‘Passover’ Passed Over

NEWS

The American Board of Missions to the Jews (ABMJ) may carry to the Federal Communications Commission—and the courts if necessary—the refusal of several television stations to carry the ABMJ’s “The Passover” telecast. At stake could be a violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of free speech, as well as a possible violation of the FCC’s “fairness doctrine.” The ABMJ has turned the matter over to its attorney for possible action.

The ABMJ had scheduled “Passover” in twelve U. S. and five Australian cities on prime-time television during Holy Week. Its purpose was to depict Passover as being fulfilled in the Lord’s Supper and Christ as the Messiah. The program was professionally produced and contained no reference to missions in general or the ABMJ in particular, but the theme as it unfolded was clear.

The ABMJ, a seventy-seven-year-old mission, had spent about $35,000 of a $50,000 advertising budget in telling of the program through TV Guide, daily newspapers, national magazines, and one million flyers. Televising the program was to cost about $50,000 more.

Then, almost on the eve of the telecasts, one by one the stations began to cancel. WOR-TV in New York was the first. General manager Michael McCormick said the station had received protests from the New York Board of Rabbis, the Synagogue Council of America, and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. Quickly stations in Chicago, Washington, Minneapolis, Miami, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Phoenix, and Pittsburgh followed. They cited a similar reason for canceling the program: “It would be offensive to a great number of people.”

Jim Reid, program manager for WDCA-TV in Washington, said the station canceled after it received “five or ten” telephone calls in protest and conferred with WOR in New York. Explaining the decision, Reid said he would avoid “programming that would be offensive to the audience.”

The ABMJ immediately gained more publicity than it would have through “Passover.” The New York Times ran the story on page one, and other papers and the wire services began flooding Dr. Daniel Fuchs, ABMJ general secretary in New York, with calls. Time magazine devoted its entire religion section to the incident and a general discussion of “Is Passover Christian?”

In Philadelphia, fourteen Christian Jews picketed WPHL-TV for its cancellation of the program. One picket said the station “knuckled under to the pressure of the Anti-Defamation League of the B’nai B’rith, an unrepresentative Jewish organization.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, long a defender of minority causes (the ABMJ’s constituency of 5,000 Jewish Christians represents one-thousandth of the U. S. Jewish population of more than 5 million), indicated an interest. Melvin Wolf, the ACLU’s national legal director in New York, promised a quick decision on whether it would intervene on the ABMJ’s behalf.

Wolf pointed out the dilemma: Does a station have a right to pick and choose what goes on the air? Or do the people have a right to programs they want?

Wolf said that the ACLU, for instance, never would bring suit against a newspaper to force it to accept an ad. Broadcasting stations are different, however, because they use the air waves, which belong to the public. The “fairness doctrine” requires stations to present diversity of programming, and to present both sides of an issue, as in a political campaign.

“The implications are very serious to all evangelical Christians,” said R. Terryl Delaney, a creative-minded ABMJ staff member who perhaps as much as anyone has been responsible for redirecting the ABMJ ministry through modern marketing and media techniques. He pointed out that Negro evangelist Tom Skinner might want to aim a broadcast to the black population, but if the “Passover”-rejection precedent was continued, the protests of other blacks could keep him off the air.

Some of the canceling stations said they felt they were getting an ecumenical program and claimed they didn’t know it had a Christian orientation. But the stations apparently were less than completely candid. WDCA’s Reid attempted to draw a line between programs that were “controversial,” such as the CBS documentaries on hunger and Pentagon publicity, and those that were “offensive,” which he said “Passover” was. He refused to say whether he personally thought the program was offensive.

Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum, national director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Council and well known for his efforts in ecumenical and interracial affairs, on a radio broadcast in New York himself drew a connection between the Jewish Passover and the Christian Holy Week. He said Holy Week “cannot be understood, as Jesus and his early followers understood them, apart from their profound rootedness in first-century Judaism.”

Later in an interview Tanenbaum said there was a difference in the approach he used in his talk and that of the telecast. He said his talk affirmed the roots that Christianity has in Judaism, while the telecast saw the Passover as preparation for fulfillment in the Gospels.

But Tanenbaum admitted that he and his organization would not have protested the showing of “Passover.” He said he had refused several requests to review “Passover” in advance “because of our basic concern for the freedom of conscience and, in a sense, for free speech.” But he added that he felt the telecast was “a calculated misconception” in which the Christian message “was smuggled in” and that he understood why other Jewish organizations protested.

As it turned out, “Passover” was shown in at least four American cities as well as the five in Australia. In Dallas, KTVT attached a disclaimer and an ABMJ marketing survey estimated that 16 per cent of the city’s Jewish population watched. In Los Angeles, KBSC ran “Passover” five nights and said that it invited discussion. In fact, the station provided a fifteen-minute rebuttal for three rabbis after the program. At the last minute, local churches sponsored “Passover” in Amarillo, Texas, and Charleston, West Virginia, and efforts were under way to show it in El Paso.

Delaney, then assigned to Denver, first conceived of illustrating the Passover dinner on television. It was televised live from Calvary Temple in Denver in 1968; an advertising agency estimated 11 per cent of the Jewish community watched. Last year the twenty-eight-minute, full-color program was presented in Los Angeles. The response was so great that plans were made to go nationwide this year. Fuchs, whose parents were converted from Judaism, takes a very optimistic view toward the events that, on the surface, dashed ABMJ’s carefully laid plans. The ABMJ has gained publicity it never could have purchased, much from persons who were sympathetic—if not to the message at least to the principle of free speech.

It may well be that the ABMJ will find new truth in the Old Testament passage where Joseph tells his brothers: “As for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive.…”

East Pakistan: ‘Joy Bangla; Joy Jesu’

Missionaries in foreign lands as a rule are non-political regarding the internal affairs of those lands. But in an extraordinary manner the ambassadors of the Christian faith in East Pakistan recently expressed strong sentiments in favor of a fiery, middle-aged nationalist named Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. One veteran of thirty-five years’ experience in East Pakistan summed up the feelings of the missionary community: “This is the most exciting time in the history of our beloved land. What a thrill to watch as the drama unfolds!”

These expressions are the result of an identification with the apparently legitimate demands of the “Bengali” for a greater measure of internal autonomy. Missionaries feel that the less populous western section of Pakistan (the two wings are divided by 1,000 miles of India) has too long dominated the economic and political life of the 78 million people of the eastern wing.

Supertrek

Jesus Christ is not “Superstar” but the Son of God, evangelist Leighton Ford told a youth-night audience of 5,000 last month during a two-week crusade in Northeast Philadelphia.

Billy Graham’s associate and brother-in-law said Jesus Christ Superstar, the rock opera from England that is the musical talk of the year, forces today’s youth to face the “most crucial of all questions: Who is Jesus Christ?”

Ford put down the opera for lacking “the clear compelling testimony of Scripture on the person of Jesus Christ.” The proof of Christ’s divinity comes home to a seeker when he meets Him, Ford added, challenging the young people to give their hearts to Christ.

“Will you worship, trust, and follow him as the God-man?” he asked. “Until he rules you, you cannot rule the world. Until he saves you, you cannot save the world. Until he changes you, he cannot change the world.”

In this turbulent scene, Mujibur Rahman has emerged as the champion of the rights of the common man. Having received 98 per cent of the votes of the East Pakistanis in the recent election, Rahman feels he has a clear mandate from his countrymen to pressure the central government to acquiesce to his party’s various ultimatums.

In response to a call by Rahman, 500,000 bamboo-stick-waving, slogan-chanting Bengalis gathered on the green turf of the Dacca race course on the warm afternoon of March 7. The anticipation was that Rahman would declare complete independence from the west. Instead, he chose a more moderate course and inaugurated a “non-violent, non co-operative movement” patterned very much along the lines Gandhi chose in the 1940s.

All government offices were immediately closed, flight of capital to West Pakistan was prohibited, and all taxes were ordered to be paid directly to Rahman’s new de facto government. Mail service was canceled.

Thus President Yahya of Pakistan (he is also the chief martial-law administrator) opted to maintain a low profile and sought not to further antagonize the people who constitute 60 per cent of his country’s population. Talks were going on in Dacca last month between the president and various political leaders; the mood among the Bengalis (Christian and non-Christian) was a militant unwillingness to settle for anything less than the installation of Rahman as chief of state.

At a recent press conference, the sheikh impressed this reporter as a man of authority who yet commands each situation with a winsome grace and politeness. He attended a Christian high school in one of the remote towns of East Pakistan. His political position, while admittedly pragmatic, is favorable to the minority community. He is a nominal Muslim.

There was a great deal of violence during the early days of this movement, but it then abated. All West German and Japanese citizens have been evacuated. The British government advised all non-essential personnel to fly out. Many missionaries were summoned to the capital city by their consulates last month to await further development.Pakistan’s civil war broke out March 25, and news reports indicated ten days later that Rahman had disappeared. Whether he was in hiding or under arrest was disputed. Some accounts said that all marketplaces in Dacca were destroyed during the uprisings by West Pakistan soldiers, and that a large part of Dacca’s population had fled into the countryside. Sections of East Pakistan bordering on India and accessible to reporters had not seen heavy fighting nor suffered widespread destruction during the first few days of this month, the Washington Post reported.

A previously planned missionary convention during mid-March in Dacca was canceled, but the three guest speakers did not receive word and with great difficulty managed to fly in as originally planned. Within a few hours the convention was rescheduled. The interdenominational group heard Dr. Christy Wilson of Kabul, Afghanistan, give a biblical exegesis of the book of James—with an emphasis on verses like, “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into various trials.” The sound of evacuation planes flying overhead at times drowned out the songs of Zion.

Only four months ago this densely populated country was the scene of feverish news coverage as the world gasped in horror and sorrow at the report of 500,000 cyclone casualties. Today the reporters are back—hearing this time a chant of different cadence. “Joy Bangla, Joy Bangla” (victory to Bengal) is heard in every town, village, and market place of East Pakistan.

The missionary in East Pakistan has a different emphasis. Victory to Bengal, yes. But there is a longing that one day in the land “Joy Jesu” (victory to Jesus) will be fulfilled.

PHIL PARSHALL

Clerics May Not Duck Clerical Work

A U. S. district court in Atlanta, Georgia, last month ruled in favor of the Salvation Army in a case involving Billie McClure, a former employee and commissioned SA officer. She charged that the Army had discriminated against her on the job because of her sex (see October 9 issue, page 40).

The court dismissed the case, saying it had no jurisdiction in the matter because religious bodies are exempt from pertinent sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The ruling said that Mrs. McClure’s activities, “which might seem secular, such as secretarial work, are supportive of her overall role yet an integral part of the Army’s purely religious functions and activities.”

But Is It Educational?

Can a church qualify for radio or television channels reserved for educational use? No, said the Federal Communications Commission, rejecting for a second time an attempt by the Bible Moravian Church to apply for an FM station to operate on an educational channel at Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

The action sets the stage for a court test if the church wishes to appeal the ruling. The FCC first rejected the application out of hand, then granted a hearing when the church insisted that its principal purpose was “education, mainly but not exclusively religious.”

“Educational FM channels are available only to educational organizations,” said the FCC, “and it is clear that the applicant is not.…”

In Transit (Literally)

What does it take to uproot a 300-member congregation from southern California and cause its members to give up jobs, sell houses, and leave behind a 500-seat church for a move to Evansville, Indiana?

It wasn’t the February 9 earthquake, according to pastor C. J. Mears of the San Gabriel Gospel Temple. But the final decision was made in mid-February, said another leader of the congregation, adding: “God called us.” The nondenominational group expects to be on its way to the Ohio River Valley in a month or two.

The decision to leave Rosemead, reportedly unanimous, was made after weeks of prayer and periodic fasting. Three years ago there was an exodus of about 500 from five southern and central California congregations after their pastors reported visions of earthquakes. Those bands settled in Missouri, Tennessee, and Georgia.

Late last month another nomadic flock ended a month-long trek from California. Hippie-type followers of Stephen Gaskin’s 250-member religious band arrived at Old Hickory Lake in Tennessee looking for a farm in the central part of the state to convert into “an agricultural commune.” Gaskin is a former San Francisco State College professor. Most members of the caravan are young and married; some have entered group marriages.

Early this year about seventy-five residents of St. Helens, Oregon, pulled up stakes to join nearly 200 other members of Christ’s Household of Faith in Mora, Minnesota, where they hope Jesus will set up an earthly paradise.

The Northwest contingent was led by the Reverend Vernon Harms, a former Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod pastor. He and Donald Alsbury, who heads the combined group, are graduates of Concordia Seminary, Springfield, Illinois. Alsbury also left the Missouri Synod and his church at Giese, Minnesota, citing “liberal” trends in the denomination. The Household of Faith, who live in a semi-communal state, hold twice-daily study and prayer meetings that last up to eight hours. Alsbury relates his visions, interprets dreams, and castigates “hypocrites of the worldly church.”

A member of Mears’s Gospel Assembly congregation told Los Angeles Times religion writer John Dart why the group is moving to Indiana. “We’re kind of tired of the hustle and bustle,” he said, also mentioning smog and problems at public schools. “We’re kind of anxious to get back to a spot of land large enough where you can grow vegetables, where there is a slower atmosphere, and where many of our relatives live.”

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