, Italy—a country that was another first for him. An enormous crowd crammed into the Waldensian church, stood in the aisles, overflowed the adjacent hall, and spilt into the courtyard, to which the service was relayed—3,000 or more, according to press reports next day. At a morning session, chiefly for churchfolk, he had spoken by request on the communication of the Gospel in a secular age.

In contrast to the recent London crusade, during which certain minor incidents occurred, there was no hint of hostile demonstration toward the evangelist in either Italy or Yugoslavia.

J. D. DOUGLAS

East Europe: Open And Shut

Billy Graham’s trouble-free visit to Yugoslavia (story above) was evidence of considerable freedom for evangelicals in that Communist nation. Last month more than 800 Yugoslavs attended the dedication of a new Baptist theological school and church in Novi Sad that will train Protestants of other denominations as well. The nation’s Baptists have also been able to run a youth camp in Pomer, where about fifteen youths accept Christ each year. This summer a young man from a Balkan country was baptized at the camp.

During Graham’s trip, the Vatican disclosed that neighboring Albania had closed its remaining Roman Catholic churches and turned the main cathedral into a museum. Pushing the closing were youth bands similar to those in ally Red China.

Meanwhile, a study mission from the American Jewish Congress reports that Jews have considerably more freedom in Eastern Europe than in the Soviet Union. Yugoslavia had “the most vibrant Jewish community.” Albania was not included in the survey.

Whatever problems Soviet Jews face are shared by dissident Baptists, who favor complete separation from the state. Religion in Communist Dominated Areas—a National Council of Churches newsletter that recently was shifted from the coexistence-minded International Affairs department to the Overseas Department—reports on a year-old protest from Baptists in Kiev. They ask government recognition for their nonconformist group and charge persecutions that amount to “genocide.”

The statement criticizes the government for “systematic repressions, assaults, arrests, trials, searches, destruction and confiscation of prayer houses, removal of children, breaking up of services, discrimination against believers in factories and educational institutions, the incitement of public opinion against believers by false and libelous concoctions in the press, etc.”

Soviet Anniversary

On August 20 the Baptists in the Soviet Union mark their 100th anniversary. The celebration date, which was announced rather late, is several months earlier than had been expected by Western Baptists, so the number of overseas visitors is likely to be limited.

European Baptist Press Service speculates that the purpose of the early date for the observance is to allow an interval before the fiftieth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in November.

According to EBPS, Russian Baptists trace their origins to Tiflis, Georgia State. The first convert was merchant Nikita Voronin, 27, raised in a group of dissenters from Eastern Orthodoxy, who began studying the Bible on his own. He was counseled and eventually baptized by Martin Kalvaitis, a Lithuanian who had joined a Baptist church in East Prussia. The first Russian baptism occurred at night on August 20, 1867, in the Kura River. Separate Baptist movements began in later years in the Ukraine and Leningrad. The movement today has about 500,000 followers.

India Bars Missionaries

Three Britons brought to fourteen the number of missionaries refused entry to India since March 1. No reason has been given for the ban. Last November the government issued new regulations requiring a minimum of five years’ residence in India and return within three months. All the latest missionaries refused had served in India previously.

However, the Parliament rejected laws proposed by Hindu militants that would force all funds of foreign Christian agencies to be funneled through the government and prohibit conversion of Indians under age 21 to Christianity.

Despite a good harvest this year, food tensions remain. In Kerala State, Father Joseph Vadakkan, the only Roman Catholic priest in the nation who favored the state’s Communist-led coalition, thinks Catholics should withdraw support if the government doesn’t get surplus rice and stop inflation of rice prices. The Lutheran World Federation announced plans to feed 137,500 more persons in Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal with a shipment of 8,000 more tons of U.S. government food.

A recent report showed that 160 Protestant hospitals, half the national total, have joined a birth-control drive of the Christian Medical Association. The central government has approved one state’s request for compulsory sterilization of parents with three or more children. Those who refuse would lose government aid.

Missions Plane Missing

Loss of a plane with three persons aboard in the Territory of New Guinea was reported by Missionary Aviation Fellowship. Government representatives and Australian MAF officials concluded that the plane went down in a storm. A three-week search failed to locate it. The area is mountainous jungle country.

An MAF announcement said the apparently fatal accident was the third in the twenty-two-year, thirty-million-mile history of specialist-operated bush aircraft for missionaries, and the first involving a passenger fatality. Both others occurred within 250 miles of the latest accident, and weather was also presumed to be a factor in each.

The plane, a single-engine Cessna 185 belonging to the Australian MAF, was piloted by John Harverson. Also aboard were two New Guinea Bible school students. They were last heard from by radio on June 23, when Harverson reported difficult weather conditions at Olsovip, where he intended to land.

Harverson, an Australian and a second-generation missionary, leaves his wife, Joan, and two children, aged two and three. The family went to New Guinea in June, 1966.

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