Thanking God for America

Nearly a thousand religious Bicentennial projects have been registered with the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration (ARBA). Spread out over the entire year, these endeavors range from production of a new hymnal, drama and musical presentations, and a conference on religious liberty to bell-ringing and large-scale outreach efforts. In addition to the officially recognized projects are many by individual churches and other religious groups in just about every city in the land. They all add up to a gigantic religious celebration of the nation’s first two hundred years.

The ARBA wants every bell in America rung on July 4 for two minutes at 2 RM. EDST (11 A.M. Pacific time) when the Liberty Bell will be rung in Philadelphia. The American Bible Society is promoting participation by churches in the bell-ringing observance. In conjunction with it, the ABS is distributing to churches and synagogues a copper-colored bell-shaped pamphlet containing verses from Isaiah 61 and bearing the title “Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land.”

One group of evangelicals, most of them identified with the Key 73 witness of three years ago, was trying to arrange for a National Simultaneous Prayer observance at the conclusion of President Ford’s July 4 speech in Philadelphia. Details were still pending in mid-June.

Honor America chairman J. Willard Marriott, a Mormon who is in the hotel and restaurant business, called on Americans to set aside time for meditation during the July 4 weekend “in appreciation for the blessings and strengths of this great democracy, and for continued guidance as we begin the third century.” He also asked that everyone place a lighted candle or battery-powered light in his or her window during the nights of July 2, 3, and 4. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir and singer Johnny Cash will participate in a national celebration in Washington on July 4.

Washington and Philadelphia are the main target cities for major religious activities during the two weeks surrounding July 4, a Sunday. Among the events scheduled for Washington are:

• A 6 A.M. interfaith service on July 4 at the Lincoln Memorial.

• An 8 A.M. service at the Jefferson Memorial on the same day on the theme of justice, sponsored by the anti-establishment People’s Bicentennial Commission.

• A four-day Bicentennial New Life Conference for 1,200-plus ending July 2 at Metropolitan Capitol Hill Baptist Church. Among the speakers are prophecy author Hal Lindsey, Southern Baptist pastor W. A. Criswell of Dallas, Campus Crusade’s Bill Bright, and deeper-life lecturer-author Jack Taylor. Afternoons will be devoted to witnessing at parks and monuments led by choral groups and well-known street preachers Arthur Blessitt, Wade Akins, and Sammy Tippit. There were also plans for a Christian parade.

• Ongoing open-air meetings (April to October) at eight locations under the name of Bicentennial Christian Heritage Celebration, led by Washington-based evangelists Dale Crowley and Paul Rader. The meetings include choral concerts, testimonies (top government officials are among those at the podium), and literature distribution.

• A multi-media and Scripture-distribution campaign at the foot of the Washington Monument beginning July 7, sponsored jointly by Child Evangelism Fellowship, Pocket Testament League, Open Air Campaigners, and Washington Bible College.

Thousands of Christians from across America and groups from overseas (including fifty-five Egyptians) will gather in the Philadelphia area July 2 to 9 under the banner of The Spirit in ’76, a vast Bicentennial witness effort sponsored by Youth With A Mission. Coordinated by YWAM’s national director Leland Paris, Spirit will feature such speakers as Bill Bright, Brother Andrew (“God’s Smuggler”), singer Pat Boone, and YWAM founder Loren Cunningham. Spirit will include a week of training at an encampment outside nearby Burlington, New Jersey (witness teams will be bused every day to Philadelphia), outreach at Independence Mall locations July 1, 2, and 3 (public reading of Scripture, singing, Christian drama, literature distribution), and a special effort to reach a coalition of radicals who may attempt to disrupt the national observances.

“If My People,” a musical produced and directed by composer Jimmy Owens of the Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California, will be presented on July 4 in Philadelphia. It was performed on the Capitol steps in Washington on Flag Day (see photo). Another major Bicentennial musical, “Let Freedom Ring,” by Harry Bollback of Word of Life in New York, will be presented in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, on July 4. It has already premiered in a number of cities on the East Coast.

Ambassadors in Action, a youth mission arm of the Assemblies of God, will field hundreds of young people in Philadelphia, Washington, and Boston. Other youth groups also have plans for ministry in these cities.

Other events scheduled for Philadelphia include a Bicentennial Congress on Prophecy sponsored in the Philadelphia suburb of Cherry Hill. New Jersey, by the American Board of Missions to the Jews (speakers include president John Walvoord of Dallas Seminary, president Earl Rademacher of Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, and Hal Lindsey). Fundamentalist evangelist Jack Van Impe will conduct an eight-day crusade in Philadelphia’s Convention Hall that same week, beginning July 4. And fundamentalist Bible Presbyterian minister Carl McIntire will be in the thick of things with rallies and demonstrations in the aftermath of his “Save America” march and meeting last month.

Philadelphia College of Bible will continue the program of Bicentennial outreach—and make its housing facilities available to tourists (including the former Robert Morris Hotel).

A number of historic churches in the major Bicentennial cities have established visitors’ centers and have scheduled special tours, programs, and services. By and large, black churches are stressing black contributions to the nation. One black project is the restoration of Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, founded after blacks broke from the Methodist Episcopal Church in the late 1700s over segregated seating. It is believed to be the first black institution of any kind in the United States.

FORWARD ’76 (Freedom of Religion Will Advance Real Democracy) is a two-year-old project of the Interchurch Center of New York City. It involves Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox, and Jews. Headed by R. H. Edwin Espy, former general secretary of the National Council of Churches, it has been providing study guides aimed at developing appreciation for the contribution of religious freedom to the American heritage.

Some groups have been cautioning against civil religion, and some have criticized church involvement in Bicentennial observances for church-state separation reasons. But most religious leaders seem to have a positive spirit. Representative is a statement by Brant Coopersmith of the American Jewish Commitee:

“We’re not going to talk about the sores in America. We’re aware of all the faults. But the religious community is looking to the future rather than the past. We look for a more glorious future. Whether we like it or not, this country was built on religion. We need to return to it in a more sensible way.”

Troubled In Toronto

After the Bible Presbyterian Church of Toronto lost its pastor to an American church, the two dozen or so members decided to become affiliated with Ian Paisley’s Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, making it Paisley’s first congregation in Canada. The new pastor, Frank McClelland, 40, of Tandragee, Northern Ireland, was scheduled to begin work in the city this month. Paisley announced that he will visit Toronto himself in September to formally install McClelland and to conduct a two-week Gospel crusade. The congregation will meet in rented quarters.

The announcement of Paisley’s expansion into Canada has distressed a lot of Toronto ministers who fear there will be more divisiveness than blessing. The clamor increased when Toronto Star religion editor Tom Harpur quoted McClelland as saying: “I will certainly be preaching against Rome and against the modern ecumenical movement in Toronto.”

McClelland worked for aircraft factories in Toronto and Seattle in the 1960s before returning to Ulster to train for the ministry under Paisley.

Ontario attorney general Roy McMurtry, describing himself as an Anglo-Irish Protestant “like Mr. Paisley,” joined a number of area clergymen last month in calling on the Canadian government to bar the fiery Paisley from visiting this fall. They accuse the cleric of promoting “destructive bigotry.”

McClelland feels the fears are based more on fiction than fact. The Free Presbyterian Church has been broadcasting sermons on a Toronto radio station for more than two years, says he, and the church has never received a letter accusing it of bigotry or racism.

Admonished

Nearly half of last month’s seven-day meeting of the General Assembly of the 14,000-member Orthodox Presbyterian Church was devoted to a trial of OPC missionary Arnold Kress. The missionary and his wife had been recalled from Japan more than a year ago after confessing to experiences of speaking in tongues. After a study leave Kress was given a year’s probation, during which he has served as pastor of Hope Reformed Church in Clifton, New Jersey. OPC officials hoped he would come to see the error of his ways.

At last month’s meeting in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, the assembly upheld a presbytery’s opposition to two positions held by Kress: that gifts of tongues and prophecy may be operable today, and that Arminianism and denial of infant baptism are insufficient grounds for excluding someone from the OPC.

By a two-thirds majority, the assembly voted to admonish Kress, the mildest form of rebuke. Then a resolution was overwhelmingly adopted acknowledging the value of Kress’s ministry and expressing hope that he will accommodate himself to the OPC’s doctrinal position and continue in the church’s fellowship.

Kress says he sensed a spirit of love throughout the proceedings.

The OPC’s missions committee was to meet later last month to consider whether to return the Kresses to Japan, an unlikely decision. Presumably, their future will not be decided upon until Kress gives a final yes or no to the OPC’s doctrinal mandates.

JOSEPH M. HOPKINS

Primitive Methodists

The 104th annual conference of the Primitive Methodist Church adopted resolutions expressing opposition to “the ecumenical movement” and classifying the charismatic movement’s use of speaking in tongues as “unbiblical.” A press officer pointed out, however, that the delegates “did not deny that God can give the gift of tongues at any time.”

During the meeting, held recently in Grantham, Pennsylvania, clergyman Russell Masartis of Carnegie, Pennsylvania, was elected editor of the Primitive Methodist Journal. It was announced that the new Salem School of Theology will hold its first convocation this fall at Hudson, Pennsylvania.

A report from missionaries in Guatemala told of the destruction of twenty-seven Primitive Methodist churches in the February earthquake. The homes of three Primitive Methodist missionaries and of 3,000 believers were destroyed also, said the missionaries.

The Primitive Methodist Church was founded in England in 1812 as the result of preaching by American evangelist Lorenzo Dow, and the first missionaries arrived in the United States in 1829. The church has some 12,000 members in nearly 100 congregations.

Baptist Business

The following story is based on reports filed by correspondent Barbara A. Fry.

Members describe the 26-year-old Baptist Bible Fellowship International as a movement rather than a denomination. It has between 1.5 and 2 million adherents in 2,500 churches, some of them among America’s largest, and there are 469 BBFI missionaries at work in forty-eight countries. The group meets several times a year for business and inspirational fellowship. Because of its views on autonomy of local congregations, the national body makes few public pronouncements. One such utterance came at the recent main annual meeting at Springfield, Missouri, the BBFl’s headquarters city.

The 511 pastoral and missionary delegates approved a resolution calling on the U. S. government to refrain from using missionaries for intelligence purposes, to protect overseas missionaries “when requested,” and to “protest to foreign governments when our missionaries are in threat of losing their property which is protected by international law.” The BBFI mission committee cited Ethiopia as one of the places where its missionaries are facing special problems.

BBFI president John Rawlings, pastor of Landmark Baptist Temple in Cincinnati, keynoted the four-day meeting. W. E. Dowell was installed as president of the 2,370-student Baptist Bible College of Springfield, succeeding the late G. B. Vick. Dowell, a founder of the college and first president of the BBFI, was pastor of High Street Baptist Church in Springfield for twenty-two years, during which time its average attendance increased from 375 to 2,700.

On the final night of the meeting the college’s graduation exercises were held. Some 6,000 guests joined the BBFI delegates in the college field house to honor the 445 graduates.

Election

General superintendent J. D. Abbott of the Wesleyan Church was elected president of the Christian Holiness Association at the CHA’s recent annual three-day meeting in Rochester, New York. He succeeds general secretary B. Edgar Johnson of the Church of the Nazarene. The 525 registered CHA delegates came from the United States, Canada, and Australia, and represented a number of denominations. A seminar on “How do the Scriptures speak to the homosexual, alcoholic, and materialist?” attracted overflow crowds.

Thirty Years Of Help

Church World Service, the relief arm of the National Council of Churches, reported that it has shipped more than 400 million pounds of relief supplies worth more than $270 million during its thirty-year existence. An additional 4.5 billion pounds of food has been channeled through the Food for Peace program. Refugee resettlement has also been a priority item over the years; so far, 229,000 refugees have been resettled in the United States through CWS efforts, according to the NCC.

CWS was formed by seventeen denominational relief agencies to aid European reconstruction efforts after World War II on a “temporary” basis.

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