Europe’s New Evangelical Seminaries

It is often said that at the Reformation Luther replaced the ecclesiastical hierarchy of Roman Catholicism with an academic hierarchy of university professors. Since the mid-1800s this has been causing an increasing problem for evangelically inclined parishes and students in Europe. As private or independent institutions of higher learning are almost unknown on the Continent (except in Holland and Norway), virtually all the clergy in the Lutheran and Reformed churches of Germany, Switzerland, France, and Scandinavia get their education at state-run schools. Those private schools that have existed either were not at university level or drew their small student bodies from a minority confessional tradition rather than from the widely distributed, often state-related Lutheran and Reformed churches that dominate European Protestantism.

With the progressive secularization of European society, the theological education furnished by the state has become progressively more liberal and less concerned with historic Christian doctrines and values. Conservative congregations often find it impossible to get an evangelical pastor, and many believing students have lost their evangelical faith while studying theology. (Financial and other factors limit the number of ministerial students able to study at evangelical schools abroad.)

In the five years between 1965 and 1970, however, the situation began changing radically for French-speaking, German-speaking, and Swedish-speaking students (each language is spoken in more than one country). New evangelical institutions of university level were founded in Vaux-sur-Seine (France), Basel (Switzerland, German-speaking), and Uppsala (Sweden).

A major hurdle for each was the necessity of convincing the responsible government ministries of education that independent, evangelically committed theological faculties would meet a real need and could be run in an academically responsible way. In some cases the university theological establishments tried to hinder the founding of “rival” schools, and in at least one instance the very hostility of the university faculty helped convince the ministry of education that some competition was needed.

The three new schools differ from one another in organization and instructional method, but all are independent of government and church control and committed to the plenary inspiration and full authority of Holy Scripture.

The first of the new schools to be founded was the Faculté Libre de Théologie Evangélique (French Evangelical Seminary), which opened in the fall of 1965 with John Winston of the Brussels Bible Institute as dean. The school acquired a large estate at Vauxsur-Seine, not far from Paris. The first year only five students were enrolled. This year’s enrollment is forty-two: eighteen from France itself, nine from French-speaking Africa, the rest from other countries. The school is becoming increasingly important, not only for France’s Protestants, who number only about 1 per cent of the population, but especially for French-speaking Africans. The students come from a variety of different denominational backgrounds.

In Uppsala, Sweden, the Biblicum Foundation (Stiftelsen Biblicum) was established in 1968 as an institute for biblical research. In 1970 Dr. Seth Erlandsson was appointed senior lecturer (docenten), and in 1971 property was acquired within easy walking distance of the Uppsala University library. The foundation offers courses for credit that theology students at the University of Uppsala may take under an arrangement with the university. The Biblicum is the least traditional of the three new institutions, in that it does not offer a complete program nor give its own degrees, but it does provide facilities for conservative evangelical scholars to study and compare notes as they try to keep their footing in the overwhelmingly liberal climate of academic theology. Dr. G. A. Danell is the director of Biblicum.

The newest and also the largest of the new institutions is the Freie Evangelisch-theologische Akademie (Free Academy of Evangelical Theology) in Basel, Switzerland. It opened its doors to twenty-four students in October, 1970, and enrollment exceeds fifty this year. Although many Christians from diverse backgrounds cooperated in establishing the academy, the driving vision was that of Dr. Samuel Külling of Bern, an Old Testament scholar (as are Erlandsson and Danell).

Regierungsrat A. Schneider, director of the Department of Education of the Canton of Basel, said at the inauguration of the academy, “The University of Basel and above all the Basel theological faculty do not appreciate the establishment of the Academy. Well, with the straightforwardness which suits a judge now and again, I must state: The competition from the Academy will do this Basel theological faculty good.”

Dr. Külling had planned for such a school for twenty-five years, but only recently wrung approval from the government. The academy includes students from traditionally German-speaking countries (Germany, Switzerland, Austria), and also a large number of Dutch, as well as students from France and Indonesia. The influx of Dutch-speaking students is taken by Külling as an indication of the doctrinal slippage of the Free University (Amsterdam), which began as a biblically orthodox institution but gradually seems to have accommodated itself somewhat to the general climate of academic theology.

The establishment of independent schools and institutes does not come naturally to Europeans, who are used to having the state do it all. The fact that within five years three new faculties could spring up, locate competent staff, find at least a minimum of financial support, and above all attract a growing number of students, leads many to believe that there is a deeply felt need in Europe for theological education that is unequivocally committed to the authority of the Holy Scripture.

Covering The Catacombs

At the same time last fall that the National Council of Churches withdrew its sponsorship of Religion in Communist Dominated Areas, a periodical that publishes documentary information—much of it from first-hand sources—on the treatment of religious believers behind the Iron Curtain, a new magazine devoted to the “Silent Church” was being founded in France.

Catacombes, edited by Sergiu Grossu, began publication in October with the active support and participation of a number of internationally known scholars representing Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox faiths. Well-known French evangelical leaders such as Pierre Courthial, editor of the respected La Revue Réformée, and Professor J. G. H. Hoffmann of the Free Faculty of Protestant Theology, Paris, were joined by members of the Institut and the Academie Française, elite intellectual societies.

Gabriel Marcel, the dean of French Catholic intellectuals, wrote in the first issue: “I must express my personal congratulations and good wishes to all those … who have contributed to the publication of a monthly magazine dealing essentially with the Silent Church. The news reaching us from Soviet Russia about the inhuman treatment accorded in that country not only to believers but to non-conformist writers, gives this publication a quality of urgency.”

Anglican cleric Michael Bourdeaux, perhaps the best-known authority on the church in Russia, is among the contributors to Catacombes.

In contrast to the purely documentary Religion in Communist Dominated Areas, Catacombes is more spiritual in tone; its position is conservative or orthodox on the doctrine of God, the divinity of Christ, and biblical authority. For those who read French, it offers detailed accounts of the situation of Christians in Communist countries, especially in the U.S.S.R. and Red China, as well as material criticizing philosophical and religious aspects of Marxism and Maoism.

HAROLD O. J. BROWN

Jesus Joy

“Carnegie Hall will never be the same again after tonight!”

With those words Paul Moore, pastor of the sponsoring church—Maranatha, Church of the Nazarene, in Milford, New Jersey—captured the excitement and enthusiasm of the first Jesus rock concert in that auditorium. The hall held 3,000 ecstatic Jesus people, celebrating “Jesus Joy.” Across the street, Calvary Baptist Church was packed with a 500-person over-flow audience that heard an instant replay of each performance. The groups and their instruments were kept hopping back and forth between Carnegie and Calvary.

The evening’s unusually calm atmosphere ended when Rock Garden, a very professional, exciting group of performers, began to vibrate the message of Jesus’ love. “You were brought with a price,” they sang. Members of the audience responded “Amen! Praise Jesus! Hallelujah!” as they danced in and sprinted down the aisles, clapping their hands and hugging one another. One member of the audience, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was sitting in a second-tier box, jumped up with raised arms, shouted hallelujah, and fell on his knees in adoration of Jesus. Rock Garden’s message was focused on the three p’s of Christianity—pardon, peace, and purpose through Jesus.

Mark Sullivan, who regularly attends Maranatha, came to the concert with about thirty-five other young people. A former Catholic, he says that before he started going to Maranatha all he knew about God was that he was the “big greaser in the sky.”

Another member of that group, Robin Borchers, was one of the few non-Christians at the concert. She styled herself an “atheist-socialist, although some people just call me a radical degenerate freak.” She also goes to Maranatha, but Christianity, she insisted, isn’t for her. “Jesus is great if you need something; I don’t. He’s a crutch, religion’s a crutch, and so are drugs.” But, she admitted, the Jesus kids treat her “like a person, not like a creep.”

The predominantly white audience (you could almost count on two hands the number of black kids there) exploded when the concluding performers, Andrae Crouch and the Disciples—pure soul in the best black tradition—took over the hall for one and a half hours. While the Disciples sang and strutted on stage for Jesus, many kids were wrapped up in performances of their own. Some read Bibles aloud, others shouted praises or sang. Another Jesus freak alternately trembled, laughed, cried, and spoke in tongues.

The “Jesus Joy” extravaganza ended with an invitation. About fifty people in both halls responded; the majority of these, a counselor said, were Catholic. One of the festival’s planners, however, felt the concert was unsuccessful—“too many Christians in the audience,” he said.

Even so, Maranatha plans to hold another festival on September 4, again at Carnegie Hall. Maybe the next one will last all night; this one almost did.

CHERYL A. FORBES

Musical Firsts

Washington, D. C., is emerging as a strong contender for musical first place, which in this country usually goes to New York.

During Holy Week, the nation’s capital heard two premieres. On Palm Sunday Olivier Messiaen, long recognized as one of the foremost church organists and composers of this century, gave his first United States recital at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. It was also the world premiere of the Catholic composer’s latest work, Meditationson the Mystery of the Holy Trinity.

Later in the week Antal Dorati conducted the National Symphony and the Westminster Symphonic Choir in the U. S. premiere of Messiaen’s most ambitious work, The Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Easter Sunday it was performed at Carnegie Hall in New York.

CHERYL A. FORBES

Baptists Hoist Battle Flags

Chaplain Andrew F. Jensen was acquitted in a Navy court-martial of a charge of misconduct by adultery (see March 31 issue, page 33), but the American Baptist Convention (ABC) has apparently not yet begun to fight.

ABC executive Paul O. Madsen said the ABC will not provide new chaplains for the Navy until restitution is granted to Jensen.

The ABC, which helped in Jensen’s defense, wants the Navy and the Pentagon to reimburse Jensen for his defense costs of about $15,000, to consider payment of damages, and to promote him as previously scheduled. The denomination also wants assurances that in the future it will be consulted in matters regarding moral and spiritual qualifications of chaplains. Furthermore, said Madsen, the ABC thinks Jensen’s civil and judicial liberties were violated, and it wants a congressional review both of legal procedures in the armed forces and of the laws governing endorsement of chaplains “in order to guarantee full ecclesiastical prerogatives.” High level meetings on the issues are scheduled to be held in Washington next month, at which time the Navy may make a formal response.

ABC chaplaincy director Charles F. Wills said that early investigation by the ABC of the charges against Jensen “led us to believe he is innocent.” He asserted that his office would not have intervened if the charges were of a strictly military nature.

Garner Ted: In Satan’S Bonds?

The mystery surrounding the sudden disappearance of Garner Ted Armstrong as chief spokesman and number two man in his father’s Worldwide Church of God (see April 14 issue, page 39) has deepened. An informant disclosed that a confidential letter (with instructions to destroy after reading) from Worldwide Church founder Herbert W. Armstrong to his 250 congregations spoke of Garner Ted as being “in the bonds of Satan.”

The elder Armstrong denied saying any such thing, but Fred K. Brogaard—a Seattle pastor of the cult—readily acknowledged to Seattle Post-Intelligencer religion editor Earl Hansen that the letter did speak in those terms.

According to the informant, the letter stated that Garner Ted in October wrote to his father confessing he had sinned and was in Satan’s bonds. The father was quoted as saying he and his son prayed together on their knees that the angels Michael and Gabriel might release Garner Ted from Satan’s bonds.

The nature of Garner Ted’s “sin”—whether doctrinal, personal, or a falling out over policy—was not revealed. For months, however, followers of the cult say they have been hearing rumors that Garner Ted opposed the lavish spending of his father and other leaders—money for costly suits and jet trips and not enough for “the widows.”

Religion In Transit

The 155-year-old American Sunday-School Union says that if finances do not improve by May 1 it will be forced to reduce headquarters and field staffs, and to retire others early.

A snake-handling cult, defying city ordinances, surfaced in Greenville, South Carolina. Followers also reportedly sipped a drink containing strychnine. As rationale, they cited Mark 16:17–19.

A federal court in Philadelphia awarded a Pennsylvania missionary couple serving in the African bush $87,500 damages in the 1966 death of their 5-year-old daughter in Kenya. She was killed when a frame collapsed, sending the van in which she was riding into a ravine. Ford Motor Company was also ordered to pay $15,750 to missionary Edward Weaver (the girl’s father), a Kenya tribal chief, and an African Baptist minister for injuries they received.

Three physicians and a mortician—all Seventh-day Adventists—who have been marketing a ten-dollar stop-smoking-by-smoking filter kit filed a $5.85 million libel suit in Sacramento, California, against SDA leaders for publishing a “warning” against the alleged “money-making scheme.”

Accreditation was awarded to the Conservative Baptist Seminary of Denver by the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. This follows accreditation in 1970 by the American Association of Theological Schools. More than 200 students are enrolled.

First Baptist Church of Houston baptized 1,669 persons last year, said to be a record among Southern Baptists. Pastor John Bisagno said 950 baptisms resulted from the 4,000 decisions during a three-month crusade. Continuing revival upped this year’s budget goal to $656,000, an increase of nearly $400,000 over last year’s, he said.

Associated Church Press editor Alfred P. Klausler prophesies that many religious journals will drop by the way-side “unless the miraculous happens” regarding proposed postal increases of 351.3 per cent for non-profit second-class rates. In addition to per-pound increases, each magazine copy will be surcharged 1.5 cents.

The fully equipped $3.3-million-dollar Ellendale campus of the University of North Dakota was given to Trinity Bible Institute, an Assemblies of God school, in an act signed by Governor William L. Guy.

The Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) says it will actively oppose government and private policies that support white colonialism in southern Africa.

The Omaha Gospel Tabernacle’s pioneering radio program begins its fiftieth year this month.

Several leading experts on the Dead Sea Scrolls have voiced serious doubts about a claim in the Vatican’s Biblica magazine that a fragment is from the Gospel of Mark and dates from about 50 A.D.

A Mormon chapel and educational facility will be established on the lower floors of a 32-story apartment house to be built on Lincoln Square in New York.

New York City churchmen glumly complain of the encroaching secular city as members flee farther out into the suburbs, as disinterest among the remainder mounts, and as churches are torn down. The Council of Churches budget, half what it was five years ago, is $156,000 in the red. Fifty persons at the annual meeting elected suburban lawyer George M. Duff, Jr., president.

The First Singles Church, founded in January by Princeton Seminary graduate Richard Chen and seventeen others in Orange County, California, has a congregation of divorced, widowed, and not-yet-marrieds numbering in the hundreds. Chen (who is divorced and has four children to care for) and his flock meet in rented quarters for worship and Bible study.

The Gate, an evangelistic coffeehouse in the Georgetown district of the nation’s capital, received a $10,000 grant from Seventh-day Adventists to set up a medical clinic next door.

Canadian rabbi Abraham Feinberg, 72, Reformed Jewish anti-war activist, is now “rabbi in residence” at the swinging Glide Memorial Methodist church in San Francisco; he is minister to the elderly.

Deaths

OLIVER BEGUIN, 58, Swiss layman, general secretary of the fifty-member United Bible Societies and a former secretary of the World Council of Churches; in London.

LAYONA GLENN, 106, believed to be the oldest missionary in the United Methodist Church; in Atlanta, from complications after a fall.

ADAM CLAYTON POWELL, 63, veteran New York congressman and pastor for forty years of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church; in Miami, from complications following surgery.

WILLIAM YOUNG, 83, Lutheran educator prominent in the founding of the American Lutheran Church; in Columbus, Ohio, after a brief illness.

Hope Of The World

Barred by critics from receiving last year’s Family of Man Award from the New York Council of Churches, comedian Bob Hope scored a comeback of sorts at this year’s Religion in American Life (RIAL) banquet, attended by 700. RIAL prepares public-service advertisements on the meaning of faith.

The entertainer got a silver pitcher for his appearance. He likened religion to a “warm protective blanket” that gives security at all times.

Referring to the Family of Man incident, he denied he was pro-war, as critics charged. “I went to the wrong war—Viet Nam instead of Canada. Instead of a plaque, they gave me three nails,” he jested.

Hope said that when he saw the banquet theme with the line “God is hope,” he was stirred. “I almost felt like bending down and kissing my own ring,” he quipped.

Personalia

General minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) A. Dale Fiers will retire next year.

Richard Fernandez, United Church of Christ minister who is national director of the anti-war Clergy and Laymen Concerned group, brought home more than 1,000 letters from American prisoners in North and South Viet Nam after meeting with North Vietnamese and Viet Cong representatives in Paris.

Industrialist J. Irwin Miller, a member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) who has served as National Council of Churches president and executive committeeman of the World Council of Churches, writes in the April issue of Reader’s Digest that the Church must be active, controversial, and even disruptive to be effective in the world. The article is intended to rebut earlier articles critical of the WCC.

Troy Perry, 31, pastor of a Los Angeles church for homosexuals, announced he will be “married” in June to a 23-year-old Chicano male by a United Church of Christ clergyman. Perry says that he has performed 105 gay marriages and that only fifteen have broken up (he refuses to remarry partners who break up). He has two young sons by an earlier heterosexual marriage.

Austin (Texas) Presbyterian Seminary’s new president is Prescott H. Williams, Jr., former professor and dean of the school.

World Scene

Taiwan expelled British Presbyterian missionary Harry Daniel Beery, principal of Taiwan Theological College, for allegedly being “unfriendly to this country.” He has sided with native Taiwanese in past conflicts with the government, and recently signed a statement calling for reforms and new elections.

A family living near Jullender, India, revived an ancient Hindu practice and hacked to death a 3-year-old boy to satisfy the spirit of a dead relative, police say.

Noted French Catholic theologian René Laurentin claims that the use of violence to overthrow oppressive political regimes and repressive economic structures is in complete accord with Catholic moral teaching.

To house its first permanent embassy in Canada, the People’s Republic of China has purchased a 200-room former convent and girls’ home in Ottawa, Canada, from the Catholic Sisters of the Good Shepherd for $1.6 million.

Central Baptist Church of Quito, Ecuador’s first Baptist church (founded 1952), sponsored a national festival of Ecuadorian evangelical hymns, attended by 600. Thirty hymns were entered; Baptist musicians won the top three awards.

Christians in Rumania and Lithuania have appealed to the United Nations. They complain that authorities have confiscated Bibles and other Christian literature, banned religious meetings, discriminated socially and economically against believers, and arrested and jailed priests and ministers without trial for engaging in religious activities.

Soon after granting the Evangelical Free Church of Greece permission to start a new assembly in Trikala, Thessaly, the government—under pressure from Orthodox leaders—reversed itself and closed the church (official reason: proselytizing of Orthodox faithful), banning even meetings in homes.

Spiritual interest is mounting in southeast Asia. A Christian radio station in Thailand received an unprecedented 5,000 requests for literature in five months. Bible correspondence courses processed by one mission at an average of thirty-nine a month two years ago now average 674. Bible societies sold more than two million Bibles and Scripture portions last year—four times the number eight years ago.

The Easter worship service of the Avenue du Main Baptist Church, an evangelical church in Paris, was carried by live television throughout French-speaking Europe, the first such coverage for French Baptists.

The Synod of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands rejected a proposal to support the World Council of Churches’ Program to Combat Racism (in southern Africa). More than 100 theological students at Amsterdam’s Free University protested the decision, saying they were “profoundly ashamed and shaken.”

Missionary John R. Davis of the Phayao Bible Training Center in Thailand writes that revival is sweeping through northern Thai churches, sparking intense outreach and new interest in Bible study. Following a recent Bible conference in Phayao, the 600 participants staged a witness march in the streets and held a Jesus rally downtown.

With the nationalization of Turkish higher education, the church-founded Robert College is now Bosporus University, and the Greek Orthodox Theological Seminary in Istanbul no longer exists. The seminary closed rather than submit to state takeover.

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