The Religious Campaign: Backing Their Man

As the presidential election campaigns grind toward November’s moment of truth, churchmen are getting into the act—on both sides. Viet Nam, parochaid, abortion, welfare, busing, amnesty, and Middle East aid are issues that are polarizing the religious constituency.

One group of evangelicals—aiming to demolish the “conservative-theology-equals-conservative-politics” stereotype—formed an Evangelicals for McGovern (EFM) committeeEFM members: Walden Howard, Faith at Work; evangelist Tom Skinner; Ronald J. Sider, Messiah College; Lewis Smedes, Fuller Seminary; David O. Moberg, Marquette University; Editor John Alexander, The Other Side; Gilbert James, As- bury Seminary; Robert W. Webber, Wheaton College; C. J. Dyck, Mennonite Biblical Seminary; William Harper, Gordon College; Richard V. Pierard, Indiana State University; Stephen Monsma, Calvin College; Deane Kemper, Gordon-Conwell Seminary; Paul Leatherman, Mennonite Central Committee; Anthony Campolo, Eastern Baptist College; author Columbus Salley (Your God Is Too White); Editor Roger Dewey, Inside; William Johnson, Bethel College; Robert Ives, Messiah College. dedicated to raising funds and pushing their candidate as the one who most closely adheres to biblical principles of social justice. The pitch was made to 8,000 evangelical leaders in a letter from EFM chairman Walden Howard, editor of Faith at Work. Most evangelicals, however, will probably follow the lead of evangelist Billy Graham, who announced at a Florida press conference last month that he intends to vote for President Nixon.

Other religious groups have not been forgotten by the candidates. Senator George McGovern, who pastored a Methodist church in student days (see August 11 issue, page 34), has a highly organized Religious Leaders for McGovern-Shriver committee (RLMS).RLMS members: Methodist bishop James Armstrong; Rabbi Joseph Glaser; William Benfield, COCU and Presbyterian Church U. S.; T. Garrott Benjamin, Disciples of Christ; John C. Bennett, Union Seminary; Robert McAfee Brown, Stanford University; Gilbert H. Caldwell, Black Methodists for Church Renewal; William Sloane Coffin, Jr., Yale University; David G. Colwell, United Church of Christ; Harvey Cox, Harvard University; Episcopal bishop John Craine; Episcopal bishop William Davidson; Rabbi Roland Gittlesohn; Methodist bishop Charles Golden; Georgia Harkness, Pacific School of Religion; Abraham Heschel, Jewish Theological Seminary; Jesse Jackson, Operation PUSH; Methodist bishop Gerald Kennedy; Methodist bishop James Matthews; Brooke Mosley, Union Seminary; C. K. Steele, SCLC; Krister Stendahl, Harvard Divinity School; Sister Mary Luke Tobin; Episcopal suffragan bishop John T. Walker, Washington, D.C. The group was founded by United Methodist bishop James Armstrong of South Dakota and Rabbi Joseph Glaser of the Central Conference on American Rabbis shortly after McGovern first indicated he would seek the presidential nomination.

The committee pulls support from persons in mainline Protestant denominations who are generally acknowledged as liberal in theology and politics. McGovernites hope the evangelical committee will balance their mainline group. (Catholic support is tapped through an ethnic and urban-affairs committee, while Jewish voters are courted by a committee dealing with Middle East affairs. From a Watergate office building in downtown Washington the RLMS carefully coordinates and choreographs activities by key clergy in each of the fifty states.

Roman Catholics, normally a strong Democratic bloc, are apparently going for Nixon in large numbers. In contrast to the elections of 1960 and 1968, when Nixon received poor support from Catholics, he approaches November with a growing majority of Catholic voters, according to several polls. (In 1960 he garnered 22 per cent; in 1968 33 per cent. (A recent poll accorded him 56 per cent of the Catholic vote.)

Meanwhile, groups of Catholic nuns and priests across the country have come out for McGovern. One hundred Jesuits called McGovern’s election a “moral urgency” and added that the senator’s stands are “morally superior” to Nixon’s. And nuns in nearly seventy cities are active in local McGovern offices seeking support among urban Catholics. The nuns hold “political education days” designed to brief constituents on campaign issues.

Because of his Middle East policies, Nixon is the kosher candidate, say many Jewish leaders who normally vote Democratic. They credit him with giving more aid to Israel than previous administrations.

“Evangelicals should be concerned about social justice from a biblical perspective,” EFM chairman Howard said in an interview. “I just don’t believe social justice is a high priority with Nixon. But it’s the heart of McGovern’s motivation.” Howard’s letter asserts that the McGovern platform “moves at many crucial points in the direction indicated by biblical principles.”

The committee was formed spontaneously in September (Howard says he’s met some members “only over the phone”), with black evangelist Tom Skinner as vice-chairman and Ron Sider, acting director of Messiah College’s Philadelphia campus, as secretary. Pleased with the group’s presence, Michael McIntyre, national coordinator of the religious leaders committee, looks for it to break Nixon’s stranglehold on the evangelical camp. Said he: “Conservative evangelicals are not tucked away in Nixon’s back pocket yet, Billy Graham notwithstanding.”

McIntyre directs a small cadre of McGovern workers, coordinating nationwide activities of lay and clerical volunteers. The locals are urged to organize letters-to-the editor campaigns, pay for local advertisements, mount voter-registration drives by church groups, and engage in literature distribution. They must also raise a minimum of $1,000 for the campaign from each of 255 key cities. (EFM has set itself a $100,000 goal hoping to present it in a lump sum to the campaign as proof of evangelical support for McGovern.)

Nixon strategists eschew the highly organized religious-leaders type committees. “We made a conscious decision not to go that route,” says a White House press aide. “We feel it’s manipulation.” Nevertheless, he admitted that no “spontaneous” group seeking to work for Nixon’s election is ever turned away.

He also revealed that thirty-five religious leaders and evangelists from across the country were flown to the White House in mid-September for a series of briefings by top administration officials. (Among them: Elton Trueblood, Rex Humbard, Jess Moody, Bob Harrington, and Bishop William Smith of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.) The clerics were asked for advice on how to run the campaign. Expenses for the junket were paid by the Committee to Re-elect the President, the campaign organization currently under fire in connection with the Watergate bugging scandal. Similar briefings were scheduled for other church leaders October 17. Administration postures on Viet Nam and drug abuse were among topics covered in the sessions.

The Nixon campaign got a big boost from the not-surprising Graham endorsement. “His support is extremely valuable,” the aide acknowledged. “Billy reaches across the boards and touches lives all over the country.” Graham insists he’s not campaigning for Nixon but allows that the California Quaker will probably go down in history as one of the country’s greatest presidents.

White House spokesmen quickly quarreled with the assertion that McGovern’s positions are more moral than Nixon’s. “We could get into a theological debate on what is social justice,” said the aide as he enumerated Nixon’s “moral” stands and accomplishments. Some California Jesus people deluged state party headquarters with help, declaring Nixon was more in line with the Bible than McGovern, he claimed. (These Jesus people are communal followers of Los Angeles street evangelists Tony and Susan Alamo.) The Nixon administration is not concentrating on the “messianic politics” of promises to end war and poverty, the source stated, because “man can never end those evils.”

Among Roman Catholics, parochaid now carries less weight as an issue, weakened as it is by both candidates’ pledges of federal aid for parochial schools. (Americans United for Separation of Church and State blasted McGovern for following in Nixon’s footsteps. The group wants no aid and calls the tax credit system proposed by both candidates “radical and dangerous.”)

Up front with Nixon is Jesuit priest John McLaughlin, his leading Catholic apologist and speechwriter, who is seen in some quarters as the Republican answer to the Berrigans. McLaughlin was a prime administration spokesman during the North Viet Nam dike-bombing furor and attacked Nixon critic Eugene Carson Blake, World Council of Churches secretary, on his version of the bombing. The priest has since defended his boss’s war policy on a variety of occasions.

While Nixon was foraging in Democratic territory, McGovern scavenged in Nixonian haunts. A recent invitation by the student government of Wheaton College to McGovern to speak on campus was rescinded by President Hudson Armerding. Reason? The proposed rally fell on the same night as the final session of Spiritual Emphasis Week at the college. However, Armerding did not rule out another date, provided a similar invitation was extended to Nixon or one of his top spokesmen. An invitation was sent to Nixon, and McGovern was rescheduled to speak October 11.

At the college, McGovern was introduced and endorsed by Skinner, who described the senator as a man in the “vein of the Prophet Amos.” McGovern told the 2,400 students (some waving Nixon posters) there would be no political speech because “I suspect you’re more interested in how my religious convictions shaped my view of America’s difficulties and our destiny.” The thirty-minute speech, dotted with Scripture quotes and allusions, emphasized McGovern morality—“the president should be the great moral leader of the country.”

McGovern has apparently chosen to make morality the key election issue. Many of his backers see the Indochina war as the major moral issue. As far as EFM’s Sider is concerned, the election can be summed up on the basis of that issue: “If Vietnamese boys mean as much to God as American boys, then a solution that kills Vietnamese instead of us is not a just solution.”

‘On the Just and Unjust’

American newsmen who toured North Viet Nam after covering the release of three American pilots reported that several Roman Catholic churches and the showplace Cathedral of Phat Diem were wrecked by American bombs. A government official told them that five were killed and others injured in an August raid. A priest charged bitterly that America is “trying to kill many Christians and destroy many churches in order to arouse the people against the government.” Instead, Catholics are more loyal to the government than ever, he said.

The priest, Vu Hieu Cuc, 75, said that there are 1,650 members in his three congregations, and 80,000 Catholics in Ninh Binh province. Hanoi sources say there are 800,000 practicing Catholics in all of North Viet Nam, a figure doubted by American officials.

THE MAN WITH THE PLAN

Carl Parks and the Jesus people of Spokane, Washington (see January 29 issue, page 34), have the town in an uproar over a Jesus ’72 campaign. Baptist pastor Endel Meiusi stuck a campaign sign in the lawn of his parsonage, but the church board ordered him to remove it, and now the members are split right and left. Some disgruntled ministers say the campaign is a McGovern trick, while others wondered aloud why they didn’t think of the idea first. Congregations are debating whether Jesus would wear a shirt and tie (as campaign posters depict him) if he were around today, or the traditional white robe.

“How can you be against Jesus?” asked one campaigner when the pastor of a large church refused to allow a sign in the church yard. As a result, say some wags, you can now tell which churches in Spokane are “for” Jesus (Lutherans and Catholics lead the list), and which are “against” him (fundamentalists).

Actually, says former hippie Mark Owen, who got the idea rolling, “we aren’t running Jesus as a candidate. After all, he’s already king.” The campaign, he says, is simply an evangelistic tool to confront citizens with God’s plan to end war, poverty, racism, divorce, immorality, drug addiction, pollution, and the like. Weekly campaign rallies have been held in parks and streets, and a march is set for election day. Truth, the movement’s popular 200,000-copy circulation tabloid, is covering the campaign quote by quote and tract by tract.

“All we’re asking is that people give Jesus a chance,” says leader Parks.

Reports that the Hanoi regime had executed 500,000 Catholics in a land-reform campaign in the fifties are widely disputed even in American circles, and some news sources claim the reports were fabricated by American intelligence forces. At any rate, reporters conclude, Catholics are apparently alive and well in North Viet Nam—provided they stay out of the way of stray bombs.

Media Movement?

In two articles in the official Swiss Reformed Church fortnightly Kirchenblatt, Oswald Eggenberger concludes, “Switzerland isn’t America. There the Jesus revolution has developed into a broad youth movement. Here the Jesus movement exists only in the mass media, especially in the newspapers and magazines, and in the claims of Pentecostal circles and certain independent groups.” Eggenberger maintains that the Swiss churches ought to cultivate dialogue with the Jesus people, but points out that many of them “think of dialogue not as discussion but as witnessing to Jesus as the One Way.”

Evangelistic Episcopalians

Whether it was through the singing of the doxology to the tune of “Hernando’s Hideaway” or the abundance of “Praise the Lord” exclamations from the congregation, the first national Episcopal Conference on Evangelism—held this month in Memphis—commanded attention. The 475 registered delegates (125 were clergy) came from thirty-eight states. They came to the low-key conference with tape recorders, pencils, and notebooks poised for action.

Since the conference dealt with a subject considered by the Episcopal hierarchy to have been covered already, the meeting never got the church’s official sanction. (But an “unofficial” representative of Presiding Bishop John E. Hines was seen by conference officials “profusely” taking notes.)

Among speakers handling seminar sessions were author Keith Miller, Faith Alive president Fred C. Gore. Canadian Anglican evangelist Marney Patterson, and United Methodist evangelism official Joe Hale, a Key 73 Executive Committee member.

Hale asked for support of Key 73, urging delegates not to think of evangelism forms of fifty years ago, or of the other groups involved, with whom they might differ, “and lock the door.”

Conference organizer Robert B. Hall, who directs the Episcopal Center for Evangelism in Miami, termed the conference successful because it enabled conferees to define the church’s needs in evangelism and recognize their resources.

The entire meeting appeared to be a contradiction of the traditional concept of Episcopal worship. The host church, Grace-St. Luke’s, is one of the oldest Episcopal churches in Memphis, and its massive Gothic design symbolizes formality. Inside, where 700 often crowded into an auditorium designed to seat 650 comfortably, the air was filled with contagious joy. Delegates ranged in age from the twenties to the seventies and dressed accordingly.

Our Father’s Children, a religious ensemble from Washington, D. C., set the conference tempo with bright gospel songs. Hugh Bellas greeted the congregation with “Praise the Lord” and was answered in kind by the delegates, many with arms upraised. Bellas is a Pennsylvania layman who is president of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew. “I had always gone to church,” he told the crowd. “I criticized the vestry until I became a member.… I began to realize that men don’t change people without the help of God himself.”

Organizer Hall said another national evangelism conference is being planned though no location or date has been set. “There is a need for a separate department on evangelism in the national church,” he said. “But national leaders believe evangelism already permeates the church. We have here demonstrated the need for a separate department.” Further, said he, the Episcopal Church will get involved in evangelism only if laymen insist on it.

BETH TAMKE

PASSION, BUT WHERE ARE THE FRUITS?

“Turn Toward Jesus Amazes Pastor,” headlined the Chicago Daily News last month in a story about pastor James Duren and his United Church of Christ congregation in suburban Lombard. Seems Duren instructed this year’s confirmation crop of thirty-four high school freshmen to divide into six groups and discuss what they ought to study, what textbook to use, and how to handle the material. All six groups came back and said they wanted no textbook but the Gospel of Mark and no subject matter but Jesus.

All returned the next week having read the Gospel, and Duren told reporter James H. Bowman it was “the most exciting class” he had ever taught. The mini-Jesus revolution touched off Bible-study groups and a wave of evangelism among the youth of First Church, known less for spiritual pursuits than for social activism. “I never taught my son to take Jesus that seriously,” commented a parent. Others remark about changed lives.

Duren says he is amazed but “somewhat disturbed” by the turn toward Jesus among his young people. He fears they will become naïve in their outlook on world problems. Yet he is sympathetic. “They have real thirsts, legitimate ones, to be quenched,” thirsts that a liberal church like his has not always met, he told Bowman.

Instead of debates at church on social issues, he says he now hears haggling about the meaning of Bible texts. “So what?” he said, pointing to a picture showing Jesus sleeping in the first pew while a robed preacher speaks to an otherwise intent audience. “Jesus is still asleep. There’s enthusiasm and passion, but where are the fruits?”

Grist For the Mills

The Federal Trade Commission has ruled that an Ohio college which claimed to be a non-profit religious institution and which has been described as a “diploma mill” must stop misrepresenting itself as a degree-granting institution.

The commission found the college has no student body, no faculty, and no campus. Diplomas are granted through a “home-study plan.” The school is run by self-styled minister A. O. Langdon, his wife, and two associates. The commission’s own investigator said that while the school fraudulently misrepresented itself in advertising, the commission had no jurisdiction because the school was classified non-profit. The commission disagreed, saying that the profit was being distributed among the four principals and that the school thus resembled a closely held commercial operation.

The college, meanwhile, alleged it was associated with Calvary Grace Christian Churches of Faith, Inc.—a group that commission investigators found to exist largely on paper with no visible congregation.

A second alleged degree mill, Philathea College in London, Ontario, has been ordered by the provincial education authorities to change its name. Philathea was struck by controversy this summer when press reports indicated people holding Philathea degrees were counseling in New York City (see August 11 issue, page 36). A provincial investigation resulted in the order to limit degrees to the religious field and rename itself Philathea Theological Seminary.

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