Conservative Baptists: From Conflict to Caution

High on historic Burial Hill overlooking the harbor at Plymouth, Massachusetts, stands a marker in tribute to pioneer Baptist missionary Adoniram Judson. Although he is not buried there, some of his descendants are, and his father was pastor of a Congregational church in town. Moreover, it was in Plymouth that Judson underwent a traumatic experience that turned him from agnosticism to full Christian commitment.

After seminary Judson prodded the Congregationalists to set up a foreign missions board, but en route to India as a missionary himself in 1812 he switched to Baptist belief and became the first Baptist foreign missionary from America. Two years later he helped to organize the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society (ABFMS).

Feuds, the Civil War, and other factors over the years since then have fractured the Baptists into more than two dozen groups. These range from the huge Southern Baptist Convention to the eighty-church Separate Baptists in Christ and smaller groups, with the 1.5-million-member American Baptist Convention claiming Judson’s birthright (the ABFMS is an ABC unit). But the rifts run deeper: the average Baptist church vehemently insists on its autonomy, so that cooperation and even fellowship with sister churches is often difficult if not impossible.

The Conservative Baptists are a case in point. They have three autonomous agencies: the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society (CBFMS); the Conservative Baptist Home Mission Society (CBHMS), and the Conservative Baptist Association of America (CBA). The CBFMS was organized within the Northern (now American) Baptist Convention in 1943 by conservatives protesting alleged theological liberalism in the ABFMS. Three years later the conservative faction walked out of the NBC after losing a bitter fight over the liberalism issue, and in 1947 they formed the CBA, cutting ties with the NBC. Next came the CBHMS.

This year’s annual meeting of the three groups was held in the shadow of the Judson marker at Plymouth. It was the CBA’s twenty-fifth anniversary, (the CBA received support last year from 1,100 churches) but the 1,200 messengers (delegates) and visitors showed little jubilance. Their mood and actions were in line with a cautious conservatism borne out of conflict in their own recent history. (A few years ago a self-styled “hard core” used the CBA platform to crusade for adoption of extreme separatist and dispensational viewpoints as official policy. That faction finally exited, and it has split several times since then. The latest uproar involves the resignation of most of the faculty from San Francisco Baptist Seminary, formerly Conservative Baptist. Teachers reportedly clashed with administrators Arno and Archer Weniger over policy. Many students say they will not return.)

Thus the messengers passed no resolutions on major issues (“we can’t speak for the churches”), decided against consolidation of their three bodies (“too much power in too few hands”), and quietly went about housekeeping. To appease the separatists in their midst, the CBs will stay out of Key 73. However, the messengers went along with a recommendation that they engage in special evangelistic endeavors in 1973, amounting to de facto participation in Key 73.

The reports indicated the CBs were in good health. The CBFMS had about 500 career missionaries on the field working in 1,000 overseas churches with 41,500 members. It had received $3.9 million from 1,800 churches to stake the work.

The two Conservative Baptist seminaries reported growth. Western Baptist Seminary in Portland has grown from thirty students in 1959 to about 300 today, with a full-time faculty of twenty-three. Conservative Baptist Seminary at Denver, less doctrinally bound than Western (which requires belief in the pre-tribulation rapture of the church), reported an annual growth rate of 10 per cent.

CBA executive director Russell Shive insists that despite the mix of rigid fundamentalism and moderate conservatism in the ranks the CB scene is peaceful, and the job of world evangelism and church planning is being accomplished—cooperatively.

Yet with no internal power to discipline as a united body, the CBs are all but powerless to deal with the seeds of destruction. Many executives fully expect, for instance, that dissident CBA Michigan state executive Harry Love soon will lead his flock to other pastures.

Would Adoniram Judson have understood?

A Developing Denomination

The Congregational Christian Church’s annual meeting held in Green Bay, Wisconsin, voted to approve a $1.1 million fund-raising campaign, more than $500,000 of which is pegged for increased development of new churches. The 335-congregation church adopted a budget of $228,775, added sixteen new churches to the membership roll, and elected Erwin A. Britton to be its moderator. Eight hundred delegates made the meeting the largest ever held by the church since the denomination was founded in 1955.

Tax Bite

The Internal Revenue Service has been looking into the political activities of some churches and their organizations to make sure “no substantial part”—usually meaning 5 per cent or more—of tax-exempt funds is used for political activity.

In recent months, the IRS examined the books of the National Council of Churches but reportedly found that while the council is politically involved, the cash contribution to such activities is less than “substantial” and does not jeopardize the council’s tax-exempt status.

The IRS also asked to see the books of the American Baptist Home Missions Societies, but Executive Secretary James A. Christison refused the request. He considers it an unconstitutional intrusion by government into church affairs.

Shortly after Beacon Press published the Pentagon Papers, FBI agents armed with a grand jury subpoena began investigating the press’s parent body, the Unitarian-Universalist Association. After a public outcry, the investigation was dropped.

NCC governmental relations director Dean M. Kelley is said to have obtained fifteen pages of documentation of such investigations. The NCC’s General Board, claiming that churches have the right to engage in political comment, has condemned the tax probes as a device to thwart church activism.

Decision And Appeal

A Greek superior court has upheld the conviction of journalist George Constantinidis, a Greek evangelical, on charges of proselytism (see June 9 issue, page 47) but suspended his five-month prison sentence. Constantinidis was convicted in May. An appeal will be filed with the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the proselytism law.

Papal Guessing Game

Rumors continue to circulate that Pope Paul VI will announce his resignation at the Eucharistic Congress scheduled for September. The Pope will celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday September 26, and he previously set 75 as the retirement age for Catholic hierarchy.

Only the pontiff really knows how well founded the rumors are, but high prelates are talking about a successor to Peter’s chair. Secretary of State Jean Cardinal Villot appears to be the Pope’s personal choice and is considered front-runner. Conservatives are converging on Italian Pericle Cardinal Felici, and progressive forces presently seem to back the archbishop of Utrecht, Holland, Bernard Cardinal Jan Alfrink.

Polemics concerning election of the pope began five or six years ago when Cardinal Pellegrino, the progressive archbishop of Turin, requested that a representative body of bishops be included in conclave proceedings. (The College of Cardinals elects the pope.) Last May conservative Giuseppe Cardinal Siri attacked demands that conclave rules be radically reformed. Leo Cardinal Suenens wants the entire Synod of Bishops allowed to cast ballots in the election of a pope. Although conclave reforms have long been considered—even by Paul VI—no officials have confirmed that reform is in the wind.

One thing is certain: the deadly struggle between conservatives and progressives that has torn Catholicism since Vatican Council II would take on even more earnestness should either the retirement or reform rumors prove true.

ROYAL L. PECK

Holy War In Canada

A. C. Forrest, editor of Canada’s United Church Observer and a persistent critic of Israeli treatment of Arab refugees, has been slapped with a libel suit by B’nai B’rith of Canada. Forrest is named in the action because of a recent article, “How Zionists Manipulate Your News,” by John Nicholls Booth. Also named in the suit were the United Church of Canada’s publishing house and the church’s General Council.

But earlier, in a little noticed move, Forrest himself had launched a libel suit against B’nai B’rith for allowing publication of what he called inflammatory and libelous statements against him.

The Jewish-United Church feud heated up again when the church’s theological school, St. Andrew’s College in Saskatoon, granted an honorary doctor of divinity degree to Jewish theologian Emil L. Fackenheim, apparently in a move to extend the olive branch. (Many United Church members have been troubled by Forrest’s outspokenness.)

Fackenheim, a philosophy professor at the University of Toronto, seized the opportunity to blast both Forrest and the church for alleged anti-Jewish bias. He said that by allowing Forrest to continue his remarks and by remaining quiet on the issue, the church appeared “monolithically anti-Jewish” in the eyes of the Jewish community. He added that he was accepting the degree only because he regarded it as a repudiation of the magazine’s policy.

Forrest retorted that the college was probably embarrassed by Fackenheim’s interpretation. The church’s executive committee two days later denied the anti-Semitism charges, while a district conference of the church mildly reprimanded Forrest. It all figures to be a hot issue at this month’s bi-annual meeting of the General Council in Saskatoon.

LESLIE K. TARR

Unhistoric Judgment

“No justice for Jesus” headlined the Jerusalem Post after Israel’s Supreme Court refused to issue a declaratory judgment that Jesus did not receive a fair trial. The application for the judgment was submitted by attorney Yitzhak David in the name of David Biton, both of Eilat. In it, the lawyer stated that Jesus was “brought to trial because of hatred and because he was illegitimate and could not have had a fair trial. Since the Supreme Court [judges] are the heirs today of the Sanhedrin which tried Jesus … it is incumbent on [them] to undo the injustice done to Jesus.” Presumably, David wanted to erase the stigma of Israel’s complicity in the trial and death of Jesus.

The justices replied that it is accepted among historians that the Roman commissioner—not the Sanhedrin—judged Jesus. They asked David whether he thought a statement attributing an injustice to the Sanhedrin would add respect to the Jewish nation.

The attorney, insisting that the Supreme Court nevertheless is the heir of the legal institutions in Israel 2,000 years ago and thus should issue the judgment, then asked the judges to rule that the Roman court which tried Jesus gave him an unfair trial. The court rejected the application. Apart from the fact that the applicant has no personal interest in it, it deals with a historic, not legal, issue, the bench stated.

DWIGHT L. BAKER

Bloodbath In Burundi

The systematic killing of actual and potential leaders in the central African nation of Burundi (see June 23 issue, page 38) persists, and the consequences are especially grave for Protestantism. Over four-fifths of the population are Hutu, and for centuries the Hutu have been subservient to the Tutsi. In late April a few Hutu staged a short-lived coup; the Tutsi have since then been eliminating educated Hutu and their children. Both ethnic groups are predominantly Catholic, and about a dozen Hutu priests were slain. Two of the country’s five bishops are Hutu and were still alive at last report.

All Protestant denominations, like the country as a whole, are predominantly Hutu. Since they had only a small role in the economy and the government, many talented Hutu exercised leadership in the church. But now, because of their education rather than their religion, the leadership of the eight Protestant denominations has suffered a staggering blow.

For example, the Baptists have apparently lost all but one or two of the fourteen members of their executive board. The Free Methodists reportedly have suffered as greatly. The Anglicans probably had the highest proportion of Tutsi members, but their presence did not prevent the loss of at least one-third of the Anglican pastors and numerous evangelists. The interdenominational radio station, Cordac, has been banned, along with private radio communications. Missionaries have not been attacked but are severely restricted in their movements. No end to the turmoil is in sight.

Nacc: Hedging On Unity

Key 73? Yes. Jesus people? Right on. Miracles? Go slow. Tongues? No.

These were the answers that seemed to surface at assembly meetings, small groups, workshops, and rap sessions during the four-day North American Christian Convention (NACC) in Cincinnati. The gathering was the largest in the NACC’s forty-five-year history. About 30,000 from more than 6,000 churches attended the final service.

The convention is sponsored by members of the Christian Churches and the Churches of Christ (instrumental) and some of the conservative elements in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). All are spiritual descendants of Alexander W. Campbell and Barton W. Stone; they frequently refer to themselves as the “restoration movement.” The NACC tackles thorny issues but avoids passing resolutions and policy statements. Each congregation is fiercely independent, and even the “preaching minister” never attempts to speak for anyone but himself.

Afternoon topics seemed to reflect increasing concern over the charismatic movement’s entry into some NACC churches. Speaker after speaker questioned the value of the charismatic experience or else put it down outright. But one speaker hedged a bit, suggesting that the Pentecostal quest is a reaction to the “aridity and sterility of many modern churches.”

Two young California ministers agreed that the Jesus movement may be the Church’s wave of the future. The movement cuts across racial and socio-economic lines as the NACC does not, declared one of them before the nearly all-white audience.

Interest in Key 73 ran high, and many seemed eager to link up with others in the national outreach campaign, a significant pulse-reading in light of a rather provincial past. Key 73 national committeeman Paul Benjamin of Lincoln Christian Seminary in Illinois won fervent applause with his impassioned plea: “It is time we stopped talking about how good we are, how right we are, and how wrong everybody else is, and talk about how wonderful Jesus Christ is.”

But unity continues to elude the Christians at their own level. Representatives of the three factions in the Campbellian tradition sat as a panel and candidly appraised their differences, with Church of Christ (non-instrumental) minister David Bobo of Indianapolis admitting: “We have perhaps been the most isolationistic and exclusive branch of the restoration movement.” Pastor Calvin Phillips of a Christian Church in Hammond, Indiana, may have best expressed the frustration sensed by his fellow panelists and many NACCers. He observed that while in theory “agencies and conventions” are not a barrier to unity they can be “terrible irritants.”

JAMES L. ADAMS

Church Clash In Columbia

A disputed $75,000 United Presbyterian Church (UPCUSA) grant to a controversial social-action group in Colombia was within guidelines for such grants, a special UPCUSA study committee has reported. The grant, made a year ago by a UPCUSA mission unit, was criticized in widely publicized letters froms the Presbytery of the South in Colombia. The Synod of Colombia—highest Presbyterian judicatory in the land—joined in the complaint.

The presbytery charged that the Bogotá grantee, the Social Research and Action Circle (ROSCA), was Marxist-oriented. What’s more, the grant not only was used for questionable political purposes but contravened an agreement that all aid from the American church would be funneled to the Colombian church, the infuriated Colombians claimed.

ROSCA’s literature describes it as a support agency for peasant organizations, Indian civil-rights groups, and city labor unions. The group also received a $45,000 grant from the World Council of Churches.

The special committee, chaired by Connecticut pastor W. Stewart MacColl, said no prior consultation with the Colombians was needed under the guidelines in force a year ago. It did, however, agree that such consultation is necessary. The committee said the grant to ROSCA was not fully understood by the Colombian church and urged the Colombians to discuss future Colombian-American church relations with an ecumenical missions committee of the American body.

The report said that ROSCA was apparently fulfilling the aims of the proposal that garnered the grant and that committee members were “impressed with the sincerity and dedication” of the organization’s leaders. The latter include two ordained Presbyterian ministers and a layman. The committee rejected the Marxist charges. ROSCA was licensed by the Colombian government as an aid agency and is supported by other Protestant groups in the country, it pointed out.

There was no immediate reaction from Colombian church leaders.

Religion In Transit

The Chapel of Faith Baptist Church in Los Angeles is a virtual tourist mecca as people travel for many miles to see a strange cross-shaped light beam in one of the church windows. Some claim it has healed them. The cross first appeared about a year ago; pastor Roy Williams says that although he is still mystified he is happy for the attendance increase.

As part of a two-year probation term imposed for burglary conviction, Edward Klein, 20, of Los Banos, California, must take part in an Assemblies of God-related Teen Challenge center. Superior Court Judge George Murry suspended six months in jail if Klein stays in the program, one of Teen Challenge’s forty-eight rehabilitation centers in the nation.

The Academy of Religion and Mental Health, founded in 1954, and the American Foundation of Religion and Psychiatry, dating from 1937, will merge to become the Institute of Religion and Health.

Decision, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association slick tabloid, is past the 4.5-million circulation mark and is projected to reach 5.2 million this fall.

Personalia

Rutgers University professor Samuel D. Proctor, a black clergyman who has served as dean of the University of Wisconsin, president of two black colleges, and associate general secretary of the National Council of Churches, was elected from among four candidates as pastor of Harlem’s 6,000-member Abyssinian Baptist Church. He succeeds the late Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.

Earle E. Cairns of Wheaton College and Edwin M. Yamauchi of Miami (Ohio) University were elected president and vice-president respectively of the scholarly Conference on Faith and History.

Dr. Herschel H. Hobbs, 64, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, announced his retirement from the ministry. He has been pastor of the First Baptist Church, Oklahoma City, since 1949.

Presiding Episcopal bishop John E. Hines said his denomination’s decision not to participate in Key 73 was “purely financial—we don’t have the funds for the required contribution.” But, he said, church officials are in favor of the evangelism project and are encouraging organizations outside the church to participate.

Father James E. Groppi, the 41-year-old Milwaukee activist priest who has been arrested fifteen times, has resigned his Catholic parish post and applied to enter a Washington, D. C., law school.

Deaths

SVEN H. NJAA, 101, oldest clergyman in the American Lutheran Church (he retired from the active ministry at age 99); in Northwood, North Dakota.

JOHN GRACE, 70, retired commissioner and national chief secretary of the Salvation Army, the Army’s second-highest post in this country; in Philadelphia.

World Scene

British Methodists may be forced to sell some of their historic archives to American institutions in order to preserve John Wesley’s chapel, built in London in 1777. Included in the envisioned $650,000 deal are letters and original busts of the Wesleys and other Wesleyana.

A three-day conference of Buddhists, Hindus, Catholics, and other Christians in India called on all religions to join a fight against atheism but nearly ended in a brawl itself. Hindus and Catholics clashed when Catholics insisted on their “natural right” to convert.

The Czechoslovak Communist newspaper branded Western reports of religious persecution in Czechoslovakia a “conscious and evil lie.” Meanwhile, a pastor of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren (Presbyterian) went on trial for handing out leaflets about voting rights. And British Pentecostal minister David Hathaway was jailed for smuggling Bibles and other religious literature into the country.

Beginning next month, Italy’s government-run television network will grant Protestants and Jews fifteen minutes weekly of non-prime time to air their views, breaking a Catholic monopoly of the medium.

Of 1,620 mostly freshman students surveyed at Tohoku University in Japan by Japanese Navigators, 31 per cent wanted to hear an explanation of Christianity and 44 per cent expressed an interest in Bible study.

Roman Catholics in India vow they will fight “with arms, if necessary,” the Kerala state government’s decision to “control” church-related colleges, says Bishop Joseph Kundukulam. He recently led a march of 100,000 in protest after the state ordered private schools not to charge higher fees than state schools.

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