Baton Rouge Crusade: ‘Showers of Blessing’

Although it was one of the shortest of Billy Graham’s major crusades, television may take the five-day Baton Rouge campaign to more people than have ever before witnessed one of the evangelist’s meetings.

The 68,000 seats in Louisiana State University’s Tiger Stadium were never all filled during the week, but Graham told the 50,000 people on hand the last day that time cleared for December telecasting suggested a larger audience than for any of his previous efforts. Stations in the United States, Canada, Australia, and other English-speaking countries will air the series the week of December 6.

Television crews and equipment were much in evidence during the five services, but this didn’t deter the 9,076 who walked, ran, or were wheeled to the gridiron to indicate decisions for Christ.

Both the total attendance (an estimated 196,000) and the number answering the evangelist’s invitations were larger than at the five-day Shea Stadium crusade in New York City last June. And Baton Rouge had less time to prepare, since final decisions about holding the meetings there weren’t made until May.

The Louisiana capital had better weather in October than New York did in June, however, and only Friday night’s attendance was dented by showers. Graham later said he would “carry the memory of the Friday-night service in the rain with me as long as I live.”

About 28,000 stayed until the benediction that night and heard the evangelist preach on the God who remembers. The sermon was accompanied by bolts of lightning, claps of thunder, and a steady rain. Some of the 833 who came forward left the shelter of a neighbor’s umbrella to run onto the field even before the first sentence of the invitation was completed.

Early in the evening the throng heard a South Carolina beauty say that one of the great things about being a Christian is that you want to “praise him even in the rain.” Claudia Turner, this year’s Miss America runner-up, stood under an umbrella as she spoke and sang to the drenched crowd.

Her South Carolina neighbor and friend, Cliff Barrows of the Graham team, led the choir of more than 3,000 voices in “Showers of Blessing” as the first drops started to fall a few minutes before the service opened. Then it started to pour.

Both Barrows and Graham stood bareheaded at the microphone, and the next day a Baton Rouge paper headlined on page one:

“Graham Doesn’t Call His Game for Rain.” (The sermon was about ten minutes shorter than usual, though.)

The evangelist had repeatedly commented on the good weather at the first two services. The change gave him an opportunity to point to the God who remembers to send “even the rain” as well as to the God who remembers sin.

Lightning flashed and thunder rolled at the time the thief on the cross repented, Graham said in his sermon. Then he reminded his hearers that forgiveness is instant for those who repent and trust Christ (even when they do not have time to be baptized).

Similar themes were followed at other services. The evangelist stressed that salvation is available to those of Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish background as well as to those with no religious affiliation. He gave equal emphasis to the belief that no one will be saved by his own works.

Testimony by platform guests with Southern accents put a regional flavor into the meetings. The favorite of the Louisianians was Sunday afternoon’s Andy Hamilton, who had helped LSU’s Tigers upset the Auburn football team Saturday. Winning that game was thrilling, he told the crowd, but he encouraged youngsters to look beyond thrills that can vanish overnight or at the end of a season.

Also telling about their faith at the crusade were Mississippian Tom Lester, who plays “Eb” on the “Green Acres” television series, and the reigning Miss America, Phyllis George of Texas.

The local committee’s budget was met in the first four offerings, so the final one was earmarked for television costs. Executive-committee chairman Rolfe McCollister, a lawyer and Baptist layman, explained that the contribution would help disseminate “good news from Louisiana for a change.”

Evangelical Church Members: Up From Sunday School

More than 80 per cent of new members in evangelical churches come through the ranks of the Sunday school, according to an official of an independent Sunday-school curriculum publishing house.

Much of that vigor—despite widespread declines in many mainline denomination Sunday schools—was apparent last month in Philadelphia at the twenty-fifth anniversary convention of the National Sunday School Association. More than 5,000 Sunday-school workers from some forty denominations sought inspiration and know-how in 250 workshops, seven major addresses, and the exhibits of 102 sponsors. The assortment of displays colored the drab, tradition-bound convention hall. And the “now” sounds of contemporary music reverberated over the echoes of old-time evangelists who once staged mass rallies here.

While the trappings were new, the message wasn’t. “We alone have the answer,” boomed the outgoing NSSA president Sherman Williams in his keynote address. “Call it egotism or what you will,” continued the pastor of Redwood Chapel Community Church, Casto Valley, California, “that’s what the Bible says. When we realize we only have the answer, we will be motivated toward what is required of us.”

Though this year marked the association’s twenty-fifth under the aegis of the National Association of Evangelicals, it actually dates back to 1939 and the concern of a group of publishers for an evangelical curriculum to replace that of the Federal Council of Churches, predecessor of the present National Council of Churches. Today NSSA offers the service ministries of seven commissions.

William’s successor to the NSSA presidency is the Reverend Robert A. Crandall, Christian education executive for the Free Methodist Church of America and editor of its magazine, Current.

NORMAN ROHRER

Buddhists Unite

A new organization, the World Buddhist Union, was formed at a special conference of seventy-six Buddhist leaders from thirteen countries in Seoul, Korea, last month.

A statement issued at the close of the three-day meeting—said to be the first such gathering—said Buddhists were resolved to play “a more active and creative role in history” by involving themselves in world affairs “in accord with Buddhist principles.”

Priests and laymen from ten Asian countries, the United States, Britain, and Canada elected Thich Tam Chau of South Viet Nam head of the new organization. Its headquarters will be in Seoul.

The U. S. delegates were Dr. and Mrs. Winston L. King of Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. King, a scholar on Buddhism, teaches the history of religions at Vanderbilt University.

It was reported at the conference that there are 176,920,000 Buddhists in the world.

Quebec’S Hour Of Trial—And Decision

The song leader, Canon Lawrence Jackson, looked like a gray-robed Friar Tuck. St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Toronto was as big and imposing as a cathedral. The evangelist, the Right Reverend Cuthbert Killick Norman Bardsley, C.B.E., M.A., D.D., bishop of Coventry, was dressed in a purple cassock.

His message: Accept the Lord Jesus, obey him, read the Bible and pray. A twenty-minute after-meeting was announced for those who wished to commit themselves to the Lord. The great organ played “Just as I Am” to encourage them to stay; many did.

It was the third night of the Bardsley mission organized by the Diocese of Toronto. As the Gospel was being preached with such Anglican dignity, the murdered body of the Quebec minister of labor and immigration was awaiting the police in the trunk of the green Chevrolet in which he had been kidnapped a week before.

Political kidnappings, blackmail attempts, and assassination have been foreign to Canadian public life, heretofore regarded as a model of stability. The kidnappings last month of British diplomat James Cross and labor minister Pierre Laporte shattered that image—perhaps forever.

Dr. Mariano DiGangi, president of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, called upon evangelicals to exercise charity and understanding toward fellow Canadians in Quebec’s hour of turmoil. The Christian Reformed churches in Canada observed Ootober 25 as a day of prayer for the nation. And Canadian prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, often the butt of sharp criticism from conservative churchmen, displayed a determination during the crisis that brought grudging admiration.

The ruthless blackmail and assassination shook Quebec to the roots, and Canada can never feel innocent again.

ROBERT BROW AND LESLIE K. TARR

English Channel Narrows

For a long time Scottish Baptists have looked to America for spiritual help and influence. But now, according to the Baptist minister of Ayr, Scotland, “we are beginning to rediscover our Baptist friends in Europe.”

He writes in the Scottish Baptist: “It is the American strength, sapped by social and moral problems, which is on the wane. Our interest in the Baptists of Europe is, therefore, consistent with a growing European self-consciousness.… Our kinship with this is close.… We are becoming active members of the European Baptist community.”

They seem to be: Andrew D. Macrae of Glasgow, general secretary of the Baptist Union of Scotland, is now chairman of the European Baptist Federation.

JAN J. VAN CAPELLEVEEN

Church Union Road Signal: Forever Amber?

A Canadian poll involving 8,000 members of the United and Anglican churches is causing second thoughts among some church union enthusiasts.

The July issue of the United Church Observer and the Canadian Churchman (with a combined circulation of 550,000) carried the poll and invited reader response. Sixty per cent (4,838) of the replies came from United Church members, and 40 per cent (3,172) from Anglicans.

Ninety-one per cent of the United respondents and 61 per cent of the Anglicans indicated they would accept church union; 6 per cent of the United Church and 31 per cent of the Anglicans threatened to leave the church rather than unite. Nearly half of the Anglican young people who replied threatened to leave.

The poll asked respondents what church they would attend if there were no congregation of their denomination in the community. Surprisingly, one-third of the Anglicans said they would prefer a Roman Catholic Church; the United Church was the choice of one-fourth.

The poll is described as “unofficial” and “unauthorized,” and the antiunion sentiment is played down in official news releases. But some see the results as an amber light on the road to church union. Merger talks began twenty-six years ago.

LESLIE K. TARR

Canadian Labor Fight: No Claque For Unions

The Christian Labor Association of Canada (CLAC) attracted little attention when it was organized in 1952. But then, who could reasonably object to another religious organization—mostly on paper—that would bother no one outside a church?

Things are different now: the CLAC is in the thick of a labor fight that has reached the floor of the Ontario Legislature. And the leaders of the country’s major unions, with 1,250,000 members, blame the 3,500-member group for proposed legislative changes.

One is the so-called charity clause that would permit a worker to be exempt from joining a union or paying union dues if he objected on conscientious grounds. He could instead designate a like amount to charity. Union leaders contend that the provision strikes at the heart of the idea of a closed shop. They have not concealed their bitterness toward the CLAC, which has pressed for freedom of choice.

CLAC executive secretary Gerald Vandezande is far from satisfied with the proposed law change. He feels all workers should have the right to opt out or to be represented by another union (if enough workers in a plant request it), and he points out that the new provisions apply only to workers who have been employed at a plant prior to the introduction of a closed-shop agreement.

The powerful Ontario Federation of Labor and the Provincial Building Trades Council organized a march on the legislature building to protest this and other parts of the legislation. Ten to fifteen thousand workers walked off their jobs October 14 to take part.

The CLAC has also scored some significant court victories on behalf of workers claiming unjust dismissal from employment. Basic to the CLAC’s philosophy is a commitment to the Christian faith and its relevance. “We can’t speak of the Gospel in abstractions,” says Vandezande. “It must be applied to concrete life situations.” He is a member of the Christian Reformed Church and the general council of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

LESLIE K. TARR

Nigeria: Prayers And Decrees

Nigeria went festive last month. Africa’s most populous state began its second decade of independence with special prayers by Christians and Muslims, and a decree extending military rule for another six years. The week-long ceremonies marked the first anniversary of Nigeria’s independence since the end of the thirty-one-month civil war.

“Vengeance belongeth unto me, saith the Lord.… The Lord shall judge his people,” read General Yakubu Gowon, head of state and the son of an evangelist, in keeping with his public stand during the civil war that God—not federal forces—should take vengeance on the rebels. The subsequent national reconciliation seems to prove the wisdom of his policy.

“This is not a celebration of victory over enemies,” Gowon told the nation, “but national thanksgiving and rejoicing. I urge Nigerians … to dedicate themselves to God and our country.”

Public response to extending military rule to 1976 was favorable. The government hopes the interval will allow development of truly national (rather than tribal) political parties, and strengthening of the economy.

W. HAROLD FULLER

Behind The Iron Curtain: Bibles

Distribution of Bibles, testaments, and portions grew all over the world—except in the United States—during the first six months of 1970 compared to the same period a year ago. The biggest gains were in Europe: Bible societies there reported an increase of 115 per cent. An increase of 9.2 per cent was recorded in Africa, and 33.5 per cent in Asia. Overall distribution through the world fund of the United Bible Societies was up 8.2 per cent.

The European increase was due mainly to the opening of the iron curtain for Bible distribution. During the second quarter of 1970 the European Production Fund printed 30,000 Czech, 5,000 Estonian, 5,000 Latvian, 15,000 Hungarian, and 23,500 Romanian Bibles, and 10,000 Bulgarian and 10,000 Romanian New Testaments.

Last year 100,000 Bibles were printed for the Romanian Orthodox Church, and this year the government gave permission for 40,000. Permission was also given to import 10,000 German Bibles from East Germany—where Bible societies have been able to continue their work—for German-speaking Lutherans of Romania. Last month the government agreed to import 10,000 Hungarian Bibles for the Hungarian-speaking Reformed Church.

JAN J. VAN CAPELLEVEEN

Russian Orthodox Conclave

The General Council of the Russian Orthodox Church will meet next May 30-June 2 to elect a new patriarch. The office has been vacant since the death last spring of Patriarch Alexis.

According to European observers, two priests are considered the leading candidates:

Metropolitan Pimen, of whom little is known in Western circles, and the comparatively famous Metropolitan Nikodim, who has attended many meetings of the World Council of Churches.

The signs seem to point to Pimen. Nikodim is said to have claimed that he is still too young. A Roman Catholic source has said that Soviet Communist leaders also favor Pimen.

JAN J. VAN CAPELLEVEEN

Religion In Transit

Court briefs opposing compulsory chapel attendance at U. S. military academies have been filed by the General Commission on Chaplains and Armed Forces Personnel, and the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs. The briefs contend mandatory attendance “flouts the First Amendment.” (See August 21 issue, page 41.)

The Methodist Publishing House reported a net loss of $1,318,467 for its last fiscal year. Retiring president Lovick Pierce said it was the first such loss in his twenty-five year tenure. The drop was attributed partly to the decline in sales of curriculum materials and periodical subscriptions.

Eleven staff members of the First Baptist Church of Birmingham, Alabama, resigned after the congregation denied membership to two Negro applicants. Pastor Herbert Gilmore, the first to quit, said dedicated church leaders were outnumbered by those on the rolls who attend only “when it comes time to vote against the Niggers” (see September 25 issue, page 26).

Members of the Puerto Rican YoungLords gang seized the First Spanish Methodist Church in New York for the second time in ten months October 18 in an armed takeover. Three policemen submitted to “mock frisking” by gang members when the trio entered the Harlem church to search for illegal weapons, the New York Times reported.

After warning on his plane radio that all Catholic and Methodist schools and churches in an area of Texas should be evacuated, the pilot deliberately crashed his craft into and destroyed a Catholic church in San Juan. About thirty priests, forty worshippers, and 200 children at a nearby school fled without injury.

United States taxpayers itemizing deductions on 1968 income returns deducted a total of $11.1 billion for religious and charitable contributions, 2.9 per cent of total gross income shown, the Internal Revenue Service reported.

A pioneer magazine for the Christian home, This Day—which had a circulation of more than 100,000 at one time—will cease publication with its January issue. Economy measures killed the twenty-five year-old Lutheran magazine, an announcement said.

A copy of the second Bible published in America—the 1743 German Bible by Christopher Saur in Germantown, Pennsylvania—is one of eleven rare Bibles purchased by the library of Dallas Seminary from the collection of Dr. Scott Francis Brenner.

Reversing its position of five years ago, the People’s Church, largest evangelical congregation in Canada, voted overwhelmingly last month favoring the reinstating of some form of capital punishment.

The University of Maryland and the District of Columbia Armory turned down a Black Panther request for a place to hold a “constitutional convention” this month. But St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church offered its premises in Northwest Washington “as part of its Christian mission … to protect freedom of expression.”

Deaths

HARRY M. CRAWFORD 35, Seventh-day Adventist veteran of seven expeditions to the Mount Ararat area in Turkey and a leader of the search for remains of Noah’s Ark there (see September 12, 1969, issue, page 48); in Denver, after an auto crash.

RICHARDC CARDINACL CUSHING, 75, until September 8 the archbishop of Boston, a post he held for twenty-six years, and colorful confidant of the Kennedy family; in Boston, of cancer.

JOHAN KOPP, 95, former head of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church both in Estonia and in exile; in Stockholm.

GLENN R. PHILLIPS, 76, retired Methodist bishop instrumental in the 1968 merger of the Evangelical United Brethren and Methodist churches; in San Diego.

JOHN T. SCOPES, 70, Tennessee schoolteacher and leading figure in the 1925 “monkey trial” testing a law barring the teaching of evolutionary theory; in Shreveport, Louisiana, of cancer.

Personalia

Jared F. Gerig was named chancellor of Fort Wayne Bible College. He resigned as president of the college in August.

James Baldwin is writing a play based on the Gospels. The famous American black writer is currently living in Paris. A brief article in the New York Times Book Review said the new play will be entitled Brother Joe. Baldwin, son of a clergyman, did some preaching as a youth but was later estranged from the Church.

Dr. Bruce M. Metzger, professor of New Testament language and literature at Princeton Seminary, has been named president-elect of the International Society of New Testament Studies, and president of the Society of Biblical Literature.

Pope Paul has appointed Agnelo Cardinal Rossi, 57, of São Paulo, Brazil, head of the church’s missions throughout the world.… The Pope named Monsignor Edward Cassidy of Argentina as the new apostolic pro-nuncio to Nationalist China, ending rumors that the Vatican was planning to break off relations with that country.

Texas pastor Gordon Clinard of San Angelo, immediate past president of the state’s Baptist General Convention, has been named to the Billy Graham chair of evangelism at Southern Seminary in Louisville. He succeeds Kenneth L. Chafin, who resigned to head the Southern Baptist Convention Home Mission Board evangelism program.

Sukenaga Murai, 60, a prominent layman of the Japan Evangelical Lutheran Church, has been named president of 45,000-student Waseda University in Tokyo. Murai, a Waseda graduate, has been there for twelve years.

World Scene

Jerusalem’s Muslim Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque have been reopened to Christians and Jews. The action by the Supreme Muslim Council was seen by some as a sign of improved Arab-Jewish relations in the Holy Land (see February 27 issue, page 35).

Ground-breaking ceremonies were held in Jerusalem for a center to house the world’s largest biblical library and museum. The building is a project of the World Jewish Bible Society and the Israel Society for Bible Research.

Mass matrimony took place in Seoul as 791 couples filled a gym in the South Korean capital to exchange vows before Master Sun Myung Moon, founder in 1950 of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity. Newlyweds were reminded of Moon’s prophecy that Christ will return in Seoul. They were charged not to engage in intercourse for forty days.

Organizers of the famous Oberammergau Passion Play say “record attendances” this year dispel public charges that the decennial play is anti-Semitic.

The East German Baptist Church has lost 10,547 members, almost a third of its membership, in the last seventeen years, according to Adolf Pohl, director of the Baptist seminary in Bucknow.

The Lutheran churches of Canada report 303,690 baptized and 196,201 confirmed members, up 8,323 or 2.8 per cent since last year.

The Board of World Missions of the Presbyterian Church U. S. approved maintaining a force of 400 missionaries overseas in 1971, even if this requires deficit spending.

Canadian Roman Catholics may now marry in non-Catholic churches with the blessing of the church.

The first Baptist evangelism conference in Eastern Europe took place recently in Prague, with some thirty participants from other Eastern European countries joining eighty-five Czechoslovakians.

A Netherlands society is dedicated exclusively to stamping out profanity. The 5,500-member Society Against Swearing posts signs in buses and public places admonishing travelers to “avoid and fight cursing and swearing.”

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