Christians Rush Aid to Flood Victims

It took only one hour to flood the eighteen-mile-long Buffalo Creek area with thick, slime-filled water, leaving more than 4,000 people homeless, 1,100 injured, and about 100 dead. From Shanghai President Nixon declared the hollow in West Virginia a national disaster area. This was the worst flood in the state’s history.

Churches along the valley suffered much damage. One worker in the area estimated that eight or more in the fourteen communities had been totally destroyed. Among these were St. James Baptist Church in Kistler, Mt. Olive Baptist Church in Craeholm, and the Free Will Baptist Church in Crown.

Baptists, Mennonites, Seventh-day Adventists, the Red Cross, and the Salvation Army initiated relief work.

Brigadier Warren H. Fulton said the Salvation Army had experienced “a humbling amount of cooperation.” Local church members from ten denominations volunteered to sort clothing at Army headquarters in Charleston and deliver supplies to distribution centers; many offered financial aid. More than thirty church groups from six other states sent contributions.

In the first days after the flood, Fulton reported, the Salvation Army’s seven mobile kitchens served more than 17,000 meals a day. The meals service continued weeks later using two mobile kitchens. Now the Army has sixty tons of clothing and household items to distribute from four major centers.

Fulton also reported efforts to meet the people’s spiritual needs. The Reverend John Price, president of the West Virginia Council of Churches, told the American Bible Society in New York about the spiritual vacuum the flood had created. The Bible Society offered to send the Salvation Army 1,000 Bibles for house-to-house distribution.

Through husband-and-wife teams the Salvation Army hopes to distribute the Bibles and give spiritual and practical advice to the destitute families. Many of these people, Fulton explained, have never needed government help and are afraid to accept it. For those whose homes were completely destroyed, the government will be the main source of housing help.

The Reverend Thomas Whaley, directing the Southern Mission Project for the American Baptist Convention, is working about six miles south of the mouth of Buffalo Creek in Rum Creek. His staff of twenty-five volunteers distribute clothing and feed approximately forty families daily. They also truck supplies into the heart of the Buffalo Creek area.

A few days after the flood, Whaley unloaded 60,000 pounds of food, clothing, and blankets at the Accoville Methodist Church, which experienced only minor basement flooding.

Whaley plans to organize West Virginia Baptist men to provide muscle and material to rebuild the area’s churches. Until this can be accomplished, American Baptists’ $30,000 mobile chapel will fill the spiritual gap.

Twenty-six students from Detroit arrived to help with reconstruction. The Mennonite Disaster Service, operating out of a telephone-less bus, brought carpenters from Mennonite churches in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to provide professional skill.

Evangelical ‘Hoopla’

Oral Roberts University set a new major college basketball record by closing its regular season with an average of 106.6 points per game. ORU’s 25–1 mark got it into the National Invitation Tournament, and six-foot-three guard Richie Fuqua had a chance to capture this year’s individual scoring championship. The AP’s final poll rated the Titans sixteenth in the nation. “Athletics is as much a part of our Christian witness as our TV shows,” said Roberts.

Among other independent evangelical schools that had an unusually good season were Seattle Pacific, which made it into the western finals of the NCAA’s college division, and Westmont, which won a place in the NAIA tournament. Belhaven (Southern Presbyterian) also competed in the NAIA tourney.

European Students: A Call To Revolution

Europe urgently needs revival—and it can happen now. Only if it happens will Europe be able to provide critically needed spiritual leadership in nations awakening to the Gospel throughout the entire southern hemisphere.

That message kept coming through at the sixteenth annual European Student Missionary Conference held this month at the European Bible Institute (EBI) in Lamorlaye, France. More than 500 delegates from twenty-seven Bible institutes and seminaries attended, plus hundreds of visitors. Thirty-two mission societies sent representatives and displays to the Urbana-like missions conference, sponsored by the European Student Missionary Association (ESMA).

Sessions were held in French and English, with translations in Italian, Dutch, and German. Among the speakers: Charles Guillot of Radio Evangile and France Youth for Christ in Strasbourg; Colin Grant, mission executive from Great Britain; “Brother Andrew” van der Bijl of Holland, well known for his exploits into Eastern Europe; Wycliffe Bible Translators’ European director David Bendor-Samuel; David Hodder, director of Christian Action by Radio and the Press, a Swiss organization; René Pache of Emmaus Bible Institute, Switzerland; and French Baptist Federation president Andre Tobois.

Round-table discussions centered on such topics as missions and ecumenism, serving God in Communist countries, and communicating the message. On the latter subject, Hodder told of growing possibilities—despite state monopolies—of using television to transmit the Gospel. (Many news shows in recent months have featured close-ups of young Christians.)

Mission leaders appealed for help, and in some cases the response was prompt. Four nurses volunteered for duty after a leader mentioned six vacancies.

The ESMA was organized in 1957 at EBI by students of three Bible institutes. There are now seventeen member schools with an average enrollment of fifty. Other applications are pending. ESMA rules decree that local chapters shall meet weekly for inspiration, prayer, and planning, and that members shall participate in service or outreach projects.

Wayne Detzler of Moorlands Bible College in England commented that the message of the conference was perhaps summed up in the words of Brother Andrew:

“All the doors in the world are open. There is not one country where one cannot witness for Jesus Christ. Ours is a revolution of love. The Communistic revolutionaries take lives. Christian revolutionaries give their lives. If we do not propagate the revolution of love, there will be an atheistic one.”

Next year’s conference will be held March 2–4 at Emmaus Bible Institute, St. Légier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland.

ROBERT J. CAMPBELL

Spain: A Vote For Freedom

One of the bitterest church fights in years ended with victory for Catholic liberals, presumably assuring steady increase of religious freedom for non-Catholics in Spain.

Spanish reform leader Vincente Cardinal Enrique y Tarancón won re-election as president of the bishops’ conference by a two-thirds majority vote. The once powerful conservative Marcelo Gonzalez Martin, primate of Spain, was impotent in his struggle with Tarancón. Even help from Vatican officials (a Vatican study critical of the reformers was leaked to the press in an apparent attempt to embarrass Tarancón and influence voting bishops) proved powerless; the cardinal received Pope Paul VI’s support.

The reforms, adopted last fall by an assembly of Spanish bishops and priests, will sever the church’s long-existing ties with Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s regime.

Church Membership: A Record

Theologically conservative denominations continue to show modest gains while the more liberal communions register slight declines. The 1972 Yearbook of American Churches, compiled by the National Council of Churches and published by Abingdon, reports a record total of 131,045,953 church members in the United States.

Among those with increases are the Roman Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Assemblies of God, Seventh-day Adventists, and the Church of the Nazarene. Included among the losers are the United Methodists, the Episcopal Church, Lutheran Church in America, United Presbyterians, United Church of Christ, and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

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