News Briefs from September 26, 1969

100, AND GOING STRONG

W. A. Moore of Sumner, Washington, is probably the nation’s oldest full-time minister. He celebrated his one-hundredth birthday a few weeks ago, yet preaches every Sunday at suburban Tacoma’s Roosevelt Heights Christian Church.

He preached his first sermon in 1890 as a Drake University student and became pastor of a new church three years later. Over the years he manned important Disciples of Christ pulpits in Missouri and Washington. Since he turned 80 he has baptized 150 persons, many of them in an outdoor baptistry at his home.

He credits his years to activity, zeal, and abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, and certain foods.

The centenarian observes: “This country has never been in so much trouble.” But, he adds, it is “a time of rejoicing for Christians” because Christ’s return is near. Thus, “I preach how to get into heaven. Nowadays, they’re saying, ‘Tell it like it is.’ That’s the way it ought to be.”

Amish Anxiety

Three Wisconsin Amish fathers were each fined $5 last month in a Monroe court because they won’t send their teen-agers to public schools. The men said the schools were too worldly.

The attorney for the Amish, William Ball, declared that although only a “symbolic fine” had been levied, “the finding of guilty is a very serious matter.… We will be making an immediate appeal based on a very plain violation of religious liberty.”

Ball said the case also involves Indian and Negro problems—in fact, “the very nature of pluralism in a society.” He predicts further trouble for the Amish; others in Wisconsin will be prosecuted this fall under similar charges.

A defense motion contended that forcing the Amish into regular high schools violates their constitutional rights to religious liberty, mortally threatens their community, and prevents them from raising their children in the Amish faith.

Ball, supported by the interdenominational National Committee for Amish Religious Freedom, said he will appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

“Until this decision is reversed, Amish parents face continued harassment,” Ball warned.

Iraqi Christians Martyred

While trying to solve its Kurd problem and annihilate its Jews, the Iraqi government is getting rid of its Christians as well. According to news received in West Berlin, pastors and priests are being imprisoned, martyred, and murdered, and churches and cloisters are being destroyed.

Of the 8.3 million Iraqi, only about 300,000 call themselves Christians. They belong mostly to the Assyrian or Nestorian churches. Some belong to the Chaldaic Church, which has been united with Rome, others to the independent Church of the East. A quarter of the Christians live in the north near the Turkish and Persian borders, the area of the 1.5 million Iraqi Kurds, who have been fighting for autonomy since 1951. These rebels have offered the Christians complete freedom of religion.

In order to subdue this rebellion, the air force is bombing Kurd towns and villages. However, during the last few months the attacks have been directed mainly to villages with a majority of Christians. High explosive shells as well as napalm are being used; at least 200 villages have been destroyed.

Christians also are being arrested in other parts of the country for alleged spying either for the Kurds or for the Jews. In Alkosj, soldiers entered a monastery and killed the well-known monk Dano Taleskopy. In Raban Hornez, the general-superior of the monks of the Chaldaic Church was executed. The new cathedral and library of Amadia have been destroyed, as have the church and house of Bishop Bidwin in Aradin.

Christians in the area governed by the Kurds have formed their own relief committee led by Bishop Mariawalla of the Church of the East, and a special relief committee has been formed in West Berlin by Iraqi Christians.

JAN J. VAN CAPELLEVEEN

Religion In Transit

Religious leaflets have been finding their way into sexy parts of Portnoy’s Complaint and other novels in Cape Kennedy, Florida, area public libraries. When questioned about how the leaflets got there, the director of a small religious group called “Gospel” in Eau Gallie, Florida, replied: “I print them and give them out at no cost. I have no idea what happens to them after that.”

The National Catholic News Service will emphasize the development of original, analytical coverage of major national and religious news in its daily service to more than 200 Catholic newspapers and magazines throughout the nation.

The National Association of Laymen, a liberal two-year-old Catholic organization, moved its headquarters from Houston to Washington, D.C., last month. The change, involving a doubling of facilities and budget (now $50,000), came as a response to local groups’ increased demands for services.

Personalia

Minnesota Governor Harold LeVander, a Lutheran Church in America layman, will head the governor’s committee for National Bible Week November 23–30.

Mary Booth, 84, and the Rev. William Booth-Clibborn, 76, granddaughter and grandson of William Booth, died within a few days of each other last month. Both had been active in Salvation Army work.

The Rev. Lynn Temple Jones, pastor of Huntington, West Virginia, First Presbyterian Church, has been named chairman of an eleven-man committee to investigate “unrest” in the Southern Presbyterian Church. The committee was authorized by the denomination’s May General Assembly.

Dr. Paul R. Van Gorder, a Baptist pastor, has been named associate teacher of the “Radio Bible Class,” conducted by Richard W. De Haan.

Southern Baptist evangelist Arthur Blessit ended twenty-eight days of prayer and fasting chained to a wooden cross on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip after he found a new site for His Place, a hip mission to Strip kids. Ouster from His (former) Place was pressed by police and uptight nightclub operators. Blessit, who also runs a halfway house called His Home, says he’ll buy a $160,000 building to house his mission.

Jack Anderson, who is continuing the late Drew Pearson’s “Washington Merry-Go-Round” column, is a non-smoking, non-drinking Mormon who served two years as a missionary in the Southern states. He teaches Sunday school and occasionally preaches.

Pope Paul VI divided the Dallas-Fort Worth (Texas) Diocese in two this month and accepted the resignation of Bishop Thomas K. Gorman in the first shakeup of the diocese since it was established in 1890. San Angelo’s Bishop Thomas Tschoepe succeeds Gorman, 77, and Gorman’s auxiliary, Bishop Joseph Cassata, was named the first bishop of the new Fort Worth Diocese.

World Scene

Candidates for roles in the 1970 Oberammergau Passion Play must have lived in the West German town for at least twenty years, and in the case of the Virgin Mary must be single and no older than 34. No extensive revision of the play’s text is contemplated to remove references offensive to Jews, though a few “anti-Semitic lines” will be excised, according to the New York Times. Worldwide pressure for script changes followed the 1965 Vatican Council’s declaration absolving the Jews as a people from guilt in the death of Jesus.

More than 2,000 laymen of the Anglican Diocese of Nandyal, India have become Roman Catholics—following five pastors who changed their religious affiliation—in opposition to a proposal of merger with the Protestant Church of North India.

The World Council of Churches faces an expected debt of $76,000 by the end of the year on a $1.35 million budget, according to the WCC finance-committee chairman.

Dr. George Otto Simms, archbishop of Dublin, has been elected Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland.

The Overseas Personnel Recruitment Office is expected to be in full swing this fall after eight Protestant church bodiesChurch of the Brethren; Reformed Church in America; United Church of Christ; United Methodist, United Presbyterian, and Episcopal Churches; the National Council of Churches’ Division of Overseas Ministry; and the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia. pooled resources for a mission-personnel enlistment program.

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