Inauguration amid Religious Trappings

Richard Milhous Nixon first saw the light of day fifty-six years ago in a California home in which Quaker parents frowned on anything having the marks of violence. They believed also in the biblical admonition, “Be still and know that I am God.” In his inaugural address as President of the United States, he picked up these two themes.

The speech put priority on “peace.” And it is time, he said, for the nation’s malcontents to lower their voices “until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.”

Nixon only alluded to a few tangibles—housing, education, better cities, full employment. The crisis for the nation, he said, does not primarily lie in these. “We have found ourselves rich in goods, but ragged in spirit; reaching with magnificent precision for the moon, but falling into raucous discord on earth.” The challenge is a “crisis of the spirit.” The remedy: “an answer of the spirit … and to find that answer, we need only look within ourselves.”

The inauguration was covered with religious trappings. Quipped Religious News Service’s Elliott Wright: “That was one of the finest church services I ever witnessed. Billy Graham prayed, Terry Cooke pronounced the benediction, and Dick Nixon preached the sermon. Certainly, that message had the preacher’s art to it.”

Nixon “preached” his message before the biggest congregation ever, using as his text: “The times are on the side of peace.”

When his former political foe Chief Justice Earl Warren administered the oath, Nixon placed his hand on two open family Bibles held by the new First Lady. They were opened to Isaiah 2:4, the millennial promise that there will be no more war. Nixon’s swearing-in probably had more of a religious tone than any other since that of Washington, who after taking the thirty-five-word oath, kissed the Bible and said, “So help me God.”

Earlier in the day, the President and First Lady, Vice-President and Mrs. Spiro T. Agnew, and the Agnew daughters joined 800 others at the State Department in what is believed to be the first ecumenical prayer service ever an official part of an inauguration. The religious service that was a part of Washington’s inauguration was highly Anglican, reflecting his religious stance. This time, Protestants, Catholics, and Jews were listed in the program.

New Cabinet members William Rogers, Melvin Laird, David Kennedy, Maurice Stans, and George Romney and their wives were among the worshipers.

At the service, the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale of New York’s Marble Collegiate Church called the nation to spiritual renewal. Washington’s Patrick Cardinal O’Boyle intoned a benediction that had been offered by the first U.S. Catholic bishop, John Carroll. Rabbi Jacob Rudin, president of the Synagogue Council of America, and African Methodist Episcopal Zion Bishop Stephen Gill Spottswood sounded themes of spiritual renewal.

There have been non-official religious observances surrounding most other inaugurations. In 1965, for instance, Graham preached an inaugural sermon at President Johnson’s request. Although it preceded the inaugural by little more than two hours, it was not part of the official program. This year’s Religious Observance Committee was headed by Judge Boyd Leedom, an evangelical and former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board. National Association of Evangelicals General Director Clyde W. Taylor also played an important role.

Also an official part of the day was the request for the pealing of church bells across the land for three minutes, and a simultaneous call to prayer.

Five clergymen prayed at the inaugural ceremony. In the invocation Louisville’s AMEZ Bishop C. Ewbank Tucker asked God’s guidance for the new President in his “herculean responsibilities.” Rabbi Edgar F. Magnin, since 1915 the spiritual leader of Los Angeles’s Wilshire Boulevard Temple, traced the American ideal of freedom and liberty from creation. He asked God’s direction in a civilization that is not perfect.

After Agnew—an Episcopalian of Greek extraction—took the vice-presidential oath, Archbishop Iakovos, Eastern Orthodox primate for the western world, prayed that President Nixon would have illumination of mind, “so that through his words and pronouncements and deeds, he may lead us to a new appreciation of all that is true, honest, just, pure and of good intention, both in government and society.”

Graham prayed: “Help us in this day to turn from our sins and to turn by simple faith to the One who said, ‘Ye must be born again.’ So we pray, O God, as we enter a new era, that we as a nation may experience a moral and spiritual restoration” (full text of Tucker and Graham prayers, page 27).

In the benediction, New York’s Catholic Archbishop Terence Cooke asked that a nation aware of its problems might continue under God’s guidance to be “united, a nation indivisible.”

At the Nixon-Agnew family luncheon following the swearing-in, Nixon remarked to congressmen and other invited guests: “The five invocations given today were all prayed to the same God, who is in this room, and each of those invocations will read well in history.” Graham and Iakovos had participated in Lyndon Johnson’s inauguration four years earlier.

Graham’s prayer and Nixon’s message sounded much the same tone, and some Washington newsmen began speculating that the evangelist might have been called in to help draft the speech, as erstwhile Southern Baptist preacher Bill Moyers had done for Johnson.

Pope Paul VI cabled from Rome to Nixon: “As you solemnly undertake the responsibilities of your high office, we ask God to protect and guide you, to grant success to your efforts for unity and peace, and to bestow copious blessings upon you, your family and the beloved people of the United States of America.”

As the accolades and well-wishing got under way, the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, made it known that he would be pounding on the White House door. “His message had no sense of urgency and no sensitivity to the basic problems of hunger, poverty and race,” Abernathy said.

A PRESIDENT ‘UPHELD BY PRAYERS’

With nearly 3,000 persons jammed into a Washington, D.C., ballroom for the annual Presidential Prayer Breakfast January 30, President Richard M. Nixon said he carries on his shoulders the hopes of the nation’s religious people, but added, “I am upheld by their prayers.”

The President, in one of his first public appearances since his inauguration, said a random sampling of his mail indicates a strong mood of prayer in the nation. He called this a splendid sign when “religion is not fashionable … and skepticism is on the upturn.”

Flanked by all members of the Cabinet—the first time in the seventeen-year history of the breakfasts—the President said the government is “dedicated” to the prospect of getting at the problems of the nation. He reiterated his inaugural theme that the nation’s ills are primarily spiritual in nature (see story above).

Evangelist Billy Graham, the main speaker, said the nation is guilty of “over-self-criticism—we have too much introspection … This is a great country—this is a great system.…” Graham said the problems of poverty, race, and war are really “problems of the heart, problems of the spirit.… If we can solve this problems we can have peace »»

Graham’s abbreviated five-minute message (things were running a half-hour late) ended on a strong evangelistic note: “You can have this salvation if you’ll get alone with yourself sometime today and confess that you are a sinner.”

Vice President Spiro Agnew described the Episcopal faith of his mother and the Greek Orthodoxy of his father as of less importance than the manner in which they lived. “My father always had an expression for someone he liked—‘he was a good man.’ What he meant was not that he was wealthy, good-looking … but that he lived a good life.”

A Farewell To L.B.J.

On his last full day as President of the United States, honorary deacon Lyndon B. Johnson attended National City Christian Church and heard a 238-word prayer for the nation that he had written.

“Thou hast blessed America greatly; may we, in the conduct of her affairs, be always worthy in Thy sight—and in the sight of our fellow man,” recited the Rev. George Davis. “Lift our visions, Father, renew our faith in Thee, and in ourselves. Stir our spirits and disturb our consciences that we may seek not rest from our labors but right for neighbors.” The President also asked help for the needy, trust in the young, blindness to skin color, and an end of hate and violence.

Though many prominent Disciples took issue with Johnsonian policies, Christian Church President A. Dale Fiers wired the denomination’s most famous member that “we rejoice in the many achievements of your administration.… Your Church … is proud of the leadership and faithful service you have given our country and the world.”

White House Preacher

It was a busy fortnight for Billy Graham. The evangelist delivered the main prayer at President Nixon’s inauguration and later preached at the Presidential Prayer Breakfast (see page 30). In between, he spoke at a private service on President Nixon’s first Sunday in the White House, and at the twenty-fifth anniversary banquet for Youth For Christ, of which Graham was the first full-time evangelist.

Nixon has said the White House service, first of its kind, will be a regular practice on Sundays when he is in Washington. Some 200 guests, including eight Cabinet members and eight White House telephone operators, heard Graham tell how Solomon’s search for pleasure through wealth, sex, and wisdom brought no lasting satisfaction. Graham said man finds fulfillment and satisfaction only in Jesus Christ.

The service was followed by a coffee hour where guests met and talked with President and Mrs. Nixon and Mr. and Mrs. Graham. At future services, speakers from various denominations will preside, including Roman Catholic prelates. However, Mass will not be recited. Attendance will be voluntary.

At the YFC banquet in Chicago, attended by new Illinois Governor Richard Ogilvie and 2,000 others, Graham said that in a world of rapid change, the nature of God, the Word of God, the nature of man, the moral law, and the way of salvation have not changed.

‘Pueblo’ Prayer

Crew members of the U. S. S. Pueblo told of writing out Scripture passages in lieu of Bibles and praying surreptitiously during their eleven months of imprisonment in North Korea.

Details of the secret “services” were disclosed last month by Navy chaplains who talked to the crew after their release on December 23. The Navy Chief of Chaplains, Rear Admiral James W. Kelly, related reports “that almost to the man Protestant and Catholic crew members during their confinement had moved in the direction of a deeper religious commitment, greater faith, and habitual prayer life.”

In the forefront of the effort to minister to the spiritual needs of the captors was Lieutenant Stephen Harris, an official Navy “lay leader.” The 30-year-old Harris has been identified as the research-operations officer aboard the Pueblo, a position for which the command line was somewhat ambiguous. Harris was expected to take the stand in the Navy’s inquiry into the Pueblo seizure. Commander Lloyd Bucher, captain of the ship, testified that he had less than adequate control over the intelligence operation headed by Harris.

Those questions notwithstanding, Harris told the chaplains how he had given up efforts to have worship services aboard the Pueblo before the capture because never more than two men showed up. But things changed during the confinement.

“Some of the men said their memories of Sunday School days were dim,” declared Kelly, “but they worked together to come up with a reasonably accurate list of the books of the Bible. Such familiar Scriptures as the Twenty-third Psalm were written out and shared. One mentioned that he had trouble remembering the Ten Commandments but with help came up with them. It seems everyone prayed openly before one another, although they had to avoid being seen in acts of worship by their captors.

“They had no Bibles or religious materials. No worship services were permitted. They were told, ‘The Russians shot God down with a rocket!’

“They were reprimanded for thanking God for their food (potato soup, rice, and turnips). They were told, ‘These are the gifts of the Korean people.’ ”

Kelly said the chaplains were told that “missionaries and ministers were held up to scorn by the North Koreans. They presented a picture of a priest sicking his dog on a child and another of a missionary branding a small boy in the forehead with the word ‘thief’ for stealing an apple. The Pueblo men were told that every cross in Korea was an antenna for sending espionage messages.”

A petty officer was quoted as saying. “I left religion out of my life when I joined the Navy. I have a Japanese wife, and two lovely children who just love Sunday school, but I haven’t helped my wife to become a Christian or encouraged the children. It is going to be different now.”

Lebanon: Student Power

In the United States, collegians protest against war and the draft; in Lebanon, they have gone on strike to press stronger military defense and a compulsory one-year draft. The reason: Israeli commandos’ raid on the Beirut airport (see January 31 issue, page 36). As one Arabic newspaper put it, “Lebanon has entered the June 5 war.”

The student strike began at Roman Catholic St. Joseph’s University after the airport raid, but had begun to trail off by mid-January. All students are pledged to return to class when the cabinet gives priority to their demands. A group at American University urged immediate military training of college students, and frontier fortification. Violence was kept to a minimum by the strikers, though one U. S. teacher was beaten at American University.

Students at Haigazian College, an Armenian Protestant school, were not generally enthusiastic about the strike but joined it four days late. Armenian reluctance to join an anti-government, anti-Israeli, pro-Arab strike points up another long-standing Mideast problem, the animosity between Muslims and Christians. The tension in Lebanon has been acute at times, as in 1958 when fighting broke out between the two groups and U. S. Marines landed to rescue Americans. Some Lebanese Christians even say that “if the Arab countries didn’t have Israel to fight, they would turn on Lebanon,” whose population is at least half Christian.

Lebanon has been protected by international cooperation and, it believes, left alone because of its small size. The country did not participate actively in the June, 1967, war with Israel. Although there were pro-Arab demonstrations, the country has been much less belligerent than other Arab lands.

Lebanon uses a “confessional representation” system of government—each religious group gets legislative seats on a percentage basis. Some groups, including student organizations, are dissatisfied because there has been no recent census and the Muslim population apparently has increased.

The Lebanese Students’ League also demands that the government legally recognize the Feddayeen (Arab commandos who harass Israel). Many Christians see them as Muslim extremists, and Islam’s holy-war doctrine is not far from the hearts of most Arab refugees. Such thinking is not geared to ingratiate the Christians. Even some Arab Christians see the Jewish return to Palestine as a fulfillment of prophecy. But some evangelicals have been among the student strikers favoring a free hand for the commandos.

Long-range results of the Beirut airport attack may be negative for both Israel and Lebanon. Israel has gained a new fighting front. And Lebanon’s non-neutral but non-warlike policy may have been given a fatal blow; strengthening of the military seems inevitable.

LILLIAN HARRIS DEAN

Bible: The Talk Of Yugoslavia

Communist Yugoslavia now boasts one of the world’s newest and most acclaimed Bible translations. It is the first Serbo-Croatian translation from the original languages, and is primarily the work of Roman Catholics, who drew on their Jerusalem Bible for language and style.

The translation has made such a deep literary impact on the nation that the Yugoslav Izbor (Reader’s Digest) carried a highly laudatory review—and this in a land that adheres to the Marxist interpretation of spiritual matters.

The Serbo-Croatian Bible distributed by the Bible societies for a century was translated from German. On the new text from original languages, Izbor reviewer Davor Shoshic enthusiastically wrote: “Our most outstanding biblicists, writers, translators, and linguists have combined their ingenuity to produce a work in which the dimensions of biblical terminology leave a person moved and amazed. You can read it in childhood, in youth, and in manhood. Every time you read it, it becomes new. This most-read and -translated book will never go begging.…”

Five translators undertook the task three years ago, assisted by twenty-three scholars and four editors. Most of the group, headed by national poet Jure Kastelan, are Catholics, though a few are unaffiliated.

The edition has no footnotes but adds a brief commentary at the end of each book. Controversial passages receive a modified interpretation, in contrast with the old dogmatic Catholic approach.

Unlike the New Testament, published in 1967, the full Bible carries no imprimatur. An evangelical authority believes Catholics deliberately wished to avoid limiting use of the translation to their own people, and this is what has happened. Evangelicals have received the work enthusiastically and hope eventually to get permission to print it in a cheaper form (the lowest-priced edition now costs $12), without the Apocrypha and footnotes. But they are not waiting for that to use the book.

Yugoslavia’s Catholics (concentrated in Croatia and its capital, Zagreb) have a healthy attitude toward evangelicals, and even seek out and use their literature. Elmer Klassen, an evangelical who offers free New Testaments through newspaper ads, is receiving open cooperation from Catholics. Recently, his office was working to fulfill 2,000 orders. Billy Graham’s brief Zagreb visit in 1967 helped break the ice and opened Catholic eyes to the responsibility to spread the Gospel.

Plans are being made for a holiday camp conducted by two well-known evangelicals, and the nation’s ninety-six Baptist congregations next month conclude their first extensive joint evangelistic campaign. THOMAS COSMADES

Watchman Nee, Witness Lee

Carefully castigating all Pentecostal excesses, Witness Lee, scholarly “apostle” of the new in China’s indigenous church, generates a frenzy all his own. He is dividing not only the tranquil waters of the faithful in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia, but the hegemony established by imprisonedNee sentenced to fifteen years, finished his term last April but still is allowed home only once or twice a month, and then not to sleep. He returns to his Shanghai incarceration, receiving a small salary for translating technical books into Chinese. Watchman Nee as well.

So avid are Lee’s followers that they cannot wait for their rebaptism, or “reburial.” Hundreds leap into the water, eager to experience what Lee proclaims as the reburial of everything “old,” including the old “self.” Their reward: a “release of the Spirit.”

Even founder Nee will have to follow the teaching of the self-proclaimed apostle or find himself “jobless,” Asia News Report quotes the ambitious Lee as saying in one of his more brazen pontifications.

But not all of the Little Flock Chinese jump when Lee speaks. His insistence that it is no longer necessary to pray in the name of Jesus—and that Christians must seek release from the bondage of the “letter” in Bible doctrines—is causing breakaways. When the Communists do finally release Nee, the Little Flock may have pretty well scattered, or else taken cover under the wing of a devourer.

Black Hatred At St. Paul’S

Amid loud interruptions and ugly scenes, punctuated by the strong-arm tactics of plain-clothes policemen, the ecumenical movement bulldozed its way to another dubious triumph last month when Cardinal Heenan tried to preach in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. The English Roman Catholic leader was frequently shouted down by Protestant demonstrators, and though remaining outwardly calm, was twice betrayed into unguarded remarks added to his script.

One of these, after sundry protesters had been rudely dispatched, was that these scenes showed how much the ecumenical movement was needed. It was the second, however, which was particularly unfortunate. After another spate of interruptions he suggested that Enoch Powell (the British politician regarded as being racist) might have a point after all. Though obscure, the allusion was resented by some.

This first appearance in St. Paul’s by a prince of the Roman church was in return for the Archbishop of Canterbury’s visit to Westminster Cathedral last year. There had been minor protests during the early part of the St. Paul’s service, but when Archbishop Ramsey welcomed the cardinal, pandemonium broke loose. “Your Eminence, dear brother in Christ …” was the signal for wild scenes as extreme Protestants flung unchurchly epithets at the red-garbed figure in the pulpit. For over three minutes the cardinal could not say a word, as a dozen or more Protestants, some with clerical collars (supporters of the Rev. Ian Paisley), were dragged to a side door. At least two of them were literally choked into silence by a squad of what turned out to be policemen and not, as one spectator thought, “bouncers hired from a Soho nightclub of ecumenical tendencies.”

The cardinal tried again and was continually interrupted while dispensing the usual ecumenical treacle. Manfully he kept at it in order to justify the neat, unbroken sentences dutifully reported in Britain’s “quality” press next day.

Meanwhile Paisley was outside, having arrived thirty-five minutes before the service began and settled down to exchanging his normal pleasantries with those who managed to get near him despite the police cordon. He emphasized that he does not hate Catholics, whom later that evening he delicately described as “blaspheming, cursing, spitting Roman scum.” He took no part in the church demonstrations.

“Remember the martyrs that shed their blood!” a lady demonstrator adjured a bowler-hatted city gent. “Which martyrs were these?” he asked politely. She moved to higher ground. “I’m on my way to heaven,” she announced. “Good for you, dear,” he said agreeably.

Interviewed by CHRISTIANITY TODAY, the general secretary of the National Secular Society said: “I am very saddened by tonight’s happenings.… I have seen … black hatred here tonight.” He had a point there—and he wasn’t just referring to the oranges, eggs, and tomatoes that Paisley was brushing off his bare head.

In his own Northern Ireland last month, Paisley and others were sentenced to three months in jail for an attack on a Catholic civil-rights march. Trying to clamp down on Protestant-Catholic strife, the government there has proposed laws against joining a demonstration banned by the government, or interfering with a government-approved demonstration.

J. D. DOUGLAS

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