Religious Broadcasters: ‘In the Public Interest’

One wag has dubbed it The Greatest Evangelical Show on Earth.

Whatever, the annual meeting of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) indeed has become the splashiest evangelical event of the year. And this year, more secular-media reporters than ever before were on hand to cover it.

The convention is held every year in Washington, D.C., for reasons of strategy (a main one: the proximity of the government officials who regulate the broadcasting industry). It is usually held within a week of the National Prayer Breakfast (see story, page 42), and a number of delegates stay over for that by-invitation-only affair. The four-day NRB program features top name personalities, from politicians, evangelists, and prominent pastors to radio and TV stars, recording artists, and famous authors. Many of the program personalities are sponsored by publishers, record companies, and other firms among the some 200 organizations that vigorously promote their wares and causes in the giant exhibition hall of the Washington Hilton. The result is a strong commercial flavor that permeates the entire convention program.

These program headliners serve as public attention-getters and as sugary frosting for an otherwise so-so agenda devoted to the specialized business of broadcasting (licensing issues, funding, market research, production pointers, and the like). At last month’s annual meeting, however, things got a little out of hand, and the headliners got the NRB some publicity its leaders didn’t really want.

Singer Anita Bryant attracted a demonstration by homosexual activists. Former Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver was scratched from the program by a last-minute action of the NRB board, which was distressed by Cleaver’s recently announced intention to market a controversial style of men’s jeans. Self-help campaigner Jesse Jackson was on the program but he never showed up, even though he was giving speeches around Washington just a few days earlier. Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, whose born-again experience of last November has been featured widely in the press, was not on the printed program, but he did show up at the Hilton with the understanding that he had been invited to address the 1,300 NRB delegates. It was a misunderstanding, board members decided after reviewing some of Flynt’s recent controversial remarks about the organized church and about his plans to mix Christianity and sex in the pages of his magazine. So Flynt ended up talking to a lot of reporters instead.

Author Keith Miller’s recent divorce and some sexually explicit passages in his latest book were a source of discomfort in NRB ranks, but he retained his speaking slot on the program.

Yet there were many convention aspects and speeches that warmed hearts and resulted in favorable coverage for the NRB.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn had been invited to address the assembly. He sent his regrets and a word of greeting that concluded on a prophetic note:

“There is in our days a prevailing and entirely wrong belief that the contemporary world’s dangers and disasters are the result of this or that political system’s imperfections. It is not so, however. The truth is that they all stem from the relentless persecution of the religious spirit in the East and from the fading of this spirit in the systems of the West and the Third World. Yet, there is no salvation possible other than the return of this spirit to the inhabitants of the earth.”

Despite the protest demonstration by hundreds of gay activists outside the hotel and occasional heckling inside the hall where Anita Bryant was singing and speaking, most NRB participants remained calm—and solidly in support of the singer. It was clear that she was articulating their concern in her call for a return to “God’s Bible morality” in America. It is time, she said, for Christians to “start coming out of the closet.” In a press conference she replied to a question about her feelings toward homosexuals. “God loves them,” she said. “I love them. I love them enough to tell them the truth—that homosexuality is wrong, not by my standards but by God’s standards.… I have never had any hate in my heart for any of them as individuals.”

Malcolm Muggeridge, the 75-year-old former editor of the British humor magazine Punch, delighted his audience with a devastating attack on the secular media. The media, he said, are responsible for much of society’s hopeless predicament today. He painted a gloomy picture of the future, offering only one ray of hope. “In the reality of Christ,” he stated, “we see our only hope, our only prospect, in a darkening world.”

Speaking more optimistically, evangelist Luis Palau and television pastor Jerry Falwell gave rousing presentations about the wide-open opportunities ahead for the religious broadcasters, who already claim to reach 100 million or more Americans.

And so it went. Marabel Morgan (The Total Woman), LaBelle Lance (wife of the former Carter Administration figure, Bert Lance), and other public figures put in a good word for Christ, and their testimonies were quoted in the press.

There was even a cheery word from the Federal Communications Commission. At a luncheon meeting, commissioner Robert E. Lee solemnly assured NRB members that the FCC would never restrict religious programming because “we consider it in the public interest.”

The N.R.B. At A Glance

Here is a summary of the facts and figures that emerged from last month’s annual convention of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) association (see story this page):

• Attendance: nearly 1,300 registered delegates. They represented 850 NRB members, including radio and TV station owners and operators, producers, and mission agencies with broadcast ministries. The meeting was covered by 218 accredited press personnel, an all-time record; most represented secular media, some from overseas.

• A resolution was adopted calling for a campaign to fight the “deterioration of moral and ethical values” as reflected in sex and violence on TV and radio (Christians were urged to monitor programs, turn off offending ones, and register formal complaints).

• Guidelines for fund-raising and financial accountability were adopted in a step toward self-regulation, and delegates went on record opposing a proposed congressional bill, H.R. 41, that seeks to subject the field of charitable fund-raising to complicated federal regulations enforced by postal authorities.

• Most officers were reelected, including NRB president Abe C. Van Der Puy of HCJB in Quito, Ecuador; the title of Ben Armstrong, executive secretary for eleven years, was upgraded to executive director. A budget of $362,000 was approved for the coming year.

• Current membership of the NRB, which was organized in 1943 and is an affiliate of the National Association of Evangelicals, includes about 325 Christian radio and TV stations. It was reported that new Christian radio stations are going on the air at the rate of one every week, Christian TV stations at one per month.

Hearty Fare For Breakfast

Heartier-than-usual fare was served on both the menu and the program of the annual National Prayer Breakfast this month. The Washington Hilton Hotel prepared nearly 3,000 plates of mushroom quiche and spicy beef sausage for a crowd of dignitaries that heard spirited calls for dependence on Christ. Some seasoned participants thought the event was one of the outstanding ones in the twenty-six-year series of prayer breakfasts.

The featured speaker was Max Cleland, a Viet Nam veteran and multiple amputee who is the head of the Veterans Administration. Cleland said he easily identified with Paul’s confession that “by the grace of God I am what I am.” He acknowledged that after he lost his limbs it took him several years to come to the point of totally depending on God. In fact, he said, it took him at least a year to admit that God had not made a mistake in allowing him to live through the war.

In his twenty-minute testimony, Cleland recalled his election to the Georgia Senate with Jimmy Carter and then his unsuccessful attempt to become that state’s lieutenant governor. Before that statewide race he had believed he trusted God in a general way while he “held the cards close to my chest.” At the same time, he noted, he believed he was the “captain of my soul and the master of my fate.” After losing the race, Cleland said, he realized that he had allowed his ego to drive him not only to unemployment and financial debt but also to a greater debt of being unable to heed “deeper sensibilities.”

Just one job offer came to him, and as he was driving to Washington to talk about this position, that of a congressional staffer, he did something he had never done before,” he said. He asked God to forgive him, and he “took a leap of faith” that marked the beginning of his Christian walk, Cleland said. Now, he said, he can understand the meaning of Paul’s assertion that God uses the weak things to proclaim his strength. Gaining peace of mind and an assurance of God’s sovereignty were worth the brokenness and despair he experienced, Cleland indicated. He got a standing ovation after his message, which he concluded by reading the “Confederate Soldier’s Prayer.” That prayer calls its author “most richly blessed” even though God did not give him what he prayed for.

President Carter followed Cleland to the speaker’s stand and cited the VA executive as an example of what true faith can mean. It was the second time that Carter had been the guest of honor at the National Prayer Breakfast, and he spoke again of his “very personal” relationship with God as a born-again person. “Born again” has a very simple meaning for “those of us who have a Christian faith,” the President told his audience. Conversion, he said, makes believers “brothers and sisters of one another.”

While the Christian family thrives on close ties, the President declared, the broader family of man must interest national leaders. He recalled meetings he has had in recent months “in quiet, lonely, private times” with non-Christian Middle East leaders who spoke to him of their faith. The religious fervor shown by some of them has impressed him, Carter acknowledged. He also revealed that before his visit to India last year he read the Hindu text, the Bhagavad Gita. After his meeting with India leaders and his visits to sacred spots in their country he felt a “kinship” with Indian politicians, “who have not always been our friends in recent years,” Carter said.

Previously, federal judge John Sirica had read the first twelve verses of Proverbs 3 and commented on the need for politicians to seek God’s help in their work. The President mentioned this Scripture in his remarks and concluded by urging his listeners to follow the example of Solomon when he first asked for wisdom.

Marine Corps commandant Louis H. Wilson preceded his reading of John 21 with the comment that those at the meeting were “continuing a custom which our Lord began when he had breakfast with his disciples.” The “prayer for national leaders” was led by Texas congresswoman Barbara Jordan, who confessed human inadequacies and asked for help “to resist the inclination to be the senior partner.” Montana governor Thomas L. Judge started the fast-paced program with an invocation that ended with a plea for understanding that “we can do all things through Jesus Christ, who strengthens us.”

Representative Berkley Bedell of Iowa, reporting for the House Prayer Breakfast group, called the National Prayer Breakfast “a shining light for all the world,” but he acknowledged criticism of the annual event. The weekly meetings held in various branches of government are conducted with no publicity and with great benefit to the participants, he said. They are valuable to the degree that participants gain inner strength for their lives. And, he concluded, in both the small meetings and the large national breakfast, the presence of the Holy Spirit is more important than the presence of all the dignitaries.

Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana reported for the group that meets each Wednesday in the Senate. He said one benefit of the gatherings is the realization of how dependent members are on God, “who sent his only son that we might believe on him.”

Alabama senator James Allen presided, and the program ended with former Senator Harold Hughes leading in prayer for the nation. Hughes left politics to spend his time in the ministries of “The Fellowship,” the group that organizes the National Prayer Breakfast and related meetings throughout the year.

Missing

Back in 1960 some alumni leaders of Notre Dame university celebrated St. Patrick’s Day by traveling to Rome to present to Pope John XXIII a brand-new Cadillac. They bought the car after the alumni president on a visit to the Vatican garage discovered the only American car there to be “a dumpy old thing.” Following Pope John’s death, the car presumably became part of Pope Paul VI’s fleet.

Five years ago a U.S. highway-safety agency discovered that 1960 Cadillacs had a steering defect, and General Motors was ordered to recall the vehicles. GM fought the order in court and only recently lost the case. Although the firm did not have to issue the recall to overseas owners, GM offered to fix the Pope’s car quickly and at no expense.

A search of the Vatican garage, however, produced no 1960 Cadillac, and Vatican officials say they cannot find it anywhere. One official said that Pope John may have given the car away, “possibly to a mission.”

Pope Paul has been using a Mercedes-Benz for years.

Along The Canal With The Gospel

Tourists flocking to Panama these days make sure they see at least one sight: an ocean liner going through the locks of the Panama Canal. But non-engineers are sometimes not impressed with the routine that gets the great ships across the isthmus, surely but slowly. The New York Times last month quoted one spectator as saying, “It’s like watching grass grow.”

That comment is not very different from the observation of some veteran church watchers in Panama and the Canal Zone. If anything, church progress has been slower than that of ships on the ocean-to-ocean trek. There has been a national preoccupation with the questions of whether and when the United States will turn the canal over to Panama, and political concerns have had a higher priority than evangelism for some religious leaders. Some groups, like the Assemblies of God, are growing, but others seem to be withering on the vine.

Against this background and a history of little inter-church cooperation on the isthmus, evangelicals planned an unusual evangelistic campaign in Panama and the Canal Zone last month. And lest the message be considered “made in the U.S.A.,” two Africans were invited to lead “Mission ’78.” The event was also called the “Africa-Panama Crusade” with the theme, “God’s Message of Love.”

Exiled Anglican bishop Festo Kivengere of Uganda and Michael Cassidy, the white South African who founded the African Enterprise organization, preached together in nine public rallies and in a variety of other meetings. Also on the team was black evangelist Ernie Wilson, born in Panama but now based in Philadelphia.

The crusade attracted a cumulative attendance estimated at 15,000, and it was considered the most successful inter-church effort since Billy Graham addressed some 18,000 at a rally twenty years ago. More than ninety churches in the republic and in the zone supported the campaign in one way or another. Among them were independent Bible churches primarily serving American citizens in the zone, the Salvation Army, small black congregations in Panama, and the Episcopal Church. While the mission failed to get the support of national organizations of the large Assemblies of God and Foursquare Gospel churches, some Pentecostal congregations were involved.

Chief spark plug behind the crusade was Fred Denton, an Episcopal layman and U.S. citizen who has been in business in Panama and other Central American nations for years. After presenting the idea to Kivengere and Cassidy when they were preaching in Nicaragua two years ago, Denton got the endorsement of the diocesan evangelism committee on which he served. Episcopal bishop Lemuel Shirley agreed to become the honorary president of the executive committee for the crusade. He provided a $2,000 contribution from the diocesan treasury and opened a church residence for the use of the committee’s executive secretary.

With a long history of helping various evangelical groups in their Panamanian contacts, Denton called on a number of them to aid “Mission ’78.” Latin America Mission lent a missionary, Donald Sendek, to serve as executive secretary. Sendek’s wife, a Colombian, handled a variety of office chores. The “Libreria Caribe” bookstore became the point of contact for correspondence follow-up. Radio station HOXO not only broadcast the services but also provided public-address systems for the meetings. A Methodist school, the Pan American Institute, lent its gymnasium in Panama City for the rallies four nights. The government of Panama agreed to let the mission use the boxing arena in the city of Colon five nights and the domed “Nuevo Panama Gymnasium” in Panama City for the closing rally. The site of counselor training in Colon was the Young Men’s Christian Association.

Except for the first two rallies (in the Canal Zone’s Balboa Stadium), all the public meetings were conducted in English and Spanish. Song sheets were English on one side and Spanish on the other. Although many Panamanians are bi-lingual, a large proportion speak only Spanish and a substantial number (including blacks of West Indies descent) only English.

Denton, born in Puerto Rico and fluent in both languages, addressed the crowd in Spanish and English at the closing rally. “This is not the end but a step forward in the work of the church here on the isthmus,” he declared.

His optimism was based partly on the fact that several hundred church members of many denominations had worked together in the crusade, laying a foundation for cooperation in future projects. About 100 of those who were trained actually worked in the rallies as counselors. Another 100 ushered, and more than 200 sang in the choirs. Denton, who was chairman of the crusade executive committee, was very hopeful that the 700 who came forward for counseling would be assimilated into the churches. About a quarter of those registering decisions indicated that they were making their first public professions of faith.

Counseling was offered at the end of each rally by either Cassidy or Kivengere. The black and white pair, sometimes described as “the impossible dream from Africa,” shared the sermon every night. The Ugandan would begin one night and then call on his South African colleague to finish the presentation, and Cassidy would start the next night.

In their messages the evangelists often spoke of the troubles of their own nations. They avoided the politics of the Panama Canal issue but suggested that their listeners should be prepared for hard times and should pray for the leaders of their countries.

Freedom, a popular theme in Panama, was picked up often by the Africans. “For freedom Christ has set us free,” Cassidy told the crowd at one rally. “God doesn’t want blacks in bondage to whites or whites to blacks. He wants freedom and justice.… Our only bondage is to be to him.”

Kivengere, giving the invitation at the final evangelistic meeting, said those accepting God’s offer of salvation through Christ are “free to inherit everything which God has got.” In his sermon he had told of his escape from his own nation after the death of Archbishop Janani Luwum last February. Ugandan Christians have set an example for those who would be “set free from hate,” Kivengere said. Panama, he added, “needs free Christians.”

During the crusade, the last United States senators to visit the isthmus before the beginning of floor debate on the proposed treaties were being given red-carpet tours. Final Senate action may come in March.

Among the religious groups that have taken a stand on the canal issue, calling for ratification of the treaties signed by President Carter, are the National Council of Churches, the U.S. Catholic Conference, the Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church, the United Presbyterian Church, and the Church of the Brethren. On the itinerary of the last delegation of senators to visit Panama in January was a conference with Episcopal bishop Shirley and Roman Catholic archbishop Marcos McGrath.

Children Of God: New Revelations

The following article is a condensation of a well-documented report filed by correspondent Joseph M. Hopkins. Professor Hopkins has written several definitive articles and a book on the controversial Children of God sect. The group emerged from the fringes of the Jesus movement among youth in the late 1960s.

Recent defections from the Children of God (COG) sect reveal that founder-leader David “Moses” (“Mo” for short) Berg apparently is still in charge and is still propagating some bizarre tenets of faith. (A letter purporting to be from Berg surfaced last year. In it, the writer confessed that he had sinned. He then apologized and ordered COG members to disband and return home. COG leaders disavowed the letter, and a later communication purporting to be from the authentic Berg indicated that the first letter was a hoax.)

Among the latest defectors are John Moriconi, 23, and his wife Linda. They were the “shepherd” and “shepherdess” of the Richmond, Virginia, COG colony. Moriconi joined COG five years ago. He listed twenty reasons for quitting. Most of them involved Berg’s new doctrines and practices, and Moriconi offered recent “Mo letters” by Berg as evidence.

The letters contain these revelations:

• COG’s name has been changed to “Family of Love.” The term “colony” has been abolished in favor of “home.”

• COG was to be restructured as of this month. Gone is the hierarchy of prime ministers, ministers, archbishops, bishops, regional shepherds, and district shepherds. The “homes” will be led by a “servant” and “handmaiden,” who will report directly to “king and queen counselorships,” a sort of regional headquarters in Rome (for Europe and Africa), Tokyo (North America and the Pacific), and Lima, Peru (for Latin America). In a letter dated last month, Berg declared: “The King is taking back the reins of government and we’re going back to a direct dictatorship!… So as of my birthday, February 18, 1978, you’re all fired.…” He ordered elections of local leaders on that date. Said he: “Throw out the tyrants and put in your own choice of leaders [whom] you know love and care for you!”

• No more than half of the members of overseas “homes” can be Americans after April 1. Polygamous relationships with nationals are suggested as one way to cope with the requirement.

• Trial marriages are preferable to “formal legal marriages” to determine if the relationships will work.

• Each home must submit to regional headquarters a monthly “Flirty Fish witnessing report.” (Under the recently revealed Flirty Fish policy, COG male and female members alike are admonished to “go to bed … if necessary” with potential converts and donors in an effort to “win their souls for Jesus.”) The report asks a listing of the number of sexual encounters with “fish” (outsiders), mates, and non-mate members, along with the number of spiritual decisions that are made.

• Each member is to keep a Flirty Fish (FF) diary, detailing “your best” FF experiences, the type of job and income bracket of the fish, the expenditures in fulfilling the FF policy (clothing, jewelry, perfume, travel, drinks), and the gifts presented by grateful fish, whether money or goods. Each home is to list the “top three FF lovers of the month,” with the “total number loved” by each and “number of times.” Females are encouraged to ply their fish with wine, consuming it “prayerfully … and in sober moderation.”

• “Gifts” from beneficiaries of COG women applying the FF policy are to be sought. “We can’t afford to just continue supporting some kind of religious brothel ministering to men who don’t pay their way …,” Berg complains. “Happy hookin’!—But make it pay!” he says.

• COG disciples and leaders—including Berg himself and his common-law wife, Maria—have been afflicted by venereal disease. Berg seems to find comfort in his belief that Jesus had sexual relationships with a number of women and that he too must have contracted VD.

• At least 10 per cent of COG’s women become pregnant as a result of FF evangelism. Maria is said to have borne a son recently to a fish named Carlos, and the evidently proud Berg endowed the boy with his own first name.

One semi-secret (“disciples only”) letter released by the Moriconis contains Berg’s reaction to a cover-story interview article with two ex-COG members that appeared in CHRISTIANITY TODAY last February. He calls it a “smear” by “two of our backsliders,” but he seems to have partly enjoyed the attention. He comments: “Your OL’ Lion finally made the front cover!—ha!”

In a letter dealing with Islam last fall, Berg exposed how far he has drifted from his doctrinal moorings as a Protestant minister years ago. He says: “… I don’t even believe in the Trinity. You can’t find that word in the Bible, so why should I believe it?”

Although defections are on the un-crease, so is COG membership—if COG statistics are to be believed. Membership in 1977 soared from 6,929 to 8,068, including 3,650 live-in adults, 1,451 children, and 2,967 part-time members. Only 10.5 per cent of COG members reside in the United States. The number of colonies—now homes—increased from 736 to 842 in seventy-three countries, the COG report asserts.

Breakaway Bishops

Amid Gregorian chants, blaring trumpets, the aroma of burning incense, and other trappings of Anglican tradition, the first four bishops of the fledgling Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) were consecrated at a controversial service late last month in Denver.

Or were they?

Some leaders of the Episcopal Church (from whom the ACNA split) insist that a consecration cannot be valid if fewer than three officially recognized bishops do the consecrating. Since only two bishops took part in the Denver service, they argue, the consecrations are not valid, and the ACNA therefore cannot function as a fully independent church body.

Other church authorities, however, point out that ecclesiastical law does not state that there must be three bishops. They say that the transmission of orders through even a single bishop has been considered valid, though irregular. (According to Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox teachings, succession to the position of bishop through the laying on of hands must be traced back in an unbroken line to Christ himself.)

One test of the validity of the service may come later this year when the worldwide Anglican Communion acts on the ACNA’s request for membership and recognition. As titular head of the Church of England, Archbishop of Canterbury Donald Coggan is considered the top leader of the Anglican Communion. Coggan announced through a press spokesman last month that he would not recognize the breakaway body. Leaders of the ACNA assert that Coggan has no authority to deep-freeze their church. The withholding of recognition, they say, must be a corporate act of the world body, which has a membership of twenty-five Anglican denominations.

The two bishops who took part in the Denver service were Albert A. Chambers, 71, the retired bishop of Springfield, Illinois, and Francisco J. Pagtakhan, a bishop of the Philippine Independent Church, a 3.5-million-member body that split from the Roman Catholic Church in 1902. Two other bishops had been scheduled to participate: Mark Pae, 52, of the Anglican Church in South Korea, and Charles F. Boynton, 71, a retired suffragan (assistant) bishop of New York.

Chambers, long an advocate of traditionalist causes in the Episcopal Church, has been identified with the breakaway group since its formative stages last summer. At the 1976 convention of the Episcopal Church, he was a leading voice in the opposition to women’s ordination and the revision of the denomination’s book of worship. The convention’s approval of these two measures resulted in wide dissent and the departure or schism of dozens of the Episcopal Church’s 7,200 parishes.

Boynton was unable to participate in the Denver service because of illness, but he sent his blessings. Pae was warned by Coggan to stay away, according to Dale D. Doren of the Pittsburgh area, the first of the four who were consecrated. Doren, formerly a missionary administrator who served under Pae, had been elected a bishop by the Korean church but had returned to the United States. Pae sent a letter approving Doren’s consecration at Denver. After his ceremony was over, Doren assisted in the consecration of the other three men: James O. Mote, 55, whose Denver parish was the first to bolt the Episcopal Church after the 1976 convention; Peter F. Watterson of West Palm Beach, Florida; and Robert S. Morse of Oakland, California. Each will head a regional diocese of the ACNA.

The new denomination claims nearly 100 congregations with between 7,000 and 10,000 members. Mote predicts an influx of many thousands more, now that bishops are functioning and the denomination is firmly established. Leaders among the dissidents who have chosen to stay in the Episcopal Church, however, say they doubt there will be any large-scale defections.

Ironically, the ACNA may face a schism of its own. A number of dissidents who left the Episcopal Church to set up the breakaway dioceses were opposed to establishing a new denomination and instead had wanted to join a traditionalist Anglican or Catholic body already in existence as a church. Some diocesan committees went on record opposing the consecrations. Dissidents in Mote’s own breakaway diocese (Holy Trinity), which includes most of the western states, even elected canon Albert duBois, 71, as bishop. They say they will delay his consecration until “some of these questions are resolved.”

Mote indicated that the four new bishops will tour the country in a campaign to “warn” mainline Episcopalians about the “dangers” they face. He also announced plans to hold a constituting convention of the new church, possibly this spring, and to establish a seminary.

About 1,300 persons attended the three-hour Denver service, which was held in a Lutheran Church (Mote’s church was deemed too small to accommodate the large crowd). Pennsylvania clergyman George Butler delivered the sermon and the charge to the bishops-elect. “You are involved in no petty ecclesiastical squabble … [but] a great realignment between orthodoxy and secularism which is transforming and confusing all of Christendom,” he said. “You must break a conspiracy of silence which has kept the faithful of the land ignorant of what has been happening in the church.”

Episcopal bishop William C. Frey of Colorado, who did not attend, said he had pleaded with Chambers not to participate “in this disastrous course of action,” which Frey called “an unwarranted invasion of another bishop’s jurisdiction.” He predicted that ecclesiastical charges will be lodged against Chambers.

“It is ironic,” commented Frey, “that when Christians all over the world are praying for Christian unity [the annual Week of Prayer For Christian Unity had just concluded], this comes to breach that unity.”

Religion In Transit

Nearly 50 per cent of American teen-agers approve trial marriage, and 45 per cent oppose it, according to a recent Gallup youth survey. The poll, based on a sample of 1,087 young people, found that Roman Catholic teens favor trial marriage by 54 to 40 per cent, while young Protestants disapprove by 52 to 42 per cent.

California governor Jerry Brown told a cheering audience of high school leaders that he supports legislation to lower the legal drinking age in the state to 19. His forum was the annual YMCA Model Legislature in Sacramento, attended by student representatives from throughout the state. A proposed amendment to the state constitution has already cleared the assembly, and if it passes the senate by the end of June, it will appear on the November ballot. An already severe problem posed by young drunken drivers will worsen if the measure is adopted, warn key law-enforcement bodies in the Brown administration.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.