A Leveling Off In Japan

The growth of Christianity in Japan has slowed considerably. The Japanese periodical Christ’s Weekly says the total number of Christians increased by 640 last year, the smallest gain since the 1930s. The highest annual increase, 125,702, was recorded in 1968.

Christ’s Weekly reports there are approximately 1,095,000 Christians in Japan. That makes them about 1 per cent of the population.

There are about 5,000 Protestant churches in the country and some 119 Protestant denominations.

Reverberations In Belgium

Explo ’72, Campus Crusade for Christ’s student congress on evangelism (see July 7, 1972, issue, pp. 23, 31), set off a chain reaction of influence that is still being felt in places far from Dallas. Correspondent Bill Thomas interviewed Crusade staffer Ben Louwerse, who has been in predominantly Catholic Belgium just over a year, for this interesting sidelight to Explo’s aftermath.

Question: How have the Catholics of Belgium felt the impact of Explo?

Answer: While I was attending Explo ’72, I often asked myself: How could such an experience as Explo be a blessing in Belgium, a little country that’s so far away? After my return to Belgium, I met a Jesuit professor, Walter Smet. He had arrived in America the day after Explo and he read the newspaper coverage of the meetings. He was so impressed by what he read that he went to Arrowhead Springs to attend one of the training conferences, where he was deeply moved. On returning to Belgium he wrote a book on the Jesus movement, with one chapter about Explo and another about Campus Crusade. It will be out soon.

Q: How did you get involved?

A. Professor Smet put me in contact with several other priests here in Belgium who are quite open to the Jesus movement. Many of these were invited to attend the Brussels LIFE (Lay Institute For Evangelism), held at the Belgian Gospel Mission in Brussels in late fall. Two priests came and were quite thrilled by what they heard. Shortly after this, Professor Smet invited me to speak to about a hundred priests at the theological seminary where he teaches. On that occasion at the seminary I gave my personal testimony and shared with them about Explo ’72, the work of Campus Crusade, and also the Four Spiritual Laws.

Q: What was the priests’ reaction?

A. They were impressed that I shared my faith so personally. Shortly afterwards, I received invitations to speak in other Catholic churches. One church has invited my wife, Betty, and me to speak at a women’s group. And now there are a number of priests who are writing or calling in for our Bible-study materials.

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Q: The Catholic community seems more open to Crusade’s ministry than many of the Protestants. Why?

A. My personal opinion is that since the Protestants in this country are a minority, they probably feel threatened by a new group and new ideas. In fact, the Protestant groups in Belgium do not find it easy to work together. This is one reason why evangelism here has not progressed as it should.

There have been campaigns with good results, but the average individual Christian rarely shares his faith.

Q: Are there other reasons why the Catholics seem so open?

A. I think there are two main reasons for the receptivity of the Catholic community. First, we always stress that we exist to serve Protestant churches but also Catholic churches. Consequently, these Catholic churches that we are visiting do not feel threatened by us. Second, Belgium is one of the countries where the Catholic Church is going through a time of crisis. Many adherents, especially young people, are rejecting the teachings of the church and much of its ritual and are beginning to ask just what the truth is. They have a strong desire to search the Scriptures for themselves. Because we have a program for lay training and good Bible-study materials, we are being asked to share our resources with them.

Q: Can you give another example?

A. One student from St. Joseph’s Catholic College in Aalst, near Brussels, attended a recent LIFE in Holland and gave his life to Christ during that week. At the end of it his comment was: “Now I understand that it is not the Jesus movement which is revolutionary and thrilling, but Jesus himself.” On returning to the college, this student started an MC group.

MAKING BOOK AT WOOK

Radio station WOOK in Washington, D. C., regularly aired commercials in which listeners were told that a reading of certain Bible verses would bring “financial blessings.” A Federal Communications Commission hearing examiner, however, found that the three-digit references were designed to get WOOK’s predominantly black inner-city listening audience not into the Bible but into the hands of the nearest friendly neighborhood numbers operator.
WOOK contended that the references were protected by the constitution. Not so, said the examiner, who ruled that the station management had a responsibility to know what seemed obvious enough to many Washington blacks: “that such advertisements would necessarily tend to encourage listeners to play the numbers game, in violation of the law, in order to receive the benefits described.” The broadcasts were “false, misleading, and deceptive and constituted an improper use of WOOK to further illegal gambling activities,” he said.
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If the findings are confirmed by the seven-member FCC, station WOOK will be ordered off the air.

GLENN EVERETT

Q: What is that?

A. An MC group is a group that puts emphasis on Christ and on living a deeper and holier life. There are a number of such groups in Belgium. This student, with the approval of the priests of Aalst, has invited me to address the student body of about 1,000.

Q: You have hopes that a movement will start there?

A. Yes. And we expect March 25 to be an important date in Aalst. We’re planning to have a Jesus festival in a cathedral in Aalst that seats 1,400. Two Indonesian gospel groups will give their testimonies during the morning mass in local Catholic churches, then sing at the festival in the cathedral in the afternoon. Never has there been anything like this before in Belgium. We’re inviting the ambassadors of Indonesia and Holland and the people from NATO as well as church leaders.

Makarios Keeps Two Hats

Archbishop Makarios, under fire from church leaders for refusing to quit politics and from Greek Cypriot terrorists for refusing to unite Cyprus and Greece, won acclamation as president of Cyprus for another five years last month, when his opposition failed to field a candidate.

Makarios stood for a third term (he’s been president since Britain granted independence in 1960) in defiance of a Cypriot Orthodox Church demand last year that he resign the presidency and return to his duties as leader of the church. Makarios refused to discuss the issue, asserting that the word “resign” is not in his vocabulary. The demand came in a letter from three bishops who, along with Makarios, form the church’s ruling body, the Holy Synod. Makarios is ethnarch, or leader, of the autonomous Orthodox church. It is believed the bishops were pressured by the Greek government, which would like enosis, political union, with the island’s 80 per cent Greek population—a plan blocked as long as Makarios is in power.

Makarios, eyes firmly on the political situation, rejects immediate enosis on the grounds that it would cause a civil war with the island’s 20 per cent Turkish population and possibly lead to invasion of the island by Turkish military forces.

In the meantime, Greek terrorists used bombs in an effort to attain the archbishop’s resignation. But with another five years before him, the archbishop is as firmly ensconced today as he was in 1960, and enosis is still a Greek dream.

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