Jesus, Women, and Temperance

Resolutions on human rights and discrimination against women were added to the traditional calls for stricter regulation of alcohol advertising, harsher penalties for drug peddlers, and more education on the evils of alcohol at the 25th triennial convention of the World Woman’s Christian Temperance Union.

A resolutions committee headed by Mrs. M. E. Duguid of South Africa presented the statements. They urged the WCTU’s national unions to “seek in various ways to enlighten the public concerning the continuance of customs which offend against the dignity of the individual and to show that racial discrimination is detrimental physically, morally, and spiritually, not only to those against whom it is directed, but also to the community by which it is tolerated.”

Another resolution asked that the right of exit and re-entry to nations be included in the list of human rights under the United Nations Charter.

The more than 1,000 delegates meeting in Chicago also voiced their support for a UN declaration on the elimination of discrimination against women. They advocated that national WCTU units promote studies on the change in the traditional roles of men and women so that “family life may be stabilized … and communities be benefited by the opportunity for women as well as men to attain their full potential.”

Some 500 young people who attended the convention heard a testimony from 17-year-old Ronda Dillon of Boise, Idaho, who said she had been a dope smoker but now works with the Jesus people. “I’m just someone whom the Lord touched,” said the red-haired Ronda. “It happened last July 7 at a Christian rock festival, and now I spend my days telling people about Jesus.” Of the WCTU she declared, “What’s really neat are all these people from foreign countries and the only thing we have in common is Jesus Christ.”

Prayer Amendment: Second Wind

A once-dead issue has returned to life: the constitutional prayer amendment.

The miracle worker is a housewife from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, who soon expects to see a resolution on the prayer amendment reach the floor of the House of Representatives.

The prayer movement has long been stopped by the powerful Judiciary Committee, but a discharge petition signed by 218 Congressmen could bring the resolution past the committee to the House floor for a vote.

As of August 10, 197 congressmen had signed the discharge petition started by Rep. Chalmers P. Wylie (R., Ohio). Wylie’s resolution is the same as the Dirksen Amendment. The amendment would read:

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“Nothing contained in this Constitution shall abridge the right of persons lawfully assembled, in any public building which is supported in whole or in part through the expenditure of public funds, to participate in nondenominational prayer.”

While some groups such as the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs warn against any effort to change the meaning of the First Amendment, others, including the National Association of Evangelicals, support the new amendment.

A member of the United Church of Christ, Mrs. Ruhlin is lobbying in Congress with a group of thirty-five Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish volunteers. Her interest in the issue was first aroused two and one-half years ago when the youngest of her three children, then 14, asked why God is kept out of schools.

Inner-City Investment

Philadelphia College of Bible is sticking with the city. In contrast to the still prevalent trend among religious schools and churches to get away from crowded urban areas when they can, PCB is purchasing a downtown Philadelphia landmark, the old Robert Morris Hotel, for its “campus.” The decision fits in well with a curriculum emphasis on Bible study and inner-city social work.

The 14-story building was purchased by the school from the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church for $1.3 million. The conference had bought it four years ago from the United Methodist Board of Missions for $750,000.

Religion In Transit

Gideons report that they distributed a record 7.8 million Bibles throughout the world last year. That brought the total since they began at the turn of the century to 100,000,000. Gideon officials made a commemorative presentation to President Nixon.

International Students, Inc., which sponsors evangelistic efforts among people who come to the United States for schooling, plans to move its headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Colorado Springs. An office, however, is to be maintained in the nation’s capital.

Attorneys for seven non-public schools in Pennsylvania are petitioning the U. S. Supreme Court for re-argument of the case in which the high tribunal apparently voided the state’s parochaid program.

The World Council of Christian Education voted to merge its activities with the World Council of Churches. The vote was 158 to 7, with two abstentions.

While making it clear that he disapproved of Scientology and its leader, L. Ron Hubbard, Judge Gerhard Gesell nevertheless ruled that the group was a religion and could, contrary to the wishes of the Food and Drug Administration, use its E-meter as long as it was confined to a purely religious context (see editorial, June 4 issue, p. 21).

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Religious News Service reported last month that the largest Greek Orthodox church in the United States was being sold to the Black Muslims to be turned into a mosque. Sale of SS. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church on Chicago’s South Side was approved by the congregation by a 168–34 vote.

The Christian Broadcasting Network sent a check for $50,000 to the treasurer of Portsmouth, Virginia—twice the amount the city has tried to collect from the organization for alleged back taxes. The network, which operates two television stations and several radio outlets by which it airs evangelical programs, had been arguing that it was entitled to tax exemption.

Total membership in North American Lutheran churches dropped about 47,000 in 1970, but there are still more than 9,000,000 Lutherans in the United States and Canada. The Lutheran Church in America and the American Lutheran Churches showed losses while the Missouri and Wisconsin synods registered gains.

National Sunday School Association plans to publish a new monthly periodical to be known as Concept. The first issue is to appear in September.

Latin America Mission begins its fiftieth anniversary celebration this month.

Personalia

Dr. Arthur M. Climenhaga will become dean of Western Evangelical Seminary, Portland, Oregon, next summer. Climenhaga, currently serving a five-year term as bishop in the Brethren in Christ Church, was president of Messiah College and executive director of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Father John McLaughlin, a Jesuit who ran unsuccessfully for the U. S. Senate last year, has joined the White House staff as a speechwriter. He was at one time the associate editor of America.

Dr. Everett L. Cattell will retire next summer after twelve years as president of Malone College, a Quaker school in Canton, Ohio.

The new president of Liberia, William Richard Tolbert, is a world-renowned Baptist leader. He is the immediate past president of the Baptist World Alliance, a non-smoking teetotaler, and father of eight children.

A Dominican nun, Sister Margaret Murtha, spent five days in jail for refusing to testify in a grand jury murder investigation. Authorities in Jersey City, New Jersey, have sought her as a witness because of a conversation she allegedly had with a teen-ager about the slaying of a school attendance officer. She is claiming “priest’s privilege” of confession.

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Dr. Allan W. Lee will become general secretary of the World Convention of Churches of Christ (Disciples) September 1. He has been pastor of the First Christian Church of Seattle.

Dr. Oscar E. Remick was installed as president of Chautauqua Institution, a 98-year-old religious and cultural institution in Chautauqua, New York. He is a Baptist minister who has been teaching at a Catholic college and is affiliated with the United Church of Christ.