Legislating Ecumenism in Zaire

Approximately five million Protestants in Zaire (formerly Congo; pronounced Zah-ear’) have been awaiting word from the government on how many churches will get legal recognition under a new law. They and more than 1,200 foreign missionaries currently serving in Zaire have become deeply apprehensive about the outcome.

A bill passed by the Zaire National Assembly and signed into law last December 31 by President Mobutu Sese Seko introduced restraints on religious activities not seen before in this country. But passage of the law came as no surprise to those familiar with a stiffly worded speech Mobutu made late last year against proliferation of sects. He warned, in effect, that he was going to put a stop to the nonsense.

Some say Zaire now has about 200 separate denominations. Others claim there are about 400 in the Lower Zaire Province alone. Most are breakaway movements from already existing groups. Once they organize separately, they immediately ask for personnalité civile (government recognition)—and for government money to run schools, whether they have any or not!

If the legislation as such was no surprise, its particulars were. They went far beyond restriction of splinter groups. The law in effect granted automatic government recognition to only three denominations: the Roman Catholic, the Kimbanguist (an independent African church now a member of the World Council of Churches), and the two-year-old Church of Christ in Zaire, which evolved out of the Congo Protestant Council amid much controversy. All other church groups were given until February 15 to join one of the three recognized denominations or to apply for separate legal status.

The big hitch in the law is a list of twelve conditions set forth as necessary for separate recognition. One condition is that the founder be physically and mentally sound, another that the group have at least $200,000 in a bank. Evidence must also be adduced that the organization seeking recognition is not a dissident of one of the three groups recognized at the outset. Many an observer has been inclined to feel that if the conditions are enforced very literally, most churches’ bids will be unsuccessful.

Unrecognized churches moved swiftly in response to the new law. Through an independent Council of Protestant Churches of Zaire, formed largely in opposition to the Church of Christ in Zaire, they sought and got counsel from government representatives. As a result, they drew up a statement asking the government to recognize their council instead of the CCZ as officially representative of Zaire’s Protestants. As a precautionary measure, in the event the government turned down the request, they appealed for recognition as a separate organization.

Meanwhile, Zaire’s minister of justice agreed to meet simultaneously with representatives of the CCZ and the CPCZ. The CCZ’s National Executive Committee balked at such a meeting, which was postponed and rescheduled. Finally, the minister of justice canceled the joint meeting and called in only the CPCZ.

During a twenty-minute meeting attended by some 100 churchmen, the minister simply summarized the new law and in essence declared it was not negotiable. “La loi c’est la loi (The law is the law),” he said. He criticized the CPCZ’s approach, observing that it had no right to ask for dissolution of the CCZ and the recognition of the CPCZ because the former had legal status while the latter did not. Bishop John Shungu, who took his United Methodist conference out of the CCZ, was cut off in mid-sentence when he tried to ask a question.

Some thought the harder line was a reaction by Zaire politicians against those who were trying to second-guess them or to put an interpretation upon the law not originally intended. Others felt that the CCZ’s president, Jean Bokeleale, who had been out of the country when the law was made public, had made his influence felt upon return.

The CCZ National Executive Committee met for several weeks after Bokeleale came home. The sessions apparently were prompted by concern that the government had initially shown too favorable an attitude toward the CPCZ. Another development was a series of letters attacking Bokeleale for misrepresenting the neutral position taken by the CCZ youth movement toward the church conflict, and for allegedly misusing funds to buy property for himself in Belgium and Kinshasa. Some voices within the CCZ demanded that a special synod be called, but the committee refused, possibly out of fear that there is growing disenchantment among the rank and file.

A complicating issue is the continuing refusal of constituent groups of the CCZ to change their articles of incorporation so that they are legally “communities” instead of “churches.” Until they do this, the CCZ is not in reality the super-church it claims to be. The National Executive Committee said the February 15 deadline also applied to that modification.

CPCZ representatives met the day after they saw the minister of justice and changed their strategy accordingly. They dropped their plea that the CCZ be dissolved and drafted a new application that merely requests separate recognition.

Forward, March!

Uganda president Idi Amin has decreed that all his armed-forces personnel must attend religious services at least three times a week. Amin, a Muslim, has been pushing for nationwide support of Anglican projects. Half of Uganda’s 9.6 million population is nominally Christian; 6 per cent is Moslem.

Wcc: Search For Settlements

Current problems in Northern Ireland are economic and political, says the Executive Committee of the World Council of Churches. But “they arise out of past history—both political and religious—and therefore cannot avoid exciting religious feelings and partisanship,” according to a statement adopted by the twenty-six-member committee at its semi-annual meeting in Auckland, New Zealand, last month. Churchmen and politicians were asked to “intensify their efforts to find a settlement.”

A different strategy was proposed for Rhodesia. The committee urged WCC member churches to press their governments to apply economic and political sanctions against Rhodesia “so long as the racially discriminatory system prevails there.” It found “serious defects” in the proposed Anglo-Rho-desian settlement and called for release of political prisoners.

A date was set (July 20–August 10, 1975) for the WCC’s Fifth Assembly. It will be held in Indonesia.

Women Pray For Liberation

All-women rallies aren’t uncommon today, but the 6,000 women who gathered at the Los Angeles Sports Arena February 24 weren’t calling for more liberation—unless it might be spiritual liberation. The rally spearheaded the drive for “a prayer strategy for the nation.”

Mrs. Billy Graham and emcee Vonette Bright, wife of Campus Crusade for Christ president Bill Bright, keynoted the rally. Explo ’72—Crusade’s international congress on evangelism—and the Key 73 nationwide outreach will be major prayer targets for women all across the country, Mrs. Bright explained.

The plans call for mobilizing weekly prayer-cell meetings. In every major city throughout the country a prayer leader will be selected who will in turn select twenty prayer captains. Each captain will recruit twenty more women to serve as neighborhood prayer hostesses.

Mrs. Bright says Crusade and several women’s groups, including Martha Rountree’s Leadership Foundation and the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, will share leadership roles. However, the latter group insisted it has no plans at this time to participate.

Welcome To The Table

After years of uncertainty, baptized members of all churches with a trinitarian basis will be admitted to Holy Communion in the Church of England. The voting figures showed a surprising 271–46 majority at the general synod meeting at Westminster. Curiously, nearly half of the diocesan bishops were absent, but those present voted solidly in favor. The canon will take effect when the royal assent is formally given.

But if that measure indicated some shifting of view by the establishment, it is apparent that the latter is still hankering after union with the Methodists, despite failure to produce the necessary majority vote in the past. The issue will be voted on once more in May. Anglican authorities estimate that more than 4,000 clergy will object on conscientious grounds if the merger passes, entitling them to special compensation. Their ministry would subsequently be restricted. An official spokesman said it was impossible at this stage to say how much the compensation bill would be.

That the amount is not important may be taken from certain information now available: assets held in trust for the Church of England total $1.1 billion, and annual income has risen to more than $66 million. The church commissioners own 166,208 acres of agricultural land in England.

J. D. DOUGLAS

Stock Questions

Two interdenominational groups have sent resolutions to several U. S. corporations questioning them about their involvement in war and apartheid.

The Church Project on U. S. Investments in Southern Africa filed stockholder proxy motions with four “representative” companies: General Motors, Goodyear Tire and Rubber, Gulf Oil, and Mobil Oil. The group demanded a report from each company on its wage and personnel policies in South Africa. Spokesmen for the newly formed organization say U. S. corporations are directly and indirectly supporting South Africa’s apartheid.

Another group, Clergy and Laymen Concerned, which owns four shares of stock each in IT&T, General Electric, Honeywell, and Standard Oil of New Jersey, is trying to persuade these corporations to “cease and desist” from any participation in the air war in Indochina. CLC asked the companies to disclose the number of their defense contracts and to initiate or accelerate committee investigation for conversion to peaceful production.

Labor’S Version

The Ontario Labor Relations Board ominously suggested during a hearing that the Christian Labor Association of Canada “should not be certified by the Board” because it seems to be propagating “a version of Christianity not shared by … the majority of Christians and indeed not shared by many of the members of the Christian Reformed Church.”

Nevertheless, the board granted Theodore Hogeterp, a CLAC member, his requested exemption from paying union dues to an Oshawa local of the United Auto Workers union.

UAW witness Henry Semplonius, a district committeeman for the union and a member of the Christian Reformed Church, testified that 20 to 30 per cent of his congregation were also members of the UAW. He added that both his minister and Hogeterp’s Christian Reformed pastor disagree with the CLAC position.

Hogeterp won his case, but the hearing may have jeopardized the future of the CLAC.

LESLIE K. TARR

West Pakistan: Touch Of Love

As Christians help to nurse and feed war-ravaged Bangladesh (see March 3 issue, page 38), there are wounds that need tending in West Pakistan, and evangelicals are there.

At last month’s annual meeting of the Evangelical Fellowship of West Pakistan (EFWP), about seventy-five delegates voted to set up a relief fund to aid refugees and other war victims. Soul healing got a nod, too, with support voted for a national evangelist and his family. In lively forum discussions, many agreed that Christians need to demonstrate more love and extend more down-to-earth brotherly help.

Pastor Hidayet Masih was re-elected chairman, and Wycliffe Singh was named editor of Rafaqat, which services the EFWP membership of several hundred.

RALPH E. BROWN

Off Key

Eight years of feuding between a 51-year-old female ex-member of Mar Vista, California, First Baptist Church and the church’s minister has cost the lady wrangler $500, twenty days in jail, and three years probation.

Once a member in good standing, she had been enjoined since 1964 from setting foot on the church premises.

However, she was arrested at the church a few months ago after allegedly disrupting the services by singing off key, drowning out the minister, and using four-letter words. A jury recently convicted her on four misdemeanor counts.

Deaths

CHEN WEI-PING, 96, Methodist minister who served as dean of Nanking Theological Seminary, chief of chaplains of Nationalist Chinese armed forces, and President Chiang Kai-shek’s pastor; in Taipei, Taiwan.

EUGENE TISSERANT, 87, French priest, noted Orientalist, and dean of the Catholic Church’s Sacred College of Cardinals; in Albano, Italy, of a heart attack.

Religion In Transit

An interfaith $1.6 million “Chapel of the Astronauts,” to be paid for by voluntary donations, will be built on 5½ acres of John F. Kennedy Space Center land at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The non-profit backers say they want it to reflect “the intersection of time and eternity” and symbolize “the deep and lasting relationship of all men with God.”

Several experimental clinics, aimed at teaching a new “ovulation method” of birth control, will be set up by the Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles. It is based on the appearance and consistency of vaginal mucus at different times during the menstrual cycle.

After heated debate, the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania paid a tax bill of $545.25 owed by priest David M. Gracie of Philadelphia. Gracie refused to pay it in protest against the Indochina war. He will be paid his $14,175 annual salary in advance—minus the $545.25—so the Internal Revenue Service cannot bill the diocese again.

Despite visible bruises on the buttocks of a ten-year-old boy, a judge found the superintendent of the Fourth Baptist Christian Day School of Minneapolis innocent of assault. The judge ruled that the boy’s parents had delegated their authority to the school. The youth, now in a public school, was spanked with a wooden paddle for alleged misconduct.

Institute for Advanced Christian Studies board president Carl F. H. Henry says IFACS stands within $4,500 of reaching a $75,000 matching grant by Lilly Endowment with a March 31 deadline. During its five-year existence IFACS has awarded $75,500 to evangelical scholars working on research projects, and has sponsored invitational scholars’ conferences.

Last month’s Lutheran Youth Alive congress in Seattle drew 2,600 persons, almost twice the number expected. Closed-circuit TV helped to handle the overflow. Speaker David Preus, vice-president of the American Lutheran Church, said the independent LYA complements official Lutheran youth units and should not be seen as divisive. Hundreds professed first-time decisions for Christ.

Christ Jesus, 265-0730

Does Jesus Christ reside in Albuquerque, New Mexico? If you dial 505-265-0730 and ask for him, John Leary, a 32-year-old licensed minister and director of the Christian Embassy, will tell you he does. The Embassy is a Christian house ministry.

Leary, who works with student Pat Reilly, says he lists the Embassy’s number under Christ Jesus in the telephone directory to attract people “in trouble or in need of food and counseling.” Apparently, it works.

Reporting that dozens of people call each week, Leary admits that a few call to accuse him of disrespect or blasphemy. But most, he says, call for help. What he gives callers is a sympathetic ear, an invitation to visit the Christian Embassy, and a promise of prayer and fellowship. “We are just Christians who want to minister to others,” Leary explains.

The Texas Baptist Convention news magazine has come out editorially against a proposed address by President Nixon at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. Editor John Hurt says he doesn’t want to give Nixon a political platform in an election year. Nixon, he adds, has supported issues opposed by Southern Baptists.

Southern Baptist membership advanced to 11.8 million in 1971, an increase of more than 196,000. There were 409,000 baptisms, a jump of 40,000 over the 1970 figure.

Three dozen dissidents tried to take over an annual session of the sixty-year-old Council of Hispanic American Ministries. Bedlam ensued, with enraged conservatives shouting down the intruders and calling on police to bounce them. The incident wrecked hopes of ecumenically unifying Spanish-speaking Christians, say insiders.

The United Presbyterian Council on Church and Society has endorsed busing as a way to integrate schools.

Personalia

Evangelist John Haggai will conduct an evangelistic crusade in Belfast in June and July.

Alexsei Bichkov, a pastor of the Moscow Baptist Church, has been elected general secretary of the All Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists, succeeding the late Alexander Karev.

Billy Graham and associates preached to 43,286,881 people at crusades and rallies from 1950 through 1970, according to latest published statistics; 1,280,787 inquirers registered decisions during the same twenty years.

World Scene

A Toronto meeting of United Church of Canada members to organize for opposition to union with the Anglican Church attracted only fifteen people. Leader William Morris and three supporters, including his wife and teen-age son, were opposed by four others in his move to establish an anti-merger organization; the remaining seven abstained. Sighed Morris: “There is so much apathy.”

Baptist churches in 115 countries have a total membership of 31.4 million, the Baptist World Alliance reported. Largest concentration is in North America, with 27.5 million.

Two major denominations in Puerto Rico—the United Methodist Church and the United Evangelical Church—will merge. The new group will have 112 churches with more than 20,000 members. In South-West Africa two Lutheran groups merged last month to form the 280,000-member United Evangelical Lutheran Church in South-West Africa.

In a reversal of last year’s stance, directors of the Canadian National Exhibition have banned church exhibition booths, ostensibly because of lack of space. Church officials are fighting the decision, and Canon Maurice Wilkinson of the Canadian Council of Churches is also criticizing the exhibition’s invitation to television evangelist Rex Humbard to stage a “Sunday grandstand show.”

Catholics and Lutherans in the Philippines have agreed to recognize the validity of baptism performed in either church.

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