Offering Viet Nam Food and Justice?

It has been nearly four years since the 1974 “Friday morning massacre” that sent James MacCracken and five other veteran National Council of Churches executives packing. MacCracken’s departure was the most dramatic because the agency he headed—Church World Service (CWS)—brought more money than any other to the NCC and also because he was fired in a clear policy disagreement. The Presbyterian layman believed in sending relief goods to the needy without regard to politics, and those who discharged him believed that CWS grants could be used as a lever to help change political situations they did not like. MacCracken said then, “I don’t think a church relief organization, mandated and supported by the people in the pews to feed the hungry, has changing hostile social systems as an integral part of its marching orders.”

CWS has announced no change of policy under its new executive director, Paul F. McCleary, but a highly publicized grain shipment to Viet Nam this month suggested a slackening of zeal for changing political situations—at least in some cases. A ship of Greek registry named the Antiochia sailed from Houston with 10,000 metric tons of wheat that will be distributed by the Marxist government of Viet Nam. The cargo will be accepted officially at the port by the government-sanctioned Committee for Friendship and Solidarity with American People (VIETMY), but the grain will be doled out at the direction of the regime in Hanoi. “Our recent experiences with shipments to Viet Nam show the government is conscientious in handling our foodstuffs,” said a CWS brochure about the project.

Eugene L. Stockwell, the NCC’s associate general secretary for overseas ministries, defended the relief program. He said CWS provides assistance in more than seventy countries, but “this does not mean that we approve of the governments of every country where we work.” He added, “In the case of the Viet Nam shipment I believe the positive effect for relationships between Viet Nam and the United States and for a needed reexamination of U.S. policies vis-a-vis Viet Nam are desirable and paramount.”

When asked if the wheat delivery would give them any leverage to improve conditions in Viet Nam, NCC officials had little response. Acceptance of the grain does carry with it the condition that the distribution system be open to the scrutiny of the donors’ representatives, said Midge A. Meinertz, southern Asia director for the NCC’s Division of Overseas Ministries. The CWS appeal brochure said that Hanoi has a five-year plan (1976–80) to increase rice production 8 to 10 per cent annually. It adds, “In the south, nine ‘new economic zones’ have been targeted for development, where people who came to the city during the war are being resettled in rural areas, to work the land once again.” Some less friendly observers of the situation in Indochina have described the rural development zones as concentration camps for dissidents or, at best, re-education centers for those formerly aligned with the defeated Saigon regime.

The goal of making Viet Nam a riceexporting country again has not yet been reached. Crops have suffered from bad weather—described in the CWS brochure as the worst in thirty years—and the country reportedly needs emergency supplies until the next crop is harvested. War damage is cited as another reason why full production has not been possible. The four-color folder from CWS appealing for funds for grain shipment explains, “Viet Nam’s food policy calls for rationing the scarce supply among everyone. But adequate diets will not be possible until the grain shortage is overcome. This shipment’s use in schools and hospitals will supplement the diets of school children and hospital patients, providing the difference between a healthy diet and malnutrition for thousands.”

Schools and hospitals once operated by churches and Christian agencies in Viet Nam are now run by the government.

CWS said the wheat will be milled after it arrives in Asia and made into bread or noodles. Some of the wheat was shipped directly to Houston by farmers in the Midwest who donated it in response to the CWS appeal. The whole effort has been described as a “people to people” project even though it will be handled on the Asian end by the government.

The U.S. government, which usually pays freight charges for CWS food shipments, has refused to pick up the tab on this load because of a ban on aid to Viet Nam. (The government gave CWS a special license to send the wheat.) The NCC and sixty-four other organizations have asked President Carter to relax the ban. The matter was not mentioned by the NCC delegation that visited President Carter last month, spokesmen said.

A “public celebration” held in Houston March 4 to mark the departure of the wheat-laden vessel turned out to be premature; the chartered ship had to take its place in line before it could get into the harbor to pick up the cargo.

Total cost of the grain and its shipping was estimated at $1.9 million. By the target date for sailing, the CWS office in New York had received nearly $327,000 of that amount. The March 4 income report was essentially the same as that issued a month earlier by McCleary. An NCC official emphasized that the report on contributions was not complete.

Some promoters of the appeal said the whole cost of the project would come from designated gifts. Delegates to the annual assembly of the Texas Conference of Churches who voted support of the shipment were told, for instance, that none of the regular funds of CWS or CROP would be used. By the date of the Houston celebration, there were still no firm figures available to show that all funds for the shipment would come from designated offerings.

The total received in New York included about $9,000 from individual contributors. Most of the rest came in large checks from denominational groups. The Lutheran World Relief organization gave $100,000, the largest single gift. The United Presbyterian Church gave $50,000 and the Christian Church (Disciples) $40,000. The NCC-related Church Women United sent $3,000, and the Baptist Federation of Canada donated $17,890. A check for $5,000 came from the Southern Baptist Convention, a nonmember of the NCC. Other reported denominational gifts came from the Church of the Brethren, the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (Southern), the Reformed Church in America, and the United Church of Christ. Among the non-church organizations that contributed were the antiwar Fellowship of Reconciliation and a private foundation.

German and Swiss organizations also gave to the project, but the NCC said details of the contributions from overseas were not immediately available.

Giving might have been retarded by publicity arising from an American visit by a Buddhist monk early this year. Thich Man Giac stayed in Viet Nam after the fall of the Saigon government and was the Unified Buddhist Church’s liaison to the new regime until discharged from a university teaching post. A year after he was fired, he left the country as one of the “boat people” last July and then spent three months in a Malaysian refugee camp. He told Religious News Service and other reporters that even though religious leaders made “great efforts” to work with the government, Hanoi has pursued a policy of shattering the religious communities of the nation. He said that pagodas had been destroyed or turned into government buildings and that statues of Buddha had been smashed. The government is making a concerted effort to reach children under fourteen and turn them from their religious beliefs, he asserted. The monk also said he had information that persecution has continued since his departure.

His charges were promptly denied by spokespersons for two organizations working in America for reconciliation and relief in Viet Nam. The monk had said that aid from abroad is used to “strangle the people,” but representatives of Friendshipment and of Clergy and Laity Concerned claimed that privately donated U.S. aid is benefiting the needy at the grass roots. The founder of Friendshipment is Cora Weiss, who is a CWS consultant on the wheat shipment. She will also be in a delegation that CWS is sending to Viet Nam to observe distribution of the grain.

On Their Toes In Bangladesh

The following report updates a brief report on Bangladesh in the February 10 issue (page 62):

Missionaries in Bangladesh must always be either on their toes or on their knees. The more than 300 Protestants and 200 Catholics from abroad were doing a lot of praying last November and December because of a threatened expulsion of the whole lot of them. The Home Ministry issued an order that all missionaries who had been in the country over three years would have fourteen days to leave after their current one-year visas expired. Furthermore, no new applicants from Western nations were to get visas.

The position of missionaries was already precarious, since no long-term permits to live and work in Bangladesh were being issued. The requirement that new visas had to be obtained every year kept them wondering from day to day how long they would be able to stay. The news that no new missionaries would be admitted meant that they would be deprived of much needed help—including doctors and other highly skilled persons who had already applied for visas.

National Christians joined with the overseas workers in prayer meetings to ask that the order be reversed. Leaders of the tiny (200,000 member) Christian community went beyond praying and sent a petition to the government. Also interceding were seven ambassadors of Western nations. They met twice in the capital, Dacca, to discuss the situation and then notified various government ministries of their concern. Even some Muslims in top government positions came to the defense of the missionaries.

The flurry of activity by the diplomats and others came amid continuing charges that some missionaries took part in subversive activities and that some were using inducements to cause Muslims to convert to Christianity. The charges were never aired publicly, however.

A recent resurgence of Muslim influence was seen as the source of the new pressure. There was speculation that strings might be attached to Arab Muslim financial assistance that has been pouring into the country. The constitution adopted when Bangladesh became independent contained the word “secular,” but that has now been dropped, and the document affirms that “our dependence is on Allah.”

After personal intervention by President Zia Rahman last December 24, the explusion notice was canceled. “Replacement” visas are again being granted. So far none of the applicants for new visas has been turned down, and the applicants have hope that they will soon be able to join the veterans on the field. Said one missionary: “The door has swung open, but there is lingering apprehension as to how wide and for how long.”

Light on Rights

Representatives of thirty-five nations met for six months in Belgrade to review compliance with the 1975 Helsinki Accords, but they have little to show for their effort. The meetings broke up this month with little more than an agreement to review the situation again in 1980 in Madrid.

One of the main sticking points in the discussions has been whether the nations signing the agreements have made progress in granting freedom to individuals, including the right to practice and propagate their religion freely. The United States, Canada, and the Soviet Union signed the Helsinki document along with 32 European nations. A Soviet spokesman at Belgrade complained of U.S. polemics on human rights as the conference ended. In the U.S. delegation, there were complaints about Soviet intransigence. At the time of the signing of the accords in Helsinki, there had been optimism that they would not only strengthen European security and cooperation but also reduce the tension between the big powers.

In Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe, the language of Helsinki has encouraged intellectual and religious dissidents to speak up more vigorously. Numerous clashes with authorities have resulted, and human-rights leaders have been accused of working for America and against the best interests of their own nations.

Czechoslovakia furnishes an example of the use of Helsinki promises to try to get more freedom of expression. The issuance of “Charter 77” by leading intellectuals, artists, former politicians, and religious figures brought international attention to the failure of the Soviet-dominated country to fulfill the terms of the Helsinki agreements. Even though the government increased its pressure on the signers, their ranks continued to grow. A total of 832 put their names on the charter in the first twelve months after its issuance.

Keston College News Service in England reported last month that twenty-four of the signers are clergymen. Keston said that on the first anniversary of the charter, one of the three official spokesmen, Ladislav Hejdanek, a member of the Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren, was detained for nearly nine hours and interrogated. When asked about his connection with Charter 77, Hejdanek explained that it had been issued in order to draw attention to such violations of the law as his arrest that day. He had been dragged out of his home, forced into a car, dragged into a police station, kicked, and then left lying on the floor. When he refused to answer questions he was left for two hours in a room in which police had opened the window despite the freezing temperature outside.

The pressure built up in Eastern Europe by discussion of the accords has caused hardships for believers in several countries, but it has helped in many cases, some observers believe. Increased scrutiny by the authorities in some areas has served to encourage Christians to be more faithful to the Gospel and to learn more about the legal protections to which they are entitled. International attention has also caused the Soviet officials to allow more emigration of those who want to leave to seek more religious freedom elsewhere.

In most Eastern bloc countries, however, there are still severe restrictions on the practice of religion. It is generally seen as a right to worship under limited conditions but not to teach or propagate. John David Hopper, a Southern Baptist missionary and fraternal representative to the Baptists of Eastern Europe, said in a report last month that religious freedom “as Americans know it” does not exist in Eastern Europe. He emphasized, however, that the situation is different from country to country. He added, “Many Baptist leaders in Eastern Europe consider that the church enjoys freedom within the bounds of a legal framework Americans would call religious tolerance. They maintain that as long as the church members live within the framework of their national law the church is not persecuted.”

Hopper noted that “pastors and laymen in some countries of Eastern Europe who are very active in personal evangelistic outreach sometimes suffer for their convictions.” The pastors often lose their churches, and laymen are disadvantaged at their jobs.

Among the bright spots, according to Hopper, is that church growth—at least among Baptists—in Eastern Europe exceeds that in Western Europe.

Religion in Transit

It was an unusual declaration by General Bernard Rogers, U.S. Army chief of staff: “Notwithstanding the fact that there are other expressions of piety available to the rabbi which would not conflict with Army appearance policy, we are granting the exemption.” The rabbi was Jacob Golstein of Brooklyn, a National Guard chaplain who had been dropped from the Army payroll for refusing to shave. The general’s ruling allows the Hasidic rabbi to return to the service with his full beard. He claimed that he wore it in accordance with his religious beliefs.

General assemblies of the nation’s two largest Presbyterian bodies (the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.—Southern—and the United Presbyterian Church) will get a draft plan of union from a joint committee on merger this year, but the committee is not recommending a vote. It wants the governing bodies of the two denominations to send the plan to regional presbyteries only for study.

Expansion of Theological Education by Extension (TEE) continues, with nearly 35,000 enrolled in courses last year. Only 100 were enrolled in 1965.

Argentina has decreed that all religious except Roman Catholicism must register with the state or be barred from legally conducting their activities in the country. Prior to the announcement the government kept a list of churches, but the decree said all must reregister. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hare Krishna, and Divine Light Mission were banned last year.

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