Year: 1956

Washington: Government experts predict that America’s churches will go on their biggest building spree in history during 1957. They’re already enjoying a record membership boom. During 1956 a record amount of $775 million was spent on building or enlarging churches, synagogues, and Sunday school edifices. Commerce Department analysis says next year’s outlay should be about $875 million, or 13 percent more. That’s about 20 times what was spent 20 years ago. As for church membership, the latest figures – for 1955 – show membership at an all-time high of more than 100 million. Sunday school enrollment climbed to 39 million.

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New York: A religious news director rates the release of three churchmen from communist imprisonment as the outstanding religious news story of the year. Richard T. Sutcliffe, associate director of the Department of Press, Radio, and Television of the United Lutheran Church in America, picked that as first among the top 10 religious news stories. The three churchmen released were Cardinal Mindszenty, the Roman Catholic primate of Hungary; Bishop Lajos Ordass Head of the Lutheran Church in Hungary; and Cardinal Wyszynski, Roman Catholic primate of Poland. Sutcliffe gave second place to the exchange of American and Russian delegations; and third, the merger moves among American Protestant churches.

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Vatican City: The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano has called on the United Nations to follow the appeal of Pope Pius and take action against the oppressors of Hungary. Either that or forfeit its role as the main instrument of peace. In an editorial, the newspaper rejected the war-mongering charges hurled at the pope by the communist press for his Christmas message. The pope had urged the U.N. to refuse life membership rights from those nations which refused to admit U.N. observers.

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Again Vatican City: The pope last Thursday received in private audience Republican Representative Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania. During their brief talk, Rep. Scott expressed gratitude for the pope’s leadership on the Hungarian problem.

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New York: The head of the National Council of Churches said that he believes the nation is on the edge of a true religious revival. But, says Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, it will come to fruition only if it becomes intellectually deeper, more personal and social, more practical and local, whatever that means. Dr. Blake says the increase in religious interest and support in our time is heartening to church people in spite of some indications of superficiality. He added, “I do not believe the day will be won by mass appeal and smart advertising techniques. It will come out of a revitalized Christian congregation worshiping and serving in your town.”

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The first large-scale meeting for Southern Baptist students since 1938 has heard that Christian students should use the worldwide crisis to serve humanity. The appeal has come from a professor of religious philosophy, Dr. Culbert Rutender of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has told the Nashville, Tennessee, student congress that students can respond in three ways to the world crisis. One is to ignore it and hope that it goes away; the second is to flee in fear; but the third response is to make it an opportunity for service.

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A Japanese weekly has disclosed that Emperor Hirohito himself helped draft the imperial rescript that 11 years ago renounced his claim to divinity. One of Japan’s outstanding educators, Tamon Maeda, writes in Shukan, Tokyo, that Hirohito, on January 1, 1946, disclaimed divinity and debunked the mythological divine existence of the imperial house of Japan. Maeda adds the decision for the renunciation was made because everything was chaos and the people were confused in the months after the surrender. Maeda helped with the draft of the renunciation. He adds that the emperor was very cooperative…offered suggestions…and was helpful with the language used in the imperial rescripts.

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A Russian defense ministry publication had accused the U.S. of using its chaplains to achieve what the Soviet Military Herald terms “ideological stupefaction” in its Armed Forces. Among other things, the paper declares that U.S. chaplains take advantage of religious feelings and try to justify social inequality and advocate the inevitability of war from a religious point of view.

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In Anchorage, Alaska, on Thursday, the president of the National Council of Churches ended an 11-day tour of Alaskan defense installations. The Reverend Dr. Eugene Carson Blake told a group of commanding officers and chaplains that he would work for more effective support of the ministry of chaplains. The National Council head, who is also executive officer of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., heard praise for his efforts from high military authorities. It was the third consecutive Christmas that Dr. Blake had left the states to carry the Christmas message to U.S. service personnel overseas.

During Christmas also, Francis Cardinal Spellman celebrated a Christmas midnight Mass at the new chapel at Thule Air Base in Greenland, at the U.S.’s farthest north outpost.

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Boston: A Boston native has been named to a high Roman Catholic position in some Pacific islands. Pope Pius has named the Rev. Vincent Kennally as vicar apostolic of the Caroline-Marshall Islands and titular bishop of Sassura. As vicar apostolic, or delegate of the pope, Bishop-elect Kennally will have virtually the same powers over the island’s 22,500 Catholics as a bishop does in his diocese. The 62-year-old Jesuit priest succeeds another Boston prelate in the Caroline-Marshall Islands post, Bishop Thomas Feeney, who died last year.

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Last week I reported on the discouragement expressed by the commander of NATO, Henri Spaak of Belgium, on the uncertain effectiveness of the United Nations. This week, a nationally-syndicated columnist devotes his day’s work to this subject, pointing out that while the U.N. serves a purpose, it represents the brutal facts of today’s world. As for the purpose it serves, Wellington Long says that it is useful as a forum on the policies of democratic governments. He goes on to emphasize, however, that it has little if any effect on the policies of dictatorial governments, the heads of which go on their determined way, relenting only when it is expedient for them to do so. And in this connection one cannot help but recall that during the war, Stalin decreed freedom of religion in Russia, not because he expected that such freedom would be permitted, but because it would store up capital of good will for him among the democracies, with which he was currently allied from force of necessity.

The brutal facts that Mr. Long points out are all too well known to both radio listeners and newspaper readers, namely, that the U.N. can move with some effectiveness when the matter concerns small of democratic states. But note reluctance and refusal for swift, decisive action in regard to the Russian-Hungary murders. Hence, moral authority is the chief, and about the only weapon which the U.N. can use, and moral force is of no force with immoral governments. It could or would not take steps to force Hungary to admit U.N. observers. Of course all of this is not unexpected. The nations of the world were too selfish, too arrogant to delegate any real power to the international organization that they so proudly proclaimed in 1945 would avert another world catastrophe. We all hope that it will, but there is nothing tangible on which to base this hope until or unless nationalism everywhere is reduced to the point where it will surrender some of its lawmaking and law-enforcing powers to a democratically-constructed international body – powers sufficient to keep the peace, but small enough to leave nations free to determine their own internal destiny. Then and only then will peace on earth to men of good will be something upon which we can safely rely.

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Now that Christmas itself has come and gone, perhaps it is better to review it and its meaning in retrospect than it would have been to preview it, as this reporter, understandably enough, had an urge to do. One can look back at both anticipation and realization; before, he could only look forward to realization with anticipation.

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From the Rev. Irving R. Murray of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, comes this comment upon the changing nature of the work of ministers. He says that it is time now to recognize that some of the old functions of the ministry have to be sloughed off if the new church is to emerge. Old-fashioned parish calling, he says, is incompatible with a counseling ministry. There just isn’t time to visit every home once or twice a year and work intensively with men and women in trouble. Again, it must be recognized that some ministerial roles required specialization if they are to fulfilled with adequacy. And that means other roles must be neglected with only one minister in smaller churches. No precise pattern can be established. But the role of every minister must be defined and understood by his people, with a view to the realization of his talents and the fulfillment of their need. For the frenetic life of the ministry today points only to the collapse of the full-time leadership of the church.

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Some listeners took exception, and quite rightly so, if they so desired, to some comments made on this program some weeks ago in an admittedly crude effort to define religion. Explanation of the natural characteristic religion is called theology. The critical examination of the claims of religious systems is called the philosophy of religion. The theological systems have not adopted knowledge as rapidly as it has accrued, and today there is a gulf between religious systems and modern knowledge. Truth is largely a very high degree of probability. The churches, Christian, have generally insisted that all people needed to do was, in some creedal or emotional sense, to “accept Christ,” and all would be well. After centuries of this, not all is well. The pragmatist points out that the supernatural systems do not work for most people, that on the whole, they do not add to human happiness. The notion that the pay-off is after you are dead sounds like the sales talk of a uranium salesman. Theological systems are, for the most part, like eggs; you cannot reshape them. So the systems have had to ignore knowledge or oppose it. Of course the preservation of a logical system may not be too important. What is important is that the church give direction on the basis of the best knowledge available. At one time, logic very thoroughly supported the idea that the earth was flat.

Be all that as it may, once the world was dark and forbidding. Cold and hunger or heat and thirst pursued everyman. Fear dogged everyman’s footsteps, sat at everyman’s table, and at night mocked his slumbers. From over the horizon, from the land of ought-to-be into this world of insupportable misery came a figure of surpassing masterliness. He looked upon the people of the fields, bound and condemned, and loved them, and said, “Ye shall be free.” He walked the city streets, He saw children with stomachs swollen from starvation, covered with sores, and tormented with vermin, and He loved them and placed his hands upon them in blessing and said, “Ye shall be free.” He saw the workmen hungry, beaten, sullen, and without hope, and He loved them and said, “Ye shall be free.” He saw the lepers, the insane and the prostitutes and He loved them and said, “Ye shall be free.” He saw the priests, the scribes, the tax gatherers, and officials, saw them in all their blindness and wickedness, and He loved them and said, “Ye shall be free.” Soldiers in glittering armor clashed down the street and pushed him out of their way, and He loved them and said, “Ye shall be free.”

This person dreamed the beautiful dream that ever was or ever shall be – a dream of justice and love. The people heard Him gladly. But one day the soldiers came and took Him away to die. For wickedness cannot stand before so beautiful a dream. But the dream itself did not die. It lived, and it lives at all Christmas seasons. So fair was it that in every generation there have been the pure of heart who have been the keepers of that dream. And even the scoffers know that when there no longer are keepers of that dream, there will be no dream, and when there is no dream, everyone will be eternally lost.

A soldier from Ft. Lewis, Washington state, will be in Korea this Christmas because he knows what it means to be an orphan at that time. Staff Sergeant Rex Richard Gilman says his parents abandoned him and his five brothers and sisters when they were small children. So, Sgt. Gilman and his wife will adopt a Korean orphan – a 29-month-old boy who has been crippled by polio. The soldier explains further, “We chose him because not many people want to adopt a crippled child.”

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Again Korea, a Korean-speaking Santa Claus is brightening the season for 150 waifs living near no-man’s-land between South and North Korea. U.S. soldiers from the United Nations Armistice Commission are helping him distribute clothing in four orphanages.

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In Santa Fe, New Mexico, a conditional release has been given an artistic convict in time for Christmas. He is life-termer Ralph Dubose Pekor, famed for his painting of a smiling Christ made while he was in a Florida prison. Pekor is dying from cancer.

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Chinese and Russian will be among the 25 languages the Christmas message by Pope Pius will be broadcast in today.

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Francis Cardinal Spellman of New York is on a Christmas visit with U.S. servicemen in the far north. The Roman Catholic prelate will hold special services for Americans in Newfoundland, Greenland, Iceland, and Labrador. U.S. servicemen in Alaska will have the Rev. Dr. Eugene Carson Blake as a yuletide visitor. He heads the National Council of Churches in the U.S.A., a group of Protestant and Orthodox churches.

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A leading rabbi says the whole of what is termed “our Christian civilization” is rejecting Christ and his teachings. The statement comes from Dr. Maurice Eisendrath, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. He said if he were a Christian minister, he would lament nothing so much and resent nothing so bitterly as the wholesale turning of such a holy day as Christmas into so heathen a holiday. And many of us can echo a fervent amen to this.

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Spot reports from all over the country have indicated more good will and selflessness by working groups this Christmastime. Civilian employees of the Boston Navy Yard used more than $20,000 usually allotted to shop parties to be hosts to more than 1,000 orphans. About $15,000 worth of gifts have been distributed to needy children and to hospitalized veterans by employees of the Republic Aviation Corporation at Farmingdale, Long Island. The Arizona Game and Fish Department has canceled its usual Christmas party in favor of aiding a young Japanese-American widow and her three small children. Her husband was a Game and Fish Department employee who was killed in an automobile accident. The Agriculture Department’s Foreign Agricultural Service will send about 200 toys to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, for distribution among Hungarian refugee children. And a Louisville, Kentucky, Radio Station (WKYW) has adopted a needy family for Christmas day instead of its usual Christmas party. Those are some of the ways with which people are endeavoring this year to remember the birth of the Christ Child almost 2,000 years ago.

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Last Sunday I mentioned briefly the 41,000-mile road building program undertaken – to the tune of about $90 billion – by the federal government, and that no provision had been written into the bill regulating billboards along such roads, thus leaving the way wide open for unsightly eyesores along the way and at the same time tending to accident hazards. Some of you listeners failed to see much of religious significance in that item. While I have no desire to argue the point, for one sees religion according to his own conception of what constitutes religion, I might emphasize that saving of lives, as well as saving of souls, is or should be the concern of all religions. Furthermore, two columnists whose writings are nationally syndicated have devoted as many articles to the matter this week, and Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee has also this week told a newspaperman that he will seek to learn what the states are doing to protect their portions of the proposed highway network. Gore, incidentally, favored writing billboard control into the original bill, but apparently the billboard lobby reached enough lawmakers to cause them to threaten the whole measure if any such provision were included.

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Did you know that during this past week, we also elected a president of the United States? Last month, you and I, the voters, went out and voted here in Tennessee, not for Eisenhower or Stevenson, but for a number of electors who were pledged to cast their vote for one candidate or the other. Since the first election, in 1788, these electors have, with few exceptions, cast their votes according to the way they promised the voters they would do before the election. It has become part of our political – and moral – mores that such electors are ethically bound to support the nominee for whom they announce.

Down in Alabama this week, however, one elector strayed from the fold, and instead of casting his vote for Stevenson as he had promised, voted for one Judge Walter B. Jones. This was legal, all right, but there are a number of things that are legally correct but are morally wrong. This single act by a wayward Alabama elector signalizes no great menace to the Republic, but his behavior illustrates one way in which the will of the voters can be flouted by our antique electoral college system. It is past high time that we abolish this college outright and let you and me and the Joe Smiths throughout the country vote directly for president and vice president. That way there will be no opportunity for an elector to jump the track, break his promise, and thwart the will of the voters.

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As stressed on this program time and again, our freedoms are indivisible. Speech, religion, press, and others are all bound up in a bundle which, if broken weakens the whole structure. Apart of our democratic constitutional system is the rule of the majority, for when a minority can impose its will upon the majority, tyranny results. Moreover, in recent years, all of us have been more and more concerned with economic opportunities, and have relied upon government to protect, and in some cases provide, such opportunities.

One of the most vicious attempts to deny both political and economic opportunities is the so-called right-to-work movement, whereby it would be illegal to require a worker to join a union in order to retain employment in a union shop. Actually it is a union-busting movement masquerading under a more respectable title. How it works is this: Suppose 900 of our 1,000 employees in a given shop vote that a certain union is the one they with to represent them in their bargaining with their employees? A contract is drawn up and signed by both parties whereby the employer may hire anyone he wishes, but whomever he hires must decide within, say 30 days, whether he wishes to affiliate with the established union or to discontinue his employment and find work elsewhere. The so-called right-to-work laws would make such a contract illegal. In other words, such laws would say that one man is stronger than the 900 whose welfare is at stake. Obviously, if an employer wished to break up a workers’ organization, backed by such a law he could specialize in hiring persons who would refuse to be affiliated with the established union until pretty soon the union would be wrecked, and the welfare of the 900 threatened. It is doubtless true that there are unions in this country that have made mistakes. There are also employers who have made mistakes. Two mistakes do not make something right. Our high standard of living for the average worker, about which Fourth of July and Labor Day orators prate much, is due in large part to the collective bargaining carried on in good faith by the employer and employees. Anything that strikes at the heart of family welfare should be of concern to everyone, and the courts have declared that right to organize and bargain collectively is one of our fundamental rights. Thinking citizens will not be misled by movements that are subversive of this right, regardless of whatever high-sounding title they are presented under. A country’s wealth consists not in its gold at Fort Knox but in how well its families are housed, clothed, and fed – and these are the things of concern to religious-minded people, as they were of the Master. They will be less well housed, clothed, and fed, if their economic rights are undermined and denied.

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In this season of wishing peace on earth, a statement this week by the secretary general of NATO, Paul-Henri Spaak of Belgium is disturbing, though it is entirely realistic. He expresses the conviction that the United Nations is a dangerous and ineffective instrument in its present form and goes on to assert that unless it is changed it will not long endure. This statement is all the more meaningful when we recall that Spaak is a former president of the U.N. General Assembly, has been three times prime minister of his own country, and four times its foreign minister. And, the statement is all the more disturbing when we place alongside it the stated conviction of our own government officials who assert their complete confidence in the U.N. and say that it is only beginning to show its virtue.

Well, our memory does not have to be very long to recall that it acted decisively when Britain and France invaded Egypt, but that it wrangled and passed a half-hearted resolution of condemnation against Russia at her recent – and continuing rape of Hungary.

Many of us who are familiar with the pattern of performance of the League of Nations throughout its short life fail to see much reassurance about its successor, the U.N., unless something is done drastically to change its structure and authority. Spaak would have modification of the charter to abolish the veto, revise the procedure of voting to make it more responsible, have the charter decree that violators of international law are excluded from the organization, and set up a real international army.

This reporter recommended these and several additional changes more than once on this program. After all, the problem is simple: We either set up an international organization with delegated powers to make and enforce law designed to keep the peace among the nations, or we let the nations do as Russia is now doing – murder innocent people in a neighboring country while the U.N. twiddles its thumbs and wrings its hands wondering what to do. At the risk of being called cynical, I emphasize that this is decidedly not the way to bring peace on earth or good will to men.

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An excerpt for Dr. Harold Scott, pastor of the First Unitarian Church in Salt Lake City, seems worth including as a closing item on today’s broadcast. It goes like this.

I’m not mad at anybody but I am sick at my stomach. Among the things that make me that way are:

 

1. The well-meaning mother who works, instead of living on her husband’s income and taking care of the children, so that the children can have the alleged advantage of a subdivision home, a car that isn’t paid for, and $100 worth of Christmas presents apiece. She says, “It’s worth going into debt just to see their little faces light up, and anyway it would be terrible if all their friends got lots for Christmas and they were left with only six or eight things.”

2. The childless couple who own two large dogs and engage in esoteric hobbies like jewel-cutting, but cannot afford to put a lawn in front of the two-year-old house that won’t be theirs until they are sixty.

3. Automobile commercials that run, “You never looked so good as when you’re in one of our 1957 Junkmobiles. Watch the neighbors stare when you drive past. Bigger than ever – 300 horsepower just straining for action at your command.”

4. Mass media that inculcate idolatry of the unreal and morbid in our children. In other countries kids are taught to venerate intellectuals and patriots who lived on this planet.

5. Pleasant, sincere, well-educated people who are so afraid of life and of themselves that they cannot bear to be alone for a minute.

Well, these are some of the things about which the good doctor feels less than in the top of condition in the general region of his abdomen. Most of us older ones can remember when the neighbors didn’t look down on people who paid their debts, or stayed out of debt, who minded their own business, and who went to church because they loved the experience, and who looked upon Christmas as a holy day rather than merely a holiday.

This week saw Lutheranism in North America get a boost toward union. Commissioners representing four Lutheran church groups voted at Chicago to proceed with plans for merger. That followed agreement that no serious doctrinal disagreement separates them. The union would make a new church of almost 3 million members, including the United Lutheran Church in America, the Augustana Lutherans, the Finnish Evangelical Lutherans, and the American Evangelical Lutherans. A steering committee is to make a pattern of organization. Commissioners of the four groups will meet in Chicago next March to begin drafting a constitution. All told, there are about 7 million persons belonging to 18 Lutheran bodies in North America, which includes congregations in Mexico and Canada. The Lutheran Church Evangelical Synodical Conference claims the most members, about 2.5 million.

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Albany New York: Protestant and Jewish clergymen are doing four-hour shifts as hospital orderlies and hearing lectures on psychiatry and medicine. Their work and studies are part of a 30-week extension course offered by Andover Theological Seminary, Newton Center, Massachusetts, and sponsored by the Federation of Churches in Christ in Albany and vicinity.

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In Egypt this week, the Rev. Russell Stevenson has made a survey of refugee needs for some U.S. churches. His sponsoring agency, the National Council of the Churches of Christ, has said reports indicate some 60,000 refugees need aid because of the Egyptian hostilities.

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In Jerusalem, the foreign consular members have cancelled their traditional Christmas procession to Bethlehem. One of the diplomats says the abandonment is to protest Jordan’s refusal to allow the procession to use the southern road. This is the route over the old Roman road said to have been used by Mary and Joseph in their journey to Bethlehem. However, the usual Christian pilgrimage by another road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem will be permitted by Jordan.

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The head of the Roman Catholic Church has pleaded for a little more quiet in modern life. Pope Pius has told Italy’s Anti-noise Congress that mechanization is responsible for most of today’s noise. He has named streetcars, trains, subways, and heavy trucks as offenders that disturb what the pontiff describes as “the serene joy that should reign at family hearths.”

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Reaffirmation of their faith in dogma of Our Lady of Guadalupe has been made by some 35,000 Catholic pilgrims from 140 parishes around San Antonio, Texas. The candlelight procession and high pontifical Mass celebrated the appearance of the “patroness of the Americas” to a simple Indian in 1531.

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Washington: American churches have begun to wage a religious crusade against death on their highways. Clergymen are telling their members that reckless driving is not merely dangerous; it is a sin. Churches of all denominations are joining in the campaign to bring Christian conscience to bear on traffic safety problems. Pope Pius and many Protestant leaders have endorsed it. The widely circulated Protestant magazine, Christian Herald, has an editorial in its current issue entitled “Are You a Christian at the Wheel?”

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Indianapolis, Indiana: The managing editor of The Christian Century magazine has urged the nation’s churches to go ahead with interdenominational projects even though they disagree on theology. Dr. Theodore A. Gill told a divisional meeting of the National Council of Churches that Christians need theological clarification, not looking for a super church, but a superior national church.

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Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. Spencer was elected at a meeting of the group to succeed Herschel Pettus, of the Louisiana Baptist Foundation.

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Pasadena, California: The Methodist Council of Bishops has set a $1 million goal in a resolution appealing for donations to aid Hungarian refugees. The resolution authorized collection of funds through January 6 in the 40,000 Methodist churches throughout the country.

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Indianapolis, Indiana: The head of the National Council of Churches says an all-powerful totalitarian church is as great a menace to the worship of God as an all-powerful totalitarian state. Dr. Eugene Carson Blake says the church in America is in a far happier situation than is the church in most other nations. He urged all religious groups to reexamine the tax-free status of the church in America as a possible threat to freedom.

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Almost every day enough items having moral, ethical or religious significance crop up in the news that fifteen minutes well could be devoted to them. Hence, trying to prepare a broadcast weekly on such items necessitates simply trying to decide, and with very little time at that, which of the many are more significant. The following seem worthy of inclusion under the latter category and comment upon insofar as time will allow:

Yesterday, December 15, marked the 165^th anniversary of the adoption of the first 10 amendments known as “The Bill of Rights,” to the federal Constitution. In these days when in so many areas of the world, there is no value of human dignity, we Americans should give special attention to this all-important document. Here in Tennessee we have seen during recent weeks denial of constitutional rights to American citizens and resort to the potentially strong arm of the federal government to secure those rights which are plainly embodied in the Constitution and spelled out by court interpretation.

Furthermore, the U.N. Committee on Human Rights worked out some years ago a Universal Declaration of Human Rights and presented it to the member nations. Our nation, once the only nation standing out clearly on the world horizon as the staunch declarer and defender of human freedoms, has refused to endorse this declaration. Why? Because individuals in both parties, whom we have a right to expect to assume the stature of statesmanship, have, instead, chosen the path of political expediency. One of the unnecessary ways to be defeated and to defeat ourselves is to assume at the outset that nothing is possible or can be done about a situation, then proceed to do nothing about it. So far, neither Truman nor Eisenhower has presented this document to the Senate with full administration backing!

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Another subject about which considerable has appeared in recent weeks and months, and more this week than usual, is the matter of billboards on our highways. The federal government has authorized spending over $40 billion of your and my money during the next few years in the construction of a network of highways throughout this country. So far, only a feeble attempt has been made to get written into law protection of the public against commercial blights strung promiscuously along the highways where we shall drive. Ours is beautiful country, and could and should be made more so. But shall we sacrifice that God-given natural beauty to the unsightly commercial appeals that urge us as we drive along to use this soap, that gasoline, another brand of beer, to try this gadget. Or that some medical panacea for all human ills will cure everything from an in-grown toenail to a bald head? Aside from the purely aesthetic aspects of this problem is another one: safety. Here in Tennessee, the governor’s Emergency Traffic Safety Committee has become very much concerned over the distraction of motorists’ attention to billboard appeals when that attention should be concentrated on driving. Nobody rejects the right of advertising as a part of the right of free expression, but nobody has a right to yell “Fire!” in a crowded building merely for the purpose of seeing the people surge to the exits, and perhaps get killed in the process.

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Again in Tennessee, two matters of more that usual importance are shaping up for a legislative battle in the forthcoming legislature. One is the matter of reapportionment. (I am aware that some of you listeners will fail to see any religious significance in this, but there is some anyway.) Ours is a representative government; one in which the voice of each and every voter is as nearly equal to that of each and every other voter as possible. As long as this is true, each person can make his influence felt as much as anyone else in selecting public officials, influencing their actions, and securing the kind of government that he thinks will promote the general welfare. But, when legislatures fail to live up to their constitutional obligations, when certain portions of the state are denied their rightful representation in the halls of government, that government, to that extent, is longer fair, honest, or moral.

The Tennessee Constitution requires that the state be divided into legislative districts after each federal census, such districts to be as fairly designated as possible in order to give all voters an equal voice in influencing their government. The last time the Tennessee legislature did this was in 1901, 55 years ago. Since then the social and economic picture has changed. Cities have arisen, population shifted. Today, East Tennessee is under-represented and other regions of the state have more voice than they should. Rural areas are grossly over-represented, while the voice of urban areas is small indeed. In addition, Democrats have so gerrymandered the districts of the state that Republican representation is far out of line with what it rightfully should be.

Civic-minded, public-spirited groups have sought justice for the people through appeal to the courts. The U.S. Supreme Court recently refused to consider the matter, holding that this was a problem for the people of the state to handle. But are we going to do it? The strategy of the recently elected legislators and the administration at Nashville is to consign reapportionment proposals to a study committee for report two years from now. We do not need any more study or reports. The only right, moral, ethical, legal thing to do is to reapportion the state immediately and without regard to vested interests, political affiliations, or anything else but the right of each citizen to have an equal voice in the government – no more, no less. Suppose you write your senator and representative and tell them how you feel about this? Religious people have a greater obligation to do this than anyone else.

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Well I promised to treat another state question, but I see time is running out, and there is another topic I wish to deal with briefly. I shall save the other topic until next week.

This is the season of the year when our thoughts turn toward an event of 2,000 years ago that was small, insignificant, within itself. Few people were aware it was happening. It took place in a town of which few people in the then-known world knew or cared. It was a simple event: a little baby was born, but that birth was heralded by angels themselves declaring that this day is born a king, who is to be the savior of all mankind. Wise men brought gifts to him, and lowly shepherds fell down and worshiped him. His was a life of service; he was man without a home, with only a single garment, which his executors cast lots for. He was buried in a borrowed tomb. But not all the strong men of history have had the influence upon human history that his life has had.

In observance of this life of service to the betterment of mankind, we set aside December 25. How do we observe it? To the wondering, but not cynical observer, it would appear that we have let our observance degenerate into an occasion on which we exchange merchandise. This week a student of mine said that when she became president she was going to declare Christmas giving silly, for it kept her wondering who was going to give her what, in order that she might know what to give who (English teachers make the most of that ungrammatical use). And she was understandably concerned over whether her gift to her friends would be of equal value as those she received. I know this student pretty well. She is not mercenary minded, but she feels that in order to maintain her status with her friends, she must give material things of approximately equal value to those she receives. Is this the spirit of Christmas? Are we not paying more attention to the things that are Caesar’s than to the things that are God’s?

First, a potpourri of religion in the news of the week as reported by Associated and United Press.

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New York: Protestant and Eastern Orthodox churches in the U.S. have begun a drive to raise $2 million in aid to refugees from Hungary and Eastern Europe. Dr. R. Norris Wilson, executive director of World Church Service says the funds will be used to continue relief programs and help in the resettlement and rehabilitation of escapes from iron curtain countries.

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Atlantic City, New Jersey: A record 89 congregations have been established in the United Lutheran Church in the past year and another 68 congregations probably will be organized next year. Dr. Ronald Houser, of Chicago, secretary of the Division of English Missions, made the report at the 30^th annual meeting of the church’s Board of Missions.

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Chicago: The Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference is considering a proposal to extend membership to a number of foreign churches. The proposal was made by Dr. Walter Baepler, President of the Concordia Theological Seminary at Springfield, Illinois, at the 44^th convention of the Lutheran conference.

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Again Chicago: Membership in the Methodist church now is just under 9.5 million – a gain of 1.4% in the past year. The Methodist statistical office says that in addition, there are more than one 1.25 million preparatory members of the church.

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Des Moines, Iowa: A Baptist minister charges that Elvis Presley is leading American youth into an “anything goes” era. Reverend Carl E. Elegena, pastor of the Grand View Park Baptist Church in Des Moines says, “We’re living in a day of jellyfish morality, India rubber convictions, and a day when spiritually is as wide as the Sahara Desert and twice as dry.” Anybody want to argue with the man?

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Minneapolis: Parishioners of a Negro Methodist church in Minneapolis have been invited to become members of a white Methodist church. The Negro church is about to be razed to make way for a redevelopment project. Methodist Bishop D. Stanley Coors and Dr. C.A. Pennington, minister of the Hennepin Avenue church, extended the invitation. Said Bishop Coors, “This is a proposal of Christian love and fellowship. I believe this date will be remembered as one of the significant days in the history of Minnesota Methodism.”

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Binghamton, New York: Reverend Dr. Arthur McKay, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, has accepted the post of president of McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. He will begin his new duties on February 1st next year.

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Vatican City: The traditional Christmas broadcast by the Pope this year will contain what Vatican sources call a message of extraordinary importance. They predict the Pontiff will appeal again to responsible statesmen to avert a third world war. The Pontiff may also use the occasion to fill 100 vacancies in the Sacred College of Cardinals.

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Milan, Italy: Italy’s largest circulation magazine, Oggi, says two Americans are among prelates being considered by Pope Pius for elevation to the rank of cardinal. The two Americans being considered, according to the magazine, are Monsignor Fulton Sheen, auxiliary bishop of New York, and Monsignor John Joseph Mitty, archbishop of San Francisco. Vatican sources say they can neither confirm nor deny the report.

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And from Washington, D.C. comes news that the Pope has transferred one American bishop and named two auxiliary bishops. Bishop Lambert A. Hoch, of Bismarck, North Dakota, has been transferred to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Monsignor Joseph Brunini, vicar general of Natchez, Mississippi, has been named auxiliary bishop of Natchez, and Monsignor Harry A. Clinch, pastor of St. Mary’s Church in Taft, California, has been named auxiliary bishop of Monterey-Fresno, California.

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The just-completed agreement between the Catholic Church and Poland includes restoration of religious education to the state schools. The sweeping settlement follows four weeks of negotiation by a joint church-state group. That commission had been formed after Poland’s prelate, Stefan Wyszynski was released from house arrest. And that release followed Poland’s successful (we hope) revolt against heavy Russian domination. Another point in the agreement is that the Church recognizes the Polish state has a theoretical voice in church appointments. But it is understood that the state has agreed never to veto appointments. It will be interesting to see if this last point is respected by the state in the months and years to come.

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An American Jewish writer says personal investigation has shown no evidence of Hitlerian anti-Semitism in Egypt’s treatment of stateless Jews. Alfred Lilienthal has told a news conference in Cairo that he did learn of injustices in the course of far-reaching security measures by Egypt. But he adds many corrections have been and are being made. The U.S. writer, who has often taken an anti-Zionist line, says he went to Cairo to inquire into widely publicized charges by Israeli officials that Egypt was persecuting Jews.

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In Manchester, New Hampshire, a Congregationalist minister will give parishioners an opportunity to talk back during the sermon. The Reverend Mark Strickland has decided the congregation need not sit and take what he has to say. So today, Dr. Falko Schilling will rise from the congregation to present his views on today’s sermon, which is entitled, “The Doctor and Christian Faith.”

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A study by the Milwaukee Field Office of the U.S. Census Bureau indicates little opposition will be forthcoming to a religious preference question in the 1960 census. Bureau officials say only three persons of 431 interviewed in four Wisconsin counties flatly refused to answer the question. The Census Bureau had earlier stated that results of the Wisconsin survey might determine if the religious question should be asked of the whole nation. This is a touchy subject, and always, if it is used, there should be perfect freedom for the interviewee to refuse to answer if he wishes to do so.

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One hears a great deal these days about “the power of positive thinking,” and we are subject to a barrage of propaganda of various sorts, mostly aimed at emphasis on the importance to “accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative” from our everyday experiences. However, did you ever stop to think that it is the pessimist who is made happy because life presents him with unexpected dividends but that the optimist is destined to meet frustration and disappointment? I know my colleagues in the psychology department will frown upon this, but I said it. The salvation of mankind can most readily be advanced if we recognize that this is a world of darkness now that must be made light. Realism for the present – hope for the future. Probably we need what the Jews and early Christians had: a great and intrepid dream against a background of dark reality. Early Christians referred to Jesus as light moving in darkness. We no longer mean it when we sing “Watchman, Tell Us of the Night.” We pretend there is no night. We pull the watchmen down. Such makes us uncomfortable and we insist on being comfortable. We can’t want to know what the signs and promises are if the signs are ill, so, when disaster comes we are like bewildered children singing “Safe in the Arms of Jesus” while the roof blows off. Suppose we stop kidding ourselves. Infirmity, insecurity, and death lurk in our neighborhood and sometimes do not forget to knock at our door. He who does not see the darkness cannot read the stars. Those who do not recognize the darkness cannot know the glory of light. First, admit the darkness then join those who are striving for light. Perhaps the statement of the inimitable Mr. Dooley is apropos here, when he said that my duty is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

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Have you ever tried to define religion? If not, sit down sometime and try to put into articulate form just what it is as far as you are concerned. Certainly it should not be too difficult to put something as all-embracing as religion is into some form of definite expression. Yet, it will probably be harder than you think if you have never tried it. Perhaps there is no all-inclusive definition of religion, but here are a few considerations to keep in mind, for what they may be worth in your opinion. For one thing, religion is man’s response to the totality of his environment. It is surrender to the best he knows. It is the art of living, the science of life. It is the discovery of values, the promotion of values, the protection of values, and the exploitation of values. It is the shared quest for the good life for ourselves and our children’s children. It is building a good society. It is a sense of direction. It is conscious loyalty to the best we know or about which we can dream. It is also, of course, a lot of other things. Let me have your definition of it, and if possible, I shall read it on a future broadcast.

I am well aware that to put one’s religion into words for another is impossible. One can talk about the psychology of religious experience, or about the historical, textual, or other aspects of the Bible. One can examine the salvation schemes of the past and present. He can inspect for validity of theological terms, concepts, and creeds. But he cannot tell another what his religion is any more than he can tell you what electricity is. Human communication has not yet well enough developed among human beings that our gossamer intimate yearnings, that complex we call our religion, can be passed on.

Sometimes, it seems to me, that we need to keep in mind the difference between our religion and its intellectual framework or rationalization. In other words, our theology. Theology is important. An integrated philosophy of life is important as a yardstick for daily use in meeting problems. Without it a person is at the mercy of the latest breeze that blows. A person’s theology is his explanation of the universe; his religion is what he is, and what he does. The explanation may not fit the behavior. Some pious people have behavior that leaves much to be desired, while some intellectually capable persons find social relations difficult to master.

In some respects, religion is like music; but it is more comprehensive. I little understand music, but it stirs my imagination and my emotions. Of course, music, as sound, is susceptible of some analysis. But the parts do not add up to the whole. There are no words to describe one’s personal religion or music as a subjective experience. You experience it, but you don’t construct it. Religion is a matter of sensitivity to values and appreciations that cannot be weighed, measured, and reduced to atomic analysis. A cathedral is constructed of bricks, mortar, stone, glass and wood. But a pile of these materials does not make a cathedral. The story is told that the night Philips Brooks matriculated in theological seminary there was a student meeting. One student after another got up and told how he loved the Master, how dedicated he was to saving the souls of the heathen, and what a wonderful thing it was to be saved through such soul-shaking experience. Brooks was discouraged. He had had no soul-shaking experience such as those about which he was hearing. The next morning at the eight o’clock class, Philips Brooks was the only student who had translated the assigned number of lines, despite his lack of theological coherency.

Religion implies concern, devotion, surrender, consecration, commitment. One of the things that this reporter cannot help but wonder about in religion is the often seen waste of human devotion to that which is worthless, and an inability or unwillingness to critically ascertain that which is worth devotion.

Doubtless all of us have been stirred with many emotions these last few weeks at what is going on in Hungary. The murder not only of those staunch fighters for freedom but also of innocent bystanders, men, women, and children, has horrified the free world, and has aroused people everywhere to wish to do something both to stop the senseless killings and to aid those trying to escape from the Russian-imposed terror. Americans of all shades of political complexion, with the probable exception of the communists, applauded when the president asked that 5,000 refugees be admitted to this country. Even Rep. Francis Walter, co-author of the much-criticized McCarran-Walter Act, has urged that not only 5,000, but 17,000, be admitted. Obviously, Mr. Walter’s education in principles of humanity had improved greatly as a result of his visit to Austria and Hungary.

Doubtless all these suggested actions reflect the heart and soul of the American people. However, our attempts to carry these actions out have developed into something of a mess. Hundreds of public and private agencies are trying to handle bits of the big and growing job. Nobody is in charge to coordinate the efforts of these agencies and make them bear fruit. Not only that, but government bureaus as well as those of private agencies are getting into each other’s way and hair by not having centralized coordinators. An eyewitness, for example, observed the first 60 refugees land here the day before Thanksgiving. About five times as many officials were on hand to greet them as there were Hungarians to greet. The Army representatives would not even let representatives of the White House and the State Department greet the arrivals. And at one point, armed military police barred the heads of sponsoring agencies from speaking to the refugees. The processing of these unfortunates was to take only a short time, but it lasted far into the night. And a week later, some of these first 60 refugees didn’t know where they’d go for homes and jobs.

Overseas aid is about as badly snarled. The Red Cross is supposed to be collecting money to aid the refugees now in Austria, but it is not putting on a campaign because it does not want Hungarian relief to interfere with the numerous community campaigns it is making in this country this fall. At least 50 other groups, some local and some national, are collecting money on their own, and it is possible that professional fund collectors are utilizing this merry-go-round to secure funds that will never aid anyone but the collectors. Furthermore, there is no central place where money for clothing or supplies can be sent. And generous Americans have gotten nowhere trying to make special efforts on their own. In San Francisco, for example a concerted drive gathered more than 100 persons who were willing to act as sponsors for Hungarian families, but for more than a week they could not get the necessary forms to send in their applications. Pittsburgh bakers wish to send their own unit to Austria to bake bread for the refugees, but they have been sent from one government agency to another, for it appears that none of these agencies knows to whom they should go to put their idea into practice.

The height of the ridiculous was reached when supplies donated by our own International Cooperation Administration, and bearing labels indicated that they came from the U.S. were barred from admission until the International Red Cross erased the labels and replaced them with some of their own.

What can be done about this unfortunate situation? Well, it is, in effect, an international matter, and only the White House itself can act forthrightly and effectively to straighten out the snarl. The president could appoint a national director to straighten out both the government bureaus and to integrate and coordinate the efforts of private agencies and individuals. Here is an opportunity to put the amazing potentialities of American human desires to effective work to relieve human suffering. Hungarians are hungry, and we are not feeding them; they are in prison, and we are not visiting them; they are sick, and we are not ministering unto them. Not because we cannot, but because we let the very machinery of government that should expedite aid bog down in petty jealousy and indecision. Until we get that machinery functioning smoothly to get offered aid to the needy, we are shooting below par, whichever course we take.

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Last week I reported to you on the preoccupation of the last Congress with a matter of adopting a general resolution approving the Ten Commandments as a part of our basic faith. A similar instance has come to my attention this week in the reported decision of the president of George Washington University not to consider for employment on the university faculty any person who does not believe in God.

At first blush this might seem to be a commendable policy. However, the thinking person is immediately faced with such questions as: how can you be certain when a person believes in God? In what kind of God do you expect him to believe? And, as a practical matter, if you were an atheist, and your employment hinged upon your asserted belief in a deity, would you hesitate to make such a declaration?

Aside from the purely theological abstraction involved here, are the considerations to be given to the academic side of the matter: freedom to learn, to hear, to read, to know, is basic in a democracy. A great university would certainly be under no obligation to employ an atheist any more than it would be to employ a Protestant, a Catholic, a Democrat, or a witch doctor. The basic question is: Should one be barred from such employment because he happens to fall within one of more of these categories? A thorough knowledge of the atheist viewpoint could do just as much to make a confirmed believer in religion out of a student as it could to make him an atheist. Any other premise assumes that the learner is not capable of thinking for himself, and if this is true, the whole premise upon which democracy is founded tumbles. It is hoped that President Marvin will reconsider his policy decision in the light of calmness and objectivity.

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A rather curious bit of anti-Semitism came to my attention this week in the form of some comments made by a well-known woman reporter whose column is syndicated widely in American newspapers. Entitling her column, “America Can Now Free Herself of Dictation,” the reporter discusses briefly the situation in the Middle East, construes the election results as a verdict on our foreign policy, and   proceeds to insist that until recently our foreign policy has been influenced unduly by our sympathy with the state of Israel and by our (to her) disproportionate regard for our diplomatic ties with France and Britain.

In her comments upon the influence of American Jews on our foreign policy she says, “There is not the slightest hope of salvaging American influence in the Arab world until, or unless, the United States shakes off the stranglehold that Israel, via the powerful Zionist organization of America, has exercised over our policies…. In all American history there is no comparable example of a national minority…. America cannot have any policy in the Middle East if her actions are dictated by the interests of one single Middle Eastern state, a newcomer at that, and one established against the vehement protests of the whole Moslem world…. The Eisenhower administration has tried to break that dictation, regardless of the domestic political consequences…. The election landslide … evaporated the myth of “the Jewish vote” – as interpreted by the Zionists.”

The reporter thus faces the reader with a dilemma: She cannot prove that her assertion is true; neither can the thinking reader prove that it is in error. All of us are aware that there are Jews in this country; all of us are aware that there is a Zionist movement. But it is difficult to believe that there is such a thing as a “Jewish vote.” Most analyses of Jewish voters concludes that the Jews, like any other ethnic group, vote pretty much according to their socioeconomic status rather than along strictly cultural or religious lines. The reporter in question, though, has inserted a neat bit of suggested propaganda that will probably be grist for the mills of those who wish to promote religious intolerance in America.

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Washington: Church leaders, both Protestant and Catholic, are becoming more concerned about the increasing numbers of interfaith marriages. Marriages between Catholics and Protestants once were rare in the United States, but are now becoming commonplace. The official Catholic Directory reports that more than one-fourth of all marriages performed last year by Catholic priests involved a non-Catholic partner. Many thousands of other interfaith marriages were performed by Protestant ministers or civil authorities. Clergymen say that not only do many such mixed marriages end up in divorce, but also that there is a strong tendency for one or both partners to drift away from religion altogether. And that tendency, they add, also extends to the children.

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The world’s Jews are celebrating now the world’s first great war for religious freedom. That war started some centuries ago, when a small, motley group of troops took on the armies of King Antiochus IV of Syria, with guerilla warfare. The Maccabeans finally shattered the vastly superior forces that were used to try to make the Jews become pagans. Dr. Maurice Eisendrath, the president of the American Hebrew Congregations, says Judaism – and also Christianity – would not be except for those efforts in 168-165 B.C. Legend says when the Syrians were defeated the temple lamps burned for six days on a normal one-day supply of oil. Thus began “Hanukah,” with the candles glowing in Jewish homes and synagogues in what is sometimes called the Festival of Lights. This past Wednesday the first “Hanukah” candles were lit at sunset. On each evening then, until the final day, this coming Thursday, one more candle is lit. At the end, eight candles burn in the “menorah,” a special candelabra. While the Hanukah gives glory to God for the preservation of the faith against tyranny, it also recalls the fighting Jew. Such a figure is often overlooked in the long record of Jewish oppression and disaster. But Rabbi Samuel Silver of New York City has noted that when the Jew has the least means and the cause is important, he fights as do the best. Thus in memory of the first big war for religious freedom, candles are lit, songs are sung, pageants staged, and gifts exchanged.

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A Vatican City publication says the apostolic exarch in Sofia, Bulgaria, has been arrested. The paper, L’ Osservatore Romano, adds the arrest of Monsignor Cirillo Kurteff means all Catholic bishops in Bulgaria have disappeared under the persecution. An apostolic exarch is a Roman Catholic bishop appointed as head of a diocese of the Eastern Catholic Church.

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A Presbyterian conference on promotion of world missions has heard plans for increased interchange of information about foreign mission activities of the three U.S. Presbyterian denominations. Dr. Edward Grige, of Philadelphia, has told the area mission meetings at Louisville, Kentucky, “We must alert the home church to what is going on abroad.” Not only will information be exchanged by the United Presbyterians, the Presbyterians U.S.A., and the Presbyterians U.S.; so will missionaries.

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Rome: Withdrawal of government subsidies may force Catholic Bantu schools in South Africa to curtail their activity. The missionary news agency, Fides, says the 800 schools were seriously affected by the Bantu Education Act, which forces them to accept the government’s so-called apartheid (or segregation) policy, or lose their government subsidy. The schools teach 121,000 students.

One of phenomena emerging from the resurgence of religionism in this country is the frequency with which religious topics engage the attention of legislators, either with a view of making legislative pronouncement on these topics, or of enacting statutes on the subjects. An example is the insertion of a religious phrase in the pledge of allegiance to the flag to the extent that “this nation under God.”

In the last Congress, for instance, Concurrent Resolution 88 was introduced by Republican Styles Bridges and Democrat Earle Clements, two days before Congress adjourned. It went almost unnoticed in the press, but it threw the Congress into something of a parliamentary tizzy. It was a simple and brief document, proclaiming that “The Ten Commandments, as a primary moral force, behind the three great religions of today, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, should be reaffirmed as the ethical code governing the lives of men and are the means of bringing about lasting world peace and a solution to the many problems of mankind.”

Apparently religious-minded friends had urged upon the two senators the introduction of such a resolution, and, as Bridges explained, was designed to stimulate spiritual thinking.

The trouble was that the First Amendment plainly states in its first clause that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion…” This clause was not intended to discourage religion but to assure that there would be equal freedom for all. It has been held by the courts to be the basis for keeping separate church and state, and Congress is an arm of the latter, and while Congress has authority to consider just about every known topic, this does not include religion.

The last portion of the resolution, however, read, “Resolved … that we hereby proclaim our faith in the word of God and thereby perpetuate renewed observance throughout the world, by nations and by individuals, of the Ten Commandments.” In view of the fact that it included the word “world” and “nations,” the parliamentarian of the Senate ruled that it could be assigned to the Foreign Relations Committee. But he soon had a call back from a startled clerk asking, “Since when did we have jurisdiction over the Ten Commandments?” And there the resolution died. It will probably come up again in the new Congress, and will again go to the Foreign Relations Committee. Unless constitutional lawyers advise the committee of objections to it, there is likelihood it will be approved and sent to the House for concurrence, and if approved, Congress will have declared formally its faith in God and the Ten Commandments.

Now all of this looks harmless, to some, even desirable. However, there are some serious and sober reflections that arise upon analysis of the situation. The First Amendment plainly means what it says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” and the Ten Commandments are the basis of at least the Judaic and Christian religions. This would seem to rule out such action by Congress as contemplated by Resolution 88. Moreover, aside from the legal question, there is one of policy. If Congress can legally formally pass such a resolution affirming the Commandments today, may it not go further and endorse the Methodist discipline or the Presbyterian catechism tomorrow? And from there it is but a short step to an established religion. Then there is the question of good common sense. The Ten Commandments need no endorsement from a relatively puny body such as even our great Congress is. A religion that needs legislative bolstering is weak indeed, and if it requires mortal enactments in a legislative mill to give it vigor and substance, such enactments are futile and the Commandments are on their way to becoming of no effect.

Obviously, in the light of our constitutional system that has stood the test of the years, or our tradition of no meddling in religion by Congress, and in view of the meaningless effect of such a resolution, it would be well for the Senate to observe individually and collectively the words of the Master when he said “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.”

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Some time ago President Eisenhower created, by executive order, the Committee on Government Contracts, charging it with improving and making more effective the non-discrimination provisions of government contracts. Among those provisions is one prohibiting employment on the grounds of religion. Now it develops that the administration is engaging in religious screening of personnel serving in Saudi Arabia, and thereby barring Jews from American installations in Arabia. Obviously, this discrimination against Jews is in direct conflict with the directive given the Committee on Government Contracts. Perhaps this is a case where the administration should ignore the biblical injunction and at least let its right hand know what its left hand is doing.

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The moving picture “Storm Center” stars Bette Davis as a librarian who refuses to remove a book called The Communist Dream from her public library when the city council tells her to. When it opened in New York some time ago, the National Legion of Decency, a Catholic organization, condemned it, and defended its action by saying it was done “as a protection to the uninformed against wrong interpretations and false conclusions.” As for the film itself, it has received mixed reviews. Some critics have found it lacking in sophistication and dramatic effect, while others have hailed it as a strong argument for the freedom to read. But all this is beside the point. Here is an influential organization, no doubt sincere in its dedication to principles of decency as its members see those principles, but setting itself up as a self-appointed censor of what pictures people may see. As for its statement that it took such action only as protection against the uninformed against wrong interpretations and false conclusions, well, the legion itself is saying in effect that “only my interpretations and conclusions are correct” and we will permit you to consider only them. And as to being uninformed, how is one to get information if he is denied access to it, and this includes access to pro-communist as well as anti-communist materials. To assume otherwise is to assume that common, ordinary people like ourselves do not have sense enough to see, hear, read, and determine for ourselves the truth or falsity of a statement, whether it be in a film, a book, or from the words of someone with whom we converse. Censorship in any form is anathema to democracy, and this is just as true when it comes from a quasi-religious group as when it comes from anyone else.

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A recent letter to the president of the United States reflects not only something of the dire conditions prevailing in Hungary at this time, but also something of what the United Sates means, or could mean, to oppressed peoples. It is from Cardinal Josef Mindszenty and reads as follows:

“As a shipwreck of Hungarian liberty, I have been taken abroad by your generosity in a refuge in my own country as a guest of your legation. Your hospitality surely saved me from immediate death.

With deep gratitude, I am sending my heartfelt congratulations to your excellency on the occasion of your reelection to the presidency of the United States, an exalted office whose glory is that it serves the highest ambitions of mankind: God, charity, wisdom, and human happiness…. May the Lord grant you and your nation greater strength and richer life…. I beg of you do not forget this small honest nation who is enduring torture and death in the service of humanity.”

We can read this letter with only the deepest humility as we realize how far the world structure of things at present permits the powers that be to stop the butchery of the Hungarian murders. And it makes this reporter at least wonder again when or if the peoples of the world are going to demand through their united voices that the outworn, outmoded, helpless system of balance of power is going to be tolerated. President Eisenhower not long ago affirmed his belief in law governing nations as well as individuals. Until such law is a reality, enacted by a world law-making power, we shall go on having our Hungarys, our Suez Canal debacles, and we shall continue to have the flights of Cardinal Mindszentys. It is about time that soul-searching effective reorganization is substituted for the present nationalistic chaos.

The Tennessee Baptist Convention ended this week with delegates unexpectedly dodging the race relations issue in approving a committee report which did not even mention the subject, though the chairman of the Social Service Committee had indicated that it would be contained in his report. As originally drafted and published in printed form, the report included a section stating that “We should accept the Supreme Court decision as the law of the land.” However, in its final form the report merely observes that “Obviously we cannot discuss all the fields of human relations,” and adds that because of “time and space limitations, we shall deal with only two things – race relations and beverage alcohol. We choose race relations because of the recent events in Anderson County; the alcohol problem is discussed because of the continuing magnitude of the problem.”

However, no specific stand regarding the crucial issue of denominational stand for or against enforcement, or attempted enforcement, of the Supreme Court decision was left out.

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Everybody, religious or otherwise, cannot but be concerned about the complicated and frightening mess into which international affairs have been plunged by the events in Egypt since June and in the Middle East within the past few weeks. Churches around the world have expressed their concern. Pope Pius has condemned the “illegal and brutal repression” and declared that Christians have “a moral obligation to try all permissible means in order that the dignity and freedom of the Hungarian people be restored.” The World Council of Churches said in Geneva that “Christians must stand together with all who, in the struggle for freedom, suffer pain and trial.” The National Council of Churches in the U.S. cabled the Russian Orthodox Church asking it to work for “avoidance of further bloodshed and oppression.” Britain, where the church has often appeared subdued and on the decline, was aroused by Eden’s action and most of the Protestant clergy took their cue from the archbishop of Canterbury who emphasized that this action makes the British people “terribly uneasy and unhappy.” “Britain,” he says, “has stood alone in the world before because she upheld moral principles at great cost to herself. But she stands alone today because she has acted in direct violation of the moral and legal principal to which she pledged herself.” And he calls upon “Christian people (to) [stop the way.”]

And Protestant and Catholic Church groups and individuals have expressed deep concern over the international situation. The Protestant Episcopal House of Bishops terms itself “outraged by the ruthless slaughter and enslavement of the Hungarian people by the tyranny of Russia.” At their meeting at Pocono Manor, Pennsylvania, this week, the leaders of the American branch of the Anglican Communion also expressed misgivings about what it termed the unilateral action taken by contending powers in the Middle East. The statements are parts of a pastoral letter to be read in all Episcopalian parishes and U.S. missionary districts.

Meanwhile, the president of the National Council of Churches, the Rev. Dr. Carson Blake, has made a national appeal for emergency aid contributions. The gifts of money, food, and clothing will be used for the new thousands of homeless and hungry persons in Europe and the Middle East. Dr. Blake also called on the Russian Orthodox Church to present to the authorities of its nation its Christian concern that the Hungarians be allowed to determine their own national destiny.

So far as is known, Josef Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary is still in asylum in the U.S. legation in Budapest.

Chief Justice Earl Warren has told the National Conference of Christians and Jews that freedom can be endangered in America even in our day. To prevent this, he says, the nation must stay vigilant against intolerance and injustice.

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Jewish blind throughout the world now are using the world’s first Hebrew prayer book in braille. Preparation of the nine-volume set has been financed by the National Women’s League of the United Synagogue of America.

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Dr. Jacob Agus believes religion should cultivate a sense of reverence for the objective approach in life. The rabbi of the Congregation of Beth-el in Baltimore also thinks religions should cultivate a sense for thinking in terms of humanity, not in racial, national, or political terms. He also told the National Institute for Religious and Social Studies that to serve God as complete humans, we must be objective as well as subjective. The institute is a function of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City. Every year it is attended by about 200 Roman Catholic, Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish leaders. Very often the lectures and discussions produce fast jottings in notebooks of sermon ideas. The institute meetings are for a study of common grounds of religion as well as differences.

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New York: The Rev. Dr. Ralph W. Lowe, pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Buffalo, New York, has been elected president of the Board of Foreign Missions of the United Lutheran Church in America.

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Winston Salem, North Carolina: A resolution which would bar Negroes from attending Baptist schools and colleges in North Carolina has been defeated overwhelmingly at the 126^th Annual Baptist State Convention. The resolution had been advanced by J. Henry Le Roy of Elizabeth City, representing a group of Eastern North Carolina Baptists. But barely a handful among 1,600 convention delegates rose to support it.

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Atlanta, Georgia: The Georgia Baptist Convention, the largest religious group in the State, has refused to endorse the Supreme Court integration decision. Recommendations of a committee for endorsement were rejected by a standing vote of approximately 3 – 1.

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Madrid, Spain: The Spanish government has further tightened its laws governing the marriage of non-Catholics in Spain. A decree law signed by Chief of State Franco revises the laws for civil weddings which have not been changed since 1870. In net effect, the new law makes non-Catholic marriages neither more nor less possible, but it does serve to make the procedure somewhat more difficult. Non-Catholics, in order to marry in Spain, must apply for permission to marry, and state reasons why they want to wed.

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Washington, Ohio: An Illinois psychologist says persons preparing to enter the ministry should take psychiatric tests. Dr. Charles Anderson, of Hinsdale, Illinois, says such tests would eliminate many heartaches, ill feelings, and difficulties encountered by clergymen.

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Lisbon, Portugal: A national pilgrimage will take place today to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, to pray for the salvation of Hungary. Catholics were urged to join the pilgrimage to attend a solemn funeral Mass for Hungarian martyrs which will be celebrated November 28.

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Hanover, Germany: Hungarian Protestant Bishop Lajos Ordass is reported safe in a village near Budapest. Ordass, a Lutheran bishop, fled the capital with his family and staff when the Russians attacked. German Lutheran officials plan to send a truckload of food and clothing to the bishop.

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New York: The Board of Social Missions of the United Lutheran Church in America has approved a plan to train 100 pastors and laymen for an education and action program on desegregation. Dr. Harold Letts, secretary for social action, says the training plan is based on a statement by the denomination’s 20^th Biennial Convention that segregation impedes Christian brotherhood.

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It is difficult to see how religion can be regarded as something abstract, something removed from everyday living, though some of you listeners have expressed yourselves otherwise. However, unless religion is interwoven into the very fabric of everyday affairs, it becomes a stilted, meaningless, and ornamental affair. That is why, on this pre-Thanksgiving broadcast, I have no hesitancy in presenting the following which is probably the most important, both tangible and intangible, element of our everyday life for which we should regard with thanks. It is an essay of America, by a high school student, presented two or three years ago in a nation-wide contest. It is by Elizabeth Ellen Evans, and is entitled ”I Speak for Democracy.” It says:

“I am an American. Listen to my words, fascist, communist. Listen well, for my country is a strong country, and my message is a strong message. I am an American, and I speak for democracy. My ancestors have left their blood on the green at Lexington and the snow at Valley Forge…on the walls of Fort Sumter and the fields at Gettysburg…on the waters of the River Marne and in the shadows of the Argonne Forest…on the beachheads of Salerno and Normandy and the sands of Okinawa…on the bare, bleak hills called Pork Chop and Old Baldy and Heartbreak Ridge.

A million and more of my countrymen have died for freedom. My country is their eternal monument. They live on in the laughter of a small boy as he watches a circus clown’s antics…and in the sweet, delicious coldness of the first bite of peppermint ice cream on the Fourth of July…in the little tenseness of a baseball crowd as the umpire calls ‘batter up!’…and in the high school band’s rendition of ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’ in the Memorial Day parade…in the clear sharp ring of a school bell on a fall morning…and in the triumph of a six-year old as he reads aloud for the first time.

They live on in the eyes of an Ohio farmer surveying his acres of corn and potatoes and pasture…and in the brilliant gold of hundreds of acres of wheat stretching across the flat miles of Kansas…in the milling of cattle in the stockyards of Chicago…the precision of an assembly line in an automobile factory in Detroit…and the perpetual glow of the nocturnal skylines of Pittsburgh and Birmingham and Gary.

They live on in the voice of a young Jewish boy saying the sacred words from the Torah: ‘Hear O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might.’ …and in the voice of a Catholic girl praying: ‘Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…’ and in the voice of a Protestant boy singing ‘A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing…’

An American named Carl Sandburg wrote these words: ‘I know a Jew fish crier down on Maxwell Street with a voice like a north wind blowing over corn stubble in January. He dangles herring before prospective customers evincing a joy identical with that of Pavlova dancing. His face is that of a man terribly glad to be selling fish, terribly glad that God made fish, and customers to whom he may call his wares from a pushcart.’

There is the voice in the soul of every human being that cries out to be free. America answered that voice.

America has offered freedom and opportunity such as no land before has ever known, to a Jew fish crier down on Maxwell Street with the face of a man terribly glad to be selling fish. She has given him the right to own his pushcart, to sell his herring on Maxwell Street.… She has given him an education for his children, and a tremendous faith in the nation that has made these things his.

Multiply that fish crier by 160 million – 160 million mechanics and farmers and housewives and coal miners and truck drivers and chemists and lawyers, and plumbers and priests – all glad, terribly glad, to be what they are, terribly glad to be free to work and eat and sleep and speak and love and pray and live as they desire, as they believe.

And those 160 million Americans … have more roast beef and mashed potatoes … the yield of the American labor and land … more automobiles and telephones … more safety razors and bathtubs … more Orlon sweaters and Aureomycin … the fruits of American initiative and enterprise … more public schools and life insurance policies … the symbols of American security and faith in the future … more laughter and song – than any other people on earth.

This is my answer fascist, communist. Show me a country greater than our country, show me a people more energetic, creative, progressive – bigger-hearted and happier than our people, not until then will I consider your way of life. For I am an American, and I speak for democracy.

This item is sort of posthumous, but it did not get on the wire in time to be included on last week’s broadcast. On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of last week, two teachers’ organizations met in Knoxville, Tennessee. The white group, which calls itself the E.T.E.A., met at the University; while not far away, the colored teachers, the East Tennessee Teachers’ Association, met at the Austin High School. It is somewhat an anachronism that there should be continued two groups, meeting separately, based on race.

However, the irony becomes greater when one looks into the matters about which the two groups were concerned. A Dr. William F. Robinson, professor of sociology at Central State College in Ohio, told the colored teachers that the only way that further integration could be brought about was by continued efforts through the courts.

In its closing session, the white association passed a number of resolutions, among them being, and I quote, “…to dedicate ourselves…to the task of improving our own understanding of American democratic principles and their advantages over conflicting principles of life and government.” Apparently no conflicting principles occurred to them regarding the racial separation of colleagues at Austin, who are just as interested in promoting education in Tennessee as is the white group.

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All this brings to mind the case of the old Scottish elder, who was faithful in church attendance but the cause of a great deal of trouble among the members. He told his pastor one day that he was going to pay a visit to the Holy Land. “And when I get there,” he said with great enthusiasm, “I’m going to climb Mount Sinai and read the Ten Commandments from the top of it.” “I can tell you something better to do,” his pastor said, “Stay home and keep them.”

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What has come to be known in our time as the “Social Gospel” is something that many, perhaps most, Christian people today take for granted. We see the gospel not only as a means of securing reconciliation with the deity, but also as a means of transforming conditions of human life. The Christian ideal is not simply a new heaven; it is also a new earth.

While it is not to be denied that the church from the beginning was a social force, it has taken a long time for it to become the continuing, positive force for reform that it is today in many instances. In the Middle Ages, e.g., the church had great political and economic power, and it used that power to further its own organizational ends rather than the welfare of needy individuals.

But almost from the beginning there was some emphasis upon the social gospel by the church. It early exerted an influence on legislation, on the treatment of slaves, on the treatment of prisoners of war, on the treatment of women and children, on provision for the treatment of the sick and aged. Wycliffe’s Bible and the poor priests known as Lollards, carried the biblical message up and down the country, and historians are agreed that these did much to help and prepare England not only for the Reformation but also for improvement in the lot of the barest level of subsistence. They heard little from their priests to lead them to suppose that they were entitled to a better life. But as they listened to Wycliffe’s Lollards and to the reading of the Bible in their own tongue, something began to stir in their souls and they realized that they did not have to die and go to heaven before they could know a brighter lot. And thus it went, from country to country, as the Reformation swept across Europe. French, Germans, and others came to realize that religion was not necessarily a procedure for enduring hardships here in order to escape them in some hereafter, but a positive doctrine that realized that and advocated the good life for men here and now, as well as afterward.

There are some groups today who frown upon the advocacy by the church of a social gospel. To such people, religion is something abstract from or a segmented, compartmentalized portion of life. Such groups fail to catch perhaps the most important aspect of religion, for while there is no intent to disparage emphasis upon religion as a preparation for eternity, it is more than likely, it is fairly certain, that people who see that through religion, a happier, more plentiful life is possible, will also wish the more ardently to influence others to accept it also.

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Two days from now, some 90 million Americans will have an opportunity to perform the most important duty of citizenship – go to the polls and vote for the candidates of their choice for national, state, and in some cases, local candidates. At the national level we shall be choosing the men who will guide the destiny of this country for the next four years. Unfortunately, it is estimated that only a maximum of 60 percent of those who could vote will do so. This discrepancy between the possible and the actual number of voters makes it all the more necessary that those of us who do vote do so with extreme discrimination and with all the information at our command.

Voting is a moral as well as a civic obligation, for government is the institution that regulates in some way all the others. It may step in and regulate the family, religion (e.g., laws preventing the disturbing of public worship); it may and does regulate our economic system, education, and all the other basic social institutions. What it does or fails to do has daily tremendous impact upon the lives of not only all of us, but as we have seen, the lives of people around the world.

The tumult and the shouting are about over. Propagandists, distortioners, exaggerators, as well as the straightforward, objective campaigners have about had their say. We, the voters, have been subjected to a barrage of oratory that tells us that salvation is here; another says it is there. Our task is to evaluate all that has been said in the light of the record – or lack of it – and to determine within our own minds and hearts what is the best for us as a people and also what will be best for the world. What is good for the American people will surely be good for the rest of the free world, for in the long run, our destiny is inextricably interwoven with theirs. Otherwise, freedom will perish from the earth.

So it is that when next Tuesday, you and I enter the ballot booth, the hysteria of the campaign will be over. There, in the quietness of that small structure, we shall do something that very few people in the world can do – vote to perpetuate the present government or vote to throw it out and to institute a new government based on those principles which to us shall seem most likely to effect our safety and happiness. We are the final arbiters, the final judges, and however the outcome, the defeated candidates, whether at national, state, or local levels, will not dare dissent from our verdict. So it is we who are sovereign, not a Hitler, a Khrushchev, or an Eisenhower.

This is the American way, and it will stay that way only as long as you and I exercise the ballot conscientiously and wisely. It is a solemn responsibility as well as a valued privilege. We cannot fail, for if we do democracy fails, and with it all the rights and responsibilities of democracy. Presidents, governors, and magistrates of all kinds will not fail unless we do. What are you going to do about it?

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An encyclical letter by Pope Pius XII has taken note of two world-shaking events. The pontiff expressed joy for the release of Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski of Poland and Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary. But he asked prayers for the Holy Land and the Middle East. The pope writes of hope that recent events in Hungary and Poland might be a sign of peaceful reordering of the two nations. Yet, he adds, a fearful situation presents itself in the Middle East. The pontiff writes that it is not far from the Holy Land where the angels, flying over the cradle of the divine infant, announced peace to men of good will. He asks that he be joined in prayer for peace and order among the nations. The pope asserted that when men, moved by desire for a true peace, unite to deal with such grave problems, they must without doubt feel impelled to choose the way of justice and not that of adventure on the steep cliff of violence.

Budapest church bells pealed a welcome this week for Cardinal Mindszenty when he entered the Hungarian capital a free man for the first time in seven years. In 1949, a Red court condemned him to prison for life as a traitor. The cardinal blessed the throngs hailing his arrival. Women were kneeling in the streets. Men had their heads bare. And many persons crossed themselves and wept. At a news conference Friday, Mindszenty asked Western political support for the new anti-Russian Hungarian regime. He added that he wants personally to report many things to Pope Pius. Earlier this month, the Protestant world welcomed the release of another famed Hungarian figure. That was the Right Rev. Lajos Ordas, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. He had been imprisoned in 1948 on conviction of illegal currency dealings. Bishop Ordas was declared innocent three weeks ago. But he was not reinstated in his church duties at once. Instead, he was named professor of theology in Budapest’s Lutheran Academy.

Poland’s Roman Catholic primate early this week called on that nation to approach her problems maturely. On his first public appearance since release from house arrest, Cardinal Wyszynski asked for no demonstrations and no disorders. He had been arrested in 1953, and was said to have been released from prison last year. Now, he too, has been restored to his ecclesiastical position.

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Delegates for 3,000 U.S. Orthodox synagogues have passed political and spiritual resolutions at their meeting in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The convention of Orthodox Jewish Synagogues of America has expressed deepest concern and anxiety about radioactive dust from H-bomb tests. It declares, “The preservation and sanctification of human life is a prime mandate from the Divine.” The delegates also asked the U.S. Defense Department to make available to Jewish servicemen kosher foods similar in quality and caloric value to regular rations. And they want the U.S. to sever relations with any Arab nation that fails to halt what the convention terms discriminations against U.S. citizens. The Orthodox Jews also backed their National Executive Committee in a test case to maintain separation of men and women worshipers. This refers to a group in Mt. Clemens, Michigan, synagogue that seeks a court order prohibiting mixed seating as proposed by another group within the synagogue.

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Efforts from 48 Protestant and two Eastern Orthodox Church bodies disclose that Americans gave their churches more than ever in 1955. The National Council of Churches says offerings to the 50 groups totaled more than $1.75 billion. For the approximate 49 million members thus represented, this meant a per capita increase of 8 percent. The per person contributions rose from $49.95 in 1954 to $53.94 in 1955, a new high. The highest per member giving was in the Free Methodist Church: $193.45.

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Two congregations of the different Lutheran denominations are going to merge, even if their parent bodies do not. Union is scheduled this winter for a parish of the American Lutheran Church and a congregation of the United Lutheran Church, in Norwich, Connecticut. A campaign for a building fund for the merged churches has resulted in pledges of more that $122,000. Additional funds will come from sale of presently-held properties. But the congregations will not worship together until the new church is completed. The national bodies of the United and American Lutheran Churches are due to start considering merger at talks in Chicago in mid-December.

Some rather quaint statements were made this week by a New Jersey businessman to a Tennessee chapter of a nationally known patriotic (so-called) organization for men. Some of his more bland and ambiguous, some downright inaccurate, gems include: “Today, more that ever in our history, it is vital that we preserve the traditions of early America, the America of George Washington…. to preserve these traditions is vital because conditions of the past 150 years have given us a melting pot – a great mixtures of races, religions, and ideologies. And some of these are antagonistic to the traditions for which Washington fought and for which patriot blood was shed all the way from Boston to King’s Mountain.”

“From 1760 to 1780, Americans were racially one, of one mind, grounded in the principles and traditions of America. Today, the influx of peoples from other lands with ideas hostile to those woven into this Republic and sealed with the blood of patriots has diluted these early traditions…. Now with peoples split and with much intermarriage, especially in the North, of pure American stock to foreigners, we have a problem that presses upward for solution. How are we to keep Americanism pure?” and he goes on to answer this purely rhetorical question by saying, “We, the descendants of the founders of America must unite and stand as one together as never before, not only to justify our existence, but to make certain that the traditions of our great past become the traditions of future generations of Americans.”

Well, there is more of the same, but it is largely repetition. But let us look for a moment at this series of statements, or misstatements. In the first place, there is much in our history that we wish to preserve. It all started with the Revolution, so we want to preserve that right as basic to our philosophy and perhaps our continued existence. If revolution is wrong, then we started out from an untenable assumption and action based on that assumption, and hence we have no moral or historical justification for existence as a nation. But perhaps the speaker did not realize that what he was urging was contradictory to the events that give his organization justification for existence.

George Washington was not fighting to preserve tradition, but to break with it. Had the Revolution ended in defeat for the American forces, Washington would probably have been the first to be executed as a traitor, and he would have gone down in history – British history – as a traitor, just as we now so firmly regard Benedict Arnold. And the verdict of history would have sustained his executioners, for Washington was definitely subversive, from the British point of view. Obviously, the speaker is the son of a Revolution, for which he is proud, but he would shrink from being the father of one.

As to his assertion that “From1760 to 1780, Americans were racially one, of one mind, grounded in the principles and traditions of America,” well, it is a beautiful thought; the only thing wrong with it is that it is simply is not true. Even an elementary glance at the ethnological make-up of our population at the time of the Revolution, reveals that there were Negro slaves, British, Dutch, French exiles, incidentally Huguenot Protestants, Maryland Catholics, Pennsylvania Quakers, Irish Catholics, Scotch Covenanters, Jews, Swedes, and others to numerous to mention.

We started out as a polyglot people, heterogeneous in our make-up, diverse in our political outlook. Many Americans for example, supported the loyalist cause. And, as a matter of historical fact, there was intermingling and inter-marriage among these foreigners from the start. If by “pure,” one means “race, religion, or nationality,” then we started out as an impure nation, and as Americans we (the majority of us) are proud of it. Perhaps the tradition demonstrated by the fact that diverse peoples from many nations and religions and races can find common political bonds of agreement under our constitutional system is the greatest tradition that we have created, and the one of which we can be the most proud. There is no race, religion, or nationality group that has a monopoly upon Americans (whatever that means). In every war we have fought, if you wish to use participation in war as a criterion of patriotism, all of our races, nationalities, and religious groups have taken part and acquitted themselves with honor. And that holds true whether their descendants came over on the Mayflower or arrived since World War II as refugees from tyranny. The words “displaced persons,” so disturbing to some, may mean “delayed pilgrims.” After all, anyone could come here in 1760 for there were no immigration laws, and it is likely that many who came then could not get past the barriers of the watchdogs of our State Department [today].

So let us keep these things in mind as we see, hear, or read such nonsense as our, undoubtedly sincere, but uninformed, speaker presented this past week. Ten days from now Americans of all national, racial, and religious backgrounds will go to the polls and vote for candidates of their own choice. They will, it is hoped, make their choices in the light of the problems of 1956 rather than any blind adherence to some mythical tradition of our past. Americans generally have, if anything, been realists: holding on to those things in our tradition that history has proved to be good, but willing to cast aside those that are either not good, or having been good once, are now outdated and useless as a result of the passing of time and changing of problems we face. And certainly it is not in the American tradition to acquiesce in the idea that a numerically small group is the self-appointed keeper of American purity, destiny, or anything else. It was that against which we revolted in 1776.

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And in this connection, may I pass on to you a short poem by T. Moore Atkinson, who says:

Gone are the old frontiers, the unexplored,

The borderlands on which our fathers wrought

To tame the wild or, at some rocky ford,

To plant a town; a culture dearly bought.

The lands are mapped now, schools have come, and trade

The niceties of social grace abound.

The ancient dangers, stark romance are laid

Away where only legendary tales are found.

Still, one frontier remains as old as men,

As rude and lone as Vineland’s lonely shore,

The realm of man’s own spirit past the ken

Of men to weigh, still waits beyond the door.

These pasts persist, a dare to pioneers,

The soul and minds unconquered lands, our last frontiers.

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During the past two weeks we have heard much “’tis so” “’taint so’” about cessation of H-bomb experiments, disarmament, etc., all of which has been both enlightening and confusing. Perhaps it is the unshackled common sense of the general public that will have to guide the nations to a disarmament agreement that the world’s political and military leaders have been unable to achieve. In both the United States and the Soviet Union, military leaders, some not now in uniform, have a virtual veto power over their country’s disarmament proposals. Political heads, sensitive to public pressure, try to move forward, but the military leaders have shown very little faith in a security system through disarmament. As a result, disarmament negotiations have been a sort of minuet, where partners advance mincingly toward each other, then coyly back away. But public demands for a disarmament treaty continue to mount. A generation that has unleashed the power of the atom and that has devised cures for dread diseases must certainly have capacity to create the political devices which will ensure world peace. This is a must, for if this generation fails to do so, it will have failed to meet its rendezvous with destiny and will be responsible for the awful effects upon future generations. In fact, it may well determine whether there will be any future generations.

In a recently published report entitled America’s Needs and Resources: A New Survey, the Twentieth Century Fund points out that although the people of this country are probably offered a wider choice of religious worship in both form and substance than in any other country in the world, nearly three-fourths of the churches and almost 90 percent of church members are attached to the 19 largest denominations. On the other hand, about 200 denominations have only about 2 percent of the church members. Official statisticians of the various religious bodies reported nearly 286,000 local churches or congregations in 1950, compared with 244,000 in 1940. Total membership of the more than 250 religious bodies of the United States amounted to 86.8 million in 1950 and 64.5 million in 1940, a gain of over 22 million during the war decade. The previous decade added only about 5 million to church rolls. In 1952 over 92 million persons were reported to be church members. About 49 percent of the total population were church members in 1949, and about 59 percent in 1952. This latest gain was unusually large, although the long-term membership trend has been upward.

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One curious note in the news states, “Pacifists are eager to pacify the world because of their own inner conflicts.” This is a startling statement, for when analyzed, it would indicate the so-called psychologist who is talking, implies that persons with no inner conflicts want people to kill and be killed. I wonder how silly some people can get.

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An item on an old subject, but a very important one, came to my attention this week in an exchange dispatch quoting the late President Albert Palmer of the Chicago Theological School on the matter of importance of church attendance. It goes like this:

“Going to church, like going to meals, is a good habit. Spiritual nourishment is as necessary as physical. And there are various ways to get spiritual nourishment. One can wait until tragedy overwhelms him and then reach out blindly for help and comfort. One can browse around, taking in all the religions, sampling all the cults, accepting no responsibility anywhere. But the best way is to go regularly to church, enter heartily into the service, join up, make a subscription, pay attention to the sermon, shake hands with many before you leave, talk it over around the dinner table, and think about it before you go to sleep. Do that regularly, week after week, and you will not suffer from spiritual anemia.”

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A sage observation from a correspondent says that “The older I become the more it is pressed on me that the greatest of the personality graces is simple kindness. It is really the summit of personality growth.” No thinking person could, apparently, argue with this.

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At their meeting in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, this week, the United Lutheran Church condemned enforced racial segregation, but rejected outright endorsement of the Supreme Court decision outlawing it in the public school. In a somewhat hectic session, the church’s biennial convention voted down a proposed declaration that the court ruling is in harmony with Christian convictions. That portion was stricken from a statement urging church congregations to take the lead in demonstrating the possibility of integration. But this watering down of the church’s stand was by no means unanimous. The Rev. Paul L. Roth, of Kenosha, Wisconsin, declared it “a weak and ineffective statement.” Southern members understandably took a more comforting view. For example, the Rev. Frank Efird of Salisbury, North Carolina, called it “courageous, Christian, and consistent, and one that won’t divide our people.”

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There are many kinds of courage. Perhaps many of us associate courage with war and bloodshed. But another of these many kinds of courage is not physical at all, but moral: the kind of courage that some men in high political office exhibit, when, for the sake of their convictions, they hazard their whole future. In his exhilarating book, a best seller, entitled Profiles in Courage, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts tells the story of eight U.S. senators who were men of this kind. The national interest, he states, rather than private political gain, furnished the basic motivation of their careers. John Quincy Adams’ Puritan conscience would not permit him to take a purely partisan stand on any public question. His resultant unfortunately caused him to develop a morbid feeling that his whole life had been a failure. Daniel Webster tossed aside his chance to become president in order to stand unswervingly for the preservation of national unity. Thomas Hart Benton’s opposition to slavery brought down upon his head and avalanche of censure from Missouri. Sam Houston suffered a like fate and for the same reason at the hands of his fellow Texans. Their story was different from those of Kansas’ Edmund G. Ross and Mississippi’s L. Q. C. Lamar. Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio paid a heavy penalty of abuse for working to get a stay of execution for the 11 war criminals condemned to death in the Nuremberg Trials. The stories of these, and others are the heroes with whom Kennedy deals. It is unfortunate that the very closeness of the men and the events concerning them are so close to us that we fail to see clearly the elements of their moral courage until long after; instead we become emotional at the time and it is only until time and the dissipation of emotional coloring are gone that we can give our men of moral courage the admiration their actions merit.

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All, or virtually all, of us, whether of religious bent or not, are interested in the achievement of peace, peace of the real kind. This interest and concern cut across and transcend the fortunes of any political party or political figure. Furthermore, it is recognized that the ideal world would be one in which peace were achieved because all men were of good will. But humanity is far from ideal, and in such a world, peace can be achieved only through the development of channels by and through which those who would promote war, consciously or unconsciously, will be repressed by the overwhelming desire of the many.

Within the past week we have seen something of a curious and somewhat confused exchange of ideas on the steps we should take toward achieving peace. One presidential candidate has proposed a step-by-step suggestion that we seek at any level necessary to bring about a halt to further experiment with H-bomb testing. His argument is that we already have such bombs so strong and destructive that our present state of transport will not permit us to deliver them anywhere we might choose. He further contends that means of detection of nuclear explosions have become so sensitive that it would be impossible for a violator of any no-experiment agreement to violate that agreement secretly. So, in the interest of humanity and its protection from H-bomb fallout, in the interest of indicating our willingness to display leadership in a movement toward peace, he believes that such a course would have a profound effect upon the race toward destruction, without at the same time doing any violence to our security.

Opponents of this, without thus far analyzing the merits of his proposal as carefully as he set them forth, attack his suggestions as “political folly,” as a wild and irresponsible proposal of a politician overcome with ambition. Consequently their reply is to try to submerge the whole discussion by wrapping their opposition in the cloak of that magic word “security.”

Now, nobody knows whether Stevenson’s proposed moratorium on H-bomb testing would bring about the desired results or not. From what we the public know, our Iron Curtain censorship on such things being what it is, we cannot determine whether such a move would endanger our national security or not. But since when has it become undesirable that such a topic be excluded from discussion by public figures in a campaign where the stake of all of us is greater than the failure or fortune of a political candidate or party? What we do know is that a stalemate has existed for some time now on any suggestions or progress toward halting this mad race toward destruction. Only the United States is in a position to offer real initiative, and from a position of strength, toward leadership of the free world in its desire to find peace. So, it would seem that public discussion of such a vital issue, far from being discouraged, should be explored in its entirety, for where there is no vision, the people perish.

First, a potpourri of religion in the week’s news, as reported by Associated and United Press agencies:

Throughout the U.S. churches are observing harvest festivals. For Protestant churches, an order of service to give thanks for the rich bounty of the earth has been written by the Rev. Deanne Edwards of New York City, a minister of the Reformed Church and director of the Hymn Society of America. The department of the Town and Country Church of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. has given wide distribution to the services. Many churches will be decorated with vegetable, fruits, and flowers typical of the season, which later – the decorations not the season – will go to charitable institutions or needy persons.

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A report by the National 4-H Club Foundation and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith tells, among other things, how visiting American farm youths have been impressed by Israel’s religious life. B’nai B’rith, a Jewish men’s group, says all faiths in the new nation have constitutional freedom of worship. It adds that U.S. members of the International Farm Youth Exchange found the two most important Jewish religious holidays most impressive in their rituals. These ceremonials are Rosh Hashanah, the religious New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. But the young Americans got a particular sentiment out of Succoth, the Feast of the Tabernacles. This is the Jewish celebration of the harvest. One exchange, Carol Jenkins of Shelby County, Missouri, says it seemed a wonderful way for farmers, either Jewish or Christian, to celebrate Thanksgiving.

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Today, Roman Catholic lawyers in New York City will have their annual Red Mass. Francis Cardinal Spellman will preside at the solemn pontifical votive Mass of the Holy Ghost at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The Red Mass has been celebrated for centuries in great European cities. For as long as church history has been recorded, the service officially has opened the judicial year of the sacred Roman Rota. It was first celebrated in the U.S. in New York about 25 years ago. The name Red Mass probably derives from the color of the vestments worn by the celebrant and other priests at the Mass. And that, in turn, goes back to the fact that judicial robes used to be bright red or scarlet.

Cardinal Spellman will also lead some 60,000 persons in prayer at a religious service at New York’s polo grounds today. That will be part of the ceremony marking the 80^th birthday of Pope Pius XII. The New York Archdiocesan Union of the Holy Name is sponsoring the commemoration. Birthday medals blessed by the pontiff and flown from Italy to New York early this week are to be presented to each attendant at the services.

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Washington: White members of a Lutheran church have set out on a unique doorbell ringing campaign. Their objective is to bring Negro families into the congregation. The Augustana Lutheran Church is the first to undertake a formal solicitation of Negro members to implement the open door policy that many churches have proclaimed in the last few years.

And at Blue Island, Illinois, the American Lutheran Church, at its 14^th Biennial Convention, has adopted a statement of policy on responsibility of its ministers to their entire neighborhood regardless of race. The statement was adopted by almost unanimous agreement of both clerical and lay delegates to the convention.

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Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Dr. Franklin Clark Fry, of New Rochelle, New York, has been reelected to a seventh term as president of the United Lutheran Church in America. Dr. Fry has served as head of the largest Lutheran group in North America for six two-year terms. His latest election is for a six-year term.

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Vatican City: Monsignor Lorenzo Perosi, conductor of the papal choir and a world-famous composer, is seriously ill. Vatican sources say Monsignor Perosi has been given the last rites of the church, and the pope has sent him a special blessing. He is 83 years old.

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Montreal, Canada: The Roman Catholic Church has announced that Catholics in the Montreal Diocese will be allowed to work all but two holy days a year, effective next month. The exceptions will be Christmas Day and the Feast of the Circumcision, January 1. A statement issued by the archbishop of Montreal says the change has been approved by the Vatican.

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St. Paul, Minnesota: Death has taken Archbishop John Gregory Murray, leader of 435,000 Roman Catholics in the St. Paul Diocese. The 79-year-old prelate succumbed to cancer of the neck. He also had suffered a heart attack two months ago and a stroke a month ago, which had affected the right side of his body. Archbishop Murray’s duties have been assumed by Archbishop William O. Brady, who recently came to St. Paul from Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

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New York: Protestant churches across the U.S. and Canada observe Church Men’s Week, starting today and extending through next Sunday, October 21. Today is recognized as Men and Missions Sunday, which, since 1931, has helped to dramatize the churchman and his relationship to worldwide Christian missions. Laymen’s Sunday, October 21, is the annual occasion when laymen take over the entire Sunday morning worship services, including the sermon.

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Cairo, Egypt: International scholars at the Coptic Museum in Cairo are translating a manuscript that may be a fifth gospel. The author may be the apostle Thomas (or doubting Thomas). The manuscript is written in the ancient Coptic language and is believed to date back to the third or fourth century. It is part of 13 volumes containing 48 books which Egyptian workmen found in a jar while digging in a cemetery in 1945.

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The United Lutheran Church in America has opened its doors for women to give full time service to the church, without planning a lifetime career. Women who so desire may join with the U.L.C Deaconesses to do such work indefinitely. The change has been approved as an experiment. The new members of the church’s women’s religious order will be called “diaconic volunteers,” rather than “deaconesses.” They will receive maintenance and a small allowance during their periods of service. As do the Lutheran deaconesses, the volunteers will serve churches in various capacities, such as teachers, nurses, parish and social workers.

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During the past week the Supreme Court let stand a lower court decision barring Virginia from leasing a state park under any plan that might result against Negroes. This decision – or lack of decision on the part of the high court – may have far-reaching implications for the states that have hurriedly, and emotionally, rushed through constitutional amendments, legislative statutes, etc., aimed at turning their public schools over to private organizations in order to prevent the carrying out of desegregation decisions. The lower court decision was by U.S. District Judge Walter E. Hoffman of Norfolk. It was appealed to the high tribunal after the U.S. Circuit Court in Richmond upheld Judge Hoffman. Hoffman decided that the state, in operating the Seashore State Park, must permit all races to use it. He said if the park were leased, “The lease must not, directly or indirectly, operate so as to discriminate against the members of any race.

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Looking at this whole question of desegregation, objectively and dispassionately, it is a matter, not only of curiosity but of deep concern also, of wondering why all the fuss. Today our Sunday school lesson is based on a study of the Ten Commandments. The principles of justice in these laws underlie our whole sense of justice in the democratic social orders of the Western world. Exodus does not mention in these commandments any exception on the basis of race or anything else from the binding force of these principles. How, then, can we say, and be honest with ourselves, that while these commandments apply to all people, they apply a little more to some than others? Is it true that we, along with Jefferson, hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal? But then, with tongues in our cheeks, … that some of us are created a little more equal than others because of race? The whole question boils itself down into just such a simple principle, though admittedly the problem is, socially, a complex one.

One of the things we see materials about and hear a great deal said on these days is “What of the younger generation today?” Well, any statement on such a subject means that its maker is certainly sticking his neck out. However, it is a matter about which we are all concerned, and I venture to suggest that the following characteristics might well be applied to a goodly portion of the thoughtful members of today’s young generation. First of all, they are something of a skeptical generation, one that wants faith, but finds it very hard to achieve an ardent faith honestly. One student remarked not long ago, “I don’t believe in anything, and I don’t know how to go about starting.” This is a not an uncommon predicament. Again, in many respects, it is a lonely generation, hungering for a warm community dedicated to a common cause, but hardly knowing where to find such a community. It is something of a timid generation, more preoccupied with security than with adventure. And when faced with danger, it faces it with stoic fortitude rather than with courage. And, last, it is not a happy generation; in some respects it is something of a joyless crowd. Of course, it throws itself into distraction in order to distract itself from its unhappiness, but there is little of security there.

Well, there is a venture into trying to state something of mass impression of a very important portion of our people. Probably much the same thing has been said about previous generations. Whatever truth lies in the above statements can probably be traced more to the uncertainty of the times, the tensions of today’s living, tensions which the younger generation did not create but among which they must live, than any unsteadiness in the young people themselves. In many ways we of the older generation have cheated today’s young people in not building a world in which such elements that give rise to personal and social disorganization are absent instead of very much present.

Fundamental to a basic religious philosophy is the question,“What can I believe in religion?” In our Christian culture, this means engaging in the study and practice of religion, which, in turn, means an examination of the claims of historic Christianity. Without such examination, people will not get far in answering their basic question. Christian orthodoxy means the evolving changing doctrines of Paul, the early church fathers, the school men, the reformers, the post-Reformation theologians, and theology as it has been presented and is being presented today. One cannot discuss – I doubt if one can think intelligently – of religion without discussing the claims of religion, anymore than he can discuss chemistry without knowing something of the claims of chemistry. It was Christ who said, “Search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are which testify of me.” You don’t get religion like you do measles. Religion is natural, native, and intrinsic.

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The best quote of the week that I came across, and one which has survival as well as religious interest goes like this: “The men of big business have been so busy preparing for a war which they hope to avert that they seem to have neglected almost altogether planning for the peace they hope to achieve.”

And another, almost as good, says that when the government does something for you, that’s social progress. But when it does something for someone else, that’s socialism. How lazy can we get through the use of words and phrases, slogans that mean nothing or everything, and which very effectively lull us away from any effort to do real thinking for ourselves?

Des Moines: One of the largest church conventions in the nation is under way in Des Moines. Upwards of 8,000 persons are attending a six-day international conclave of the Disciples of Christ. A report dealing with racial practices in churches is on the agenda.

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Washington: An American religious leader says Christian leaders in Red China seem to be sincerely convinced that churches are getting along well under the Communist government. Dr. Eugene L. Smith, vice president of the National Council of Churches, quoted Dr. K.H. Ting, an Algerian bishop in Red China, as telling him “The church in China has freedom of worship, freedom to witness, to evangelized, to publish Christian literature without censorship, to conduct Christian work among students at the university.” And Dr. Smith said Bishop Ting seemed to reflect accurately the prevailing opinion of the Chinese churches.

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Boston: The American Foundation for the Preservation of the Christian Heritage is planning to reproduce in Southern California three cities in the Holy Land. They will be reproduced on a 2,000-acre site and the project will cost about $20 million. The cities that will be reproduced are the walled city of Jerusalem, the town of Bethlehem, and Christ’s hometown of Nazareth. It will be called “Christian Land.” Funds will be raised by public subscription.

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The head of the Methodist Church in the New York area predicts that Negroes and whites within the Methodist denomination will be integrated within the next 10 years. Bishop Frederick Newell, addressing a mixed audience, said they must insure that the move toward integration does not tear down the church, even though it should be carried out as quickly as possible.

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And along the same line in Washington, a prominent Negro bishop from Florida says Christian churches must act with vigor and determination to insure peaceful integration of the nation’s schools. Bishop D. Ward Nichols, of Jacksonville, urges a nationwide study of how many churches have met or have failed to meet the challenge of preventing racial violence.

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Again, Washington: It is reported that Lutheran Bishop Lajos Ordass may be restored to his full church rank soon by the Hungarian government. Dr. Franklin Clark Fry, president of the United Lutheran Church in America, says he has been corresponding with the Hungarian government and expects the restoration of Bishop Ordass any day. The Hungarian prelate was convicted on a charge of currency violation in Hungary. He has spent the past two years in prison.

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The general board of the National Council of Churches has voted to set up a special committee to coordinate relief needs of an estimated 1 million Arab refugees from Israel. The committee would recommend appropriate action by American Protestant churches to meet the need.

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Buffalo, New York: More than 10,000 delegates from 24 Catholic archdioceses and 83 dioceses are attending the Tenth National Congress of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine in Buffalo. Several high ranking prelates form Canada, Central and South America are attending. The conferences will end today.

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Some clerics and scholars of the Old and New Worlds are tying to find a way by which millions of Christians might re-enter the Roman Catholic Church. The sessions of the Unionistic Congress in the St. Procopius Abbey at Lisle, Illinois, this week aim to have some 200 million Eastern Orthodox Christians united with Rome. They would become Roman Catholics of the Byzantine rite or one of the other non-Latin rites that now have about 8 million members. The Eastern Orthodox Christians left the Roman Church about 900 years ago. That was the Great Schism of 1054, based on political, social, cultural, and doctrinal differences. The congresses aiming toward the reunion have been going on since 1907. Until World War II they were held in Czechoslovakia, where Saints Cyril and Methodius began Christianizing Slavonic peoples in the ninth century. St. Procopius Abbey has held a papal commission for 29 years to work for the rejoining. It now has bi-ritual faculties; that is, priests trained by it may conduct services in both Latin (or Western) and Byzantine (or Eastern) liturgies of the Roman Catholic Church.

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Pope Pius, through a special representative, has praised the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine as one of the two great treasures of Roman Catholics. The Most Rev. Monsignor Francesco Roberti names the other as the Catholic school. The monsignor is secretary of the Sacred Congregation of the Council in Rome.

More than 3,500 lay and clerical delegates are at the Tenth National Congress of the Confraternity, which is meeting in Buffalo, New York. On the agenda is a controversial new Roman Catholic hymnal prepared by a committee of the confraternity. The committee chairman, the Rev. John Selner of St. Mary’s Seminary, in Baltimore, Maryland, says opposition centers on omission of two hymns. Father Selner adds that some Protestant hymns may be included if they are found to be not native to Protestant worship.

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An official of the Disciples of Christ Christian churches says that denomination is doing some missionary work in full partnership with other groups. The information comes from Dr. Donald West, forum chairman for the World Mission division of the United Christian Missionary Society. Dr. West has told the World Mission leaders that such cooperation already is a fact in Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Africa. And in Nepal and Okinawa, representatives of the Disciples are working with other Protestant groups. The Disciples’ United Missionary Society met in Des Moines this week prior to an international convention assembly that began Friday. The United Missionary Society is an international board of the Disciples. It carried on a $5 million program in 11 overseas nations in 1955-56.

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Labor leaders and clergymen of Fresno, California, are planning a series of joint meetings. The National Council of Churches adds that delegates of the Fresno Labor Council will meet with ministers representing the Fresno Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Monterey-Fresno Council of Churches. The first topic of the labor and church assemblies will be Sunday closing of stores and businesses.

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A fabulous religious treasure of the British Museum is to get a modern printing. It is the Lindisfarne Gospels, an illuminated Latin manuscript of the Gospels made about 700 A.D. by Eadfrith, bishop of Lindisfarne, or Holy Island. The Gospels are famed for their elegance and precious coloring and are noted as a classic piece of Anglo-Celtic book illumination. The modern copies will be printed in facsimile in Switzerland for distribution in the U.S. The two-volume work will be limited to 680 copies, at $375 a copy. Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, and Mediterranean styles are combined in the words and decorations of these gospels. Its Latin text is very close to the original Vulgate gospels. The manuscript also contains four portraits of the Evangelists.

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The Unitarian Church recently observed a period of recognition of the importance of freedom of the press. This observance honors Elijah Parish Lovejoy who was one of the early martyrs for freedom of the press. He was anti-slavery when to be so was looked upon much as we – at least some of us – look upon subversion today. He was publisher of the St. Louis Observer. His plant was wrecked by a mob and he moved to Alton, Illinois. One press was thrown into the river en route. Another arrived and it was destroyed. In 1837 still another was purchased. The next day a mob attacked Lovejoy’s plant. It was defended by Lovejoy and a few patriots. Lovejoy was killed in the fray.

Why bring this up in connection with a religious news program? The reason should be obvious: A free people must have a free press. Without it and the other freedoms associated with it, it is difficult to see how we could have freedom of religion. Lovejoy was a man about whom it would be well for us to know more. In our day defenders of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not always popular. But it is these who keep alive the flame of American liberties, which is probably the greatest single thing that distinguishes our system here from that among the dictators. And speaking of a companion freedom, that of speech, Woodrow Wilson made an observation that shows how foolish it is to try to curb free speaking. He said, “I have always been among those who believed the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking.”

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One very encouraging development this week was the ruling in New York by Federal Judge Palmieri that the one-time kingpin gambler, Frank Costello, could not be deprived of his citizenship through the use of evidence obtained by wiretapping. The judge went on to emphasize that he was dismissing the case without prejudice to reinstitution of action by the government. This leaves the way open for possible denaturalization and deportation if sufficient evidence is presented in the future to justify it.

The judge’s ruling was obviously made not out of any sympathy for the way the racketeer once made his living. Costello is now serving a five-year prison sentence for income tax evasion, and it is likely the judge would feel little sympathy toward this activity of Costello. The ruling came within the framework of the First Amendment, and also the Fourth Amendment, which is designed to make citizens secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Eager beavers who would like to expel persons of Costello’s caliber from our midst will criticize the court’s findings. Our own attorney general of the United States has urged upon Congress a wiretapping bill, with the excuse that such is necessary in order to detect criminals. However, most of us recognize that if an officer can tap our telephones without our knowing it, they can secure information, not only about crimes, but also about personal matters which we would discuss with no one but our friends and neighbors; that conceivably materials secured in this matter by unscrupulous people could be used for blackmail purpose; and, in short, that wire tapping would open a Pandora’s box of troubles which would be inimical to the tradition and mores of a free people. To put it bluntly, we think that what we discuss with friends – or enemies – over the telephone is none of the business of government. With so much talk about decentralizing government these days, is it not remarkable that those who do the most talk about it are the same ones that urge further centralizing government through giving that government the right to listen in on our most intimate conversation? Believers in the Constitution and its Bill of Rights will applaud Judge Palmieri’s decision, while at the same time condemning the activities of the individual against whom government attorneys tried to use this illegal evidence.

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Only once or twice on this program have I suggested that you write to me your opinion of it. Today’s broadcast completes two years of the program. It has been designed at all times to be a non-sectarian comment on items of religious significance that appear in the press from time to time. Several times I have had an impulse to discontinue it, for, regardless of its merits or lack of them, it does require considerable time to prepare script. There is no financial consideration involved, for I have never received or asked to receive compensation for what I have tried to do. WJHL has generously contributed its facilities for bringing the program to you. Do you wish the program continued? Whether it is or not will depend to a large extent upon your response to this question. Send a post card or letter to me at State College or in care of WJHL letting me know your wishes on the matter.

 

Chicago: Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam of Washington, D.C., has been elected president of the Council on World Service and Finance of the Methodist Church. He succeeds Bishop Clare Purcell of Birmingham, Alabama. The council administers all general and benevolence funds of the Methodist denomination.

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Greenwich, Connecticut: A Catholic and a Protestant clergyman in Greenwich have joined in a traffic safety campaign based on the Fifth Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” The group, representing 16 churches, adopted as its campaign slogan, “Drive as though God was sitting beside you.” The crusade will get under way in Greenwich on September 30 and if successful will be expanded on a nationwide basis.

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Hong Kong, China: A Catholic mission bulletin in Hong Kong says the church still has 52 seminaries in operation in Red China in spite of major persecution by communist authorities. The report mentioned seminaries in Hupen, Hunan, and Kansu provinces.

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Castel Gandolfo, Italy: Pope Pius has urged the world’s scientists to press ahead with a peaceful conquest of the universe. The pope, addressing 400 delegates to the Seventh International Astronautical Congress, told them that God did not intend to place a limit to mankind’s effort of conquest when he said “Conquer the Earth.” The pontiff went on, “It is the whole of creation which God entrusted to mankind and which he offers to the human spirit, in order that he should penetrate it and may thus understand ever more fully the infinite grandeur of his Creator.” The delegates were received by the pontiff in a special audience at the pope’s summer residence.

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Assisi, Italy: A leading Jesuit theologian has appealed to the Roman Catholic Church to cut down on the use of Latin and give modern language a growing place in Church ritual. Father Joseph A Jungmann, a theology professor at Innsbruck, Austria, said reforms by Pope Pius have started breaking down the armor which surrounded liturgy. The pope has permitted a number of nations to use modern languages instead of Latin in certain ceremonies, but the church remains steadfast against replacing Latin with modern languages in reciting the Mass.

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Des Moines, Iowa: The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled that a divorce decree may not stipulate the religion under which a child must be reared. The decision reverses a lower court ruling which had cited Mrs. Gladys M. Lynch, of Clarion, Iowa, for contempt of court. Her divorce decree had specified that she should rear her 9-year-old son as a Catholic. Instead, she permitted him to attend the Congregational Church. When her ex-husband secured the contempt action, she appealed.

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The 2,500 or so persons living in the little taconite mining community of Silver Bay, Minnesota, are setting a unique pattern for Protestant unity. What these people of a dozen different denominations are doing may ultimately have other communities pause to reflect whether their religious needs require several competing churches. Silver Bay sprang into being about three years ago when the taconite iron mining industry was started. Situated in the wilderness on Lake Superior’s north shore, Silver Bay now has 650 homes with about 70 more planned or under construction. All will be owned by employees of the taconite project which the Reserve Mining Company operates. At the outset, planners of the community decided to allocate sites for only three churches – Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and another Protestant church. In 1953, the Minnesota Council of Churches sent a chaplain, the Rev. Cecil Mankins, to the community. In time, persons attending the council-sponsored churches were asked to select the denomination they wished to develop a church for them. However, they expressed a preference for an interdenominational church, not one of a single denomination. The next step found Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Baptists, and members of other affiliations drawing up a covenant proclaiming the founding of the United Protestant Church. Among other things, the covenant said, “We believe that we can, with God’s help, unite in one church for the advancement of God’s kingdom in the world.” Their new church was partially completed late in July. It seats 180, and can accommodate an overflow of 60. The Rev. Mr. Hankins serves as moderator of the congregation. According to the 55-year-old Baptist clergyman who spent most of his ministry with the Ohio Council of Churches, the worship service itself has enough elements of a liturgical church to make people with that background feel perfectly at home. He points out that parishioners run nearly the entire gamut of theological background. Members are from both labor and management, and, as he explains, “cut across nearly every line of social structure.” Financing, construction, and a number of other aspects have at times complicated the program. But many obstacles have been circumvented or worked out and folks at Silver Bay are undaunted. It is hard to say how many churches Silver Bay will eventually require, but none, to be sure, will be more unusual than the United Protestant Church.

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Ten prominent church leaders were asked within the past week for their views on the role of a clergyman in the field of politics. The question long has been a controversial one in Protestant circles. This being an election year, it has special significance. The survey was conducted by the information service of the National Council of Churches’ Research and Survey Bureau. The ten leaders were generally agreed that as a private citizen, the minister has a duty to consider all issues and take sides. They were also agreed that he should not use his pulpit for partisan purposes. However, it was decided to leave it to the minister’s own good sense and judgment as to how and where he expresses his political views away from his pulpit. There were widely varying views, moreover, on the nature, extent, and vigor of a clergyman’s political action. Some said he should separate his political life from his spiritual role, but others insisted that this was clearly impossible.

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The general board of the National Council of Churches meets in Washington next Wednesday and Thursday to consider a heavy agenda of policy and other matters relating to the life of the churches. The items on which some action may be taken are the spiritual needs of the armed forces, Christian churches behind the Iron Curtain, Arab refugees, funding a new state-by-state study of church membership, and church relations between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.

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Probably about everyone prays at times, or at least engages in prayer. It is not necessarily uttering words, and, indeed, the thoughts are not necessarily addressed to the deity. The people who call themselves atheists pray. Some pagan prayers have literary merit and show a remarkable kinship with nature. Medieval prayers were characterized by great passion, desperate faith, groveling humility, but with little or no social visions. The prayers of and following the Wesleyan revival in America were and sometimes still are frenzied, largely incoherent, noisy, lengthy, and sometimes crude. The typical prayers of American Protestantism are all too often of the “gimme” type. They imply that God is something of a Santa Claus and that every day is Christmas. Some prayers are complaints about the shortcomings of parishioners; some are a sort of report to God about planetary conditions. Others are largely advice to God on how to run things.

Probably few thinking people believe that prayer changes the facts of nature. God, the dominant phase of the universe, having ordained that a colt must be younger than its mother, cannot change that fact. Prayer will not deliver groceries to people marooned on a raft, or divert the course of a bullet, or cure the common cold. Prayer should be subjective, and while it may not change God or nature, it may change ourselves. Psychology of religion gives us a broader conception of prayer than was formerly held.

In one sense, prayer is something of a battleground of the spirit. Perhaps the head pulls one way and the heart another. A decision must be made. The problem is the old one of want to do this; ought to do that. The struggle is prayer. We take ourselves in hand and say, “This is rationalization. This is the wistful thinking. This is emotional drive, not reasoned thinking.” But still a decision must be reached. Thus, in this battleground of the spirit there are three steps: Decision (what is right or best); Resolution (to do what is right); and Execution (working to that end). In How Green Was My Valley, the minister says to the boy, “Don’t be afraid of prayer, lad, it is but another name for hard thinking.”

But prayer is also a process of self-analysis. Dr. Douglas Steere in a little book speaks of prayer as “a dip in acid.” He was talking about the kind of prayer that enables us to get away from ourselves and look critically at ourselves when we are praying. It is doubtful if any of us comes to know ourselves completely. But without prayer as self-analysis we live out our days as strangers to ourselves. Prayer that is self-analysis helps us discover in us trashy gossip, reckless criticism, hypocrisy, selfishness, hidden fears, and other defects. Hence, this kind of prayer is diagnostic. It is also therapeutic. It is this kind of prayer that sees the fault, provides resolutions to end such fault, and pushes for repairs. Not alien to this kind of prayer is gratitude for victory and aspiration for further victories.

But prayer is also a process through which we become acquainted with and often express our innermost desires. In this sense, it is a crisis process. Perhaps this is the most common form of prayer. The jockey trying to win a race, the poet struggling with rhyme and meter, the citizen facing a problem. Emerson said, “Be careful on what you set your heart. You are likely to achieve it.” Since all life is sacred, planning deliberate prayer as to our desires cleanses and motivates and makes us conscious that this life of ours is a trust…. It is well to give our ambitions an overhauling from time to time. To do so is prayer.

But prayer may also be a process of expressing thanks and appreciation. This kind of prayer need not necessarily be verbalized, and certainly there is no need to reduce it to gush. Some people see no beauty in the sea at first. The same is true of mountains, plains, deserts, music, painting, poetry, church, and people. Life is crowded with value, meaning, beauty, truth, and goodness.

To appreciate all these things, including people, we have to look for good in them, learn to appreciate them. As one renders thanks daily for the few things for which he is grateful, the list will grow until sometimes it is not inconceivable that he can embrace the whole world in his heart.

But, finally, prayer is also an adjustment to brute facts. Man’s environment is partially hostile, partially favorable and partially neutral. The things in nature and society that we cannot manipulate we call brute facts. We cannot do much about time, space, growing old, death, or the convulsions of nature. We can only partly control disease, poverty, births, floods, etc. To that which we cannot control we must adjust (as much as I dislike to use that word). The nicety and adequacy of a person’s adjustment to the inevitabilities of life is to some degree a measure of the soundness of his religion. When catastrophe comes, most people pray, though they have put off thinking about religion for years. They are likely to grab at any religion no matter how absurd. Wise people establish their religion before disaster comes. They identify brute facts and make adjustment to them before they are crushed by them.

With some, tragedy when piled on tragedy brings cynicism. He who has yielded to cynicism has failed, has permitted life to conquer him. There are certain tragic situations where all that is left are renunciation, resignation, perhaps hope, and a peace that passeth all understanding. Under certain tragic circumstances the words, “I accept” are the most beautiful of prayers, difficult though those words may be. There are times when action is not called for, but we must in quietness of spirit wait upon life.

 

All of us have watched with mounting concern – interspersed occasionally with brief moments of optimism – the increasingly tense Suez Canal matter. Very obviously, it has been and is, a good example of how unrealistic our approach to effectively handle matters involving the interests of two or more nations in today’s shrunken world. Not all the facts have been given to the people of the U.S., or to the world, for that matter. For example, our own “Secretary of Statements” [John Foster Dulles] has not made clear why in the first place we promised funds to help build the Aswan Dam, then later reneged on that promise. We have glibly been led to assume – partly by actual name-calling, that Nasser is another Hitler, which he may well be, but calling him such does not help solve the problem; it well may intensify it. Nasser may be just a political opportunist responding to the well-known rising Egyptian nationalism so characteristic of countries which have recently won their independence.

But, we approach the matter with bluster and threat of military force. When that fails to scare the other side, we resort to the time-worn, and worn-out method of getting a conference of interested powers, hoping by a show of over-balance of power to cow the other side into agreement. Then when that fails to work, we try a so-called “Canal-Users’ Association.” Now that does not seem any more palatable to the Egyptians. In the process, we hire expert canal pilots to walk off the job, hoping to control the situation indirectly by breaking down effective operation of the canal; this, apparently, giving Russian and other communist countries opportunity to step in and fill the vacuum caused by our own ineptness and questionable tactics.

At long last, the protagonists and antagonists have been forced to seek – regrettably as a last resort – turning the matter over to the United Nations, where it should have gone in the first place. What will happen there is anybody’s guess. Our own government has been reluctant to have it taken there, though it does not tell us for what reason. The nearest hint we’ve been given is that Russia may block any positive action toward a solution by the exercise of the veto in the Security Council. And this may well be true. On the other hand, the U.N. was set up to handle just such matters as this. It was set up because we recognized, but did not meet, the need for establishing an international organization to deal with matters that could not safely be left in the hands of individual nations. And, if that organization is inadequate, the solution is not to by-pass it every time we think we may not get exactly our own way, but to profit by revealed inadequacies in the organization, and proceed to remedy them by amendments to the U.N. charter. What we, along with other nations, apparently want is to eat our cake and have it too, i.e., to have an international body to settle international disputes, but at the same time retain the right of national sovereignty, or the right to have our own way every time. All history should prove that this simply cannot be done.

Moreover, if the Security Council reaches a stalemate, there is always the possibility of calling the General Assembly into action. This was done once before in a critical international situation, and it worked. What are we afraid of? Why not try this again if necessary? All Americans are interested in the maintenance of peace. We are simply not going to get it by following the same paths of diplomatic double talk and finagling that have brought us to nothing but recurrent wars in the past. Christ came to bring to earth peace to men of good will. But good will is something that must be demonstrated by all concerned, and so far there has been a lamentable lack of it on both sides. This is a situation that calls for statesmanship with international convictions and viewpoints, and there are no statements of any kind on the present horizon. And yet, those in positions of power are wielding that power in such a way that well could bring, not a little war, for there is no such in today’s world, but a war that could explode throughout not only the Middle East but throughout the world. It is very urgent that men of good will in private life let those in public office know that there can be peace without appeasement, but that it is hardly likely to come about until and unless we approach this 20th century problem in a 20th century manner.

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It is somewhat refreshing to turn from a moment of reflection on a world problem that is so pregnant with possibilities of strife to come of the results of another world group, this time of churchmen from some 44 nations who have been meeting in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, for the past 10 days and now have themselves been taking an inventory of world problems and their concern as church men about them. This past week the representatives of 18 million Methodists pledged themselves to work toward a human society in which discrimination based on race or color no longer exists. A message adopted at the end of the World Methodist Conference called for an end to race discrimination and production of nuclear weapons. The 2,000 delegates heard a summary of the conference findings presented by Bishop Corson of Philadelphia who emphasized the following points:

1. The Bible is the main guide for the conduct of individuals and institutions.
2. Man’s first responsibility for obedience is to God; his second, to the state. They, i.e., the delegates, affirmed that the state serves man best as his tool, not his master. And this is interesting, considering the widely different kinds of governments prevailing in the countries from which the delegates come;
3. Our practice in race relations falls far short of our precepts and principles;
4. There is no real conflict between science and religion. Science is to be embraced as a means of enabling man to live a more understanding and appreciative existence.*
5. Religious illiteracy is one of the most serious handicaps of Protestants.

*Delegates said the truths of science have often been spurned by the churches as a tool of the devil, when in actuality they are the key to a fuller understanding of God’s handiwork, and the building of his kingdom.

In a sort of man-bites-dog movement, the delegates came out and complained that too much speech making characterized this, as well as other church conferences. That by the time the speeches were over the delegates were too tired to have much energy and enthusiasm for attacking the real work of the conference. They urged that in the future, instead of being worn out by long-winded speeches, more time be given to practical group discussions. This is a sentiment that could well be applied, not only to meetings of church groups but also to teachers meetings, clubs, and other organizational get-togethers.

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On the theme of the political duty of the Christian, Dr. Charles Allen of Atlanta, this week observed that while the Christian layman should in no sense avoid political thought and activity, at the same time he refuses to let his church pulpit become the sounding board for partisan politics. Parts of his comments seem worth repeating here. He says:

“I think thoughtful persons sincerely resent (the) narrow partisans who somehow think that God fights on their side or who feel that their party has a priority on godliness. No blustering political argument, however heated, will ever make God into a hard wheeler of one party or another.”

But, he goes on,

“A study indicates that Christian laymen have often avoided active political responsibility… The preachers themselves apparently avoid the ballot box as they would a plague, for the percentage of ministers who actually vote is not impressive. There may be various explanations for this. Perhaps ministers wish to remain neutral … so as not to offend a parishioner. But his ballot is secret … whatever his reasons, the minister who doesn’t vote is a poor citizen, however noble his spiritual life may be. What I say about the preacher is equally true of the Christian layman.”

At this point, Dr. Allen summarizes by himself quoting from a book entitled Politics for Christians, where he says:

“The best Christian thought has never been willing to exclude any care of life from the formulations of theology. Augustine, Aquinas, Luther and Calvin all related the demands of the Christian faith to both the theory and practice of politics. If what they have to say on the subject seems remote from what we know as politics today, this reflects the changes in the political process even more than any change in the relevance of theology.”

It is the thesis of this reporter that while one might conceivably be a Christian without voting, he can be a better one by doing so in a manner that reflects his dedication to the cause of human betterment.

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Washington: Some 3 million public school children have been enrolled this fall for weekday religious courses. Church officials say the courses are being offered in 3,000 communities in 45 states on a so-called “released time” basis. Children are given time away from public school during school hours to attend religious classes. The enrollment is the largest in the history of the released time program.

Now, it is easy to be misunderstood in the matter of opposition to released time. However, the courts have made it very clear that ours is a system of separation of church and state. It is difficult to see how legally the school authorities can square such released time with the clear intent and spirit of court decisions from the highest court in the land. Some years ago I chided a priest friend of mine with the comment that he couldn’t attract and hold children because of the impelling nature of his message, so he reverted to reliance on the state with its compulsory attendance laws to provide him with guinea pigs on which to operate during the school year. He, good-naturedly, agreed that there was considerable truth in this. The more religion, any religion, relies upon the state to bolster its cause, to that extent it admits the weakness of its appeal and the futility of its mission.

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Castel Gandolfo, Italy: Pope Pius has told doctors they are under a double veto, moral and legal, in the matters of euthanasia, abortion, and contraceptional practices. The pope’s views were submitted in a 5,000-word message to the International Congress of Catholic Doctors meeting at the Hague, Holland. He said medical law could never sanction such practices as euthanasia, abortion, or contraceptives because medical law is subordinated to medical morality, which expresses the moral order. The moral order, he says, is clear on this point. The speech is considered the most important the pope has made on medical topics in many years.

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Millions of Jews the world over observed Yom Kippur during the last week, i.e., the Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the Jewish religious calendar. Yom Kippur began at sundown Friday and ended at sundown Saturday. It is a day of fasting, abstention and prayer, and finds Jews examining their deeds of the past year and seeking forgiveness for their sins.

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For the first time in history church membership in the U.S. has exceeded the 100 million mark. That is nearly two out of every three persons in the country. The National Council of Churches says the total membership includes nearly 58.5 million Protestants, more than 33 million Catholics, and over 5 million persons of the Jewish faith. Eastern Orthodox churches have over 2 million members, while Buddhists and Moslems total nearly 100,000. Translating these figures into percentages, the report states that almost 61 percent of Americans belong to churches, the highest on record.

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In the not-too-distant future, a delegation of U.S. Christian youth may visit Russia to exchange views with church young people in the Soviet Union. The proposal for such an exchange of visits between youth of the two countries was made recently by the nation’s Protestant youth organizations at Williams Bay, Wisconsin. The representatives said one purpose of such a trip would be to learn what Christian youth and students in Russia are doing to manifest their beliefs in Christianity.

Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Merger of the Congregational Christian churches has been approved unanimously by delegates to the Tenth Triennial General Synod of the Evangelical and Reformed Church. The newly formed organization will be known as the United Church of Christ and will have some 2 million members. It will be the sixth largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. The action culminates a 16-year movement toward union between the two denominations.

At the same conference, a minimum salary of $4,000 a year has been proposed for some two thousand ministers and executives of the VA Evangelical and Reformed Church. That salary is $400 above the current income.

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Lake Junaluska, North Carolina: An Australian clergyman has told delegates to the World Methodist Conference that the Church must provide salvation for a world reeling from threats of war, racial strains, and economic changes. The Reverend Harold Wood told the 2,500 delegates form 70 countries that the Church must proclaim the Gospel to a world which has almost lost hope. Only the Church, he said, can provide the liberation and salvation that are needed.

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Vatican City: Vatican sources say Catholics have full liberty of opinion on the question of whether there is life existing on Mars or any other planet in the universe. Although speaking unofficially, theologians say there is nothing categorical in Catholic doctrine on the question. In any case, they add, the plurality of inhabited worlds would present no problem for the dogma of redemption.

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Nice, France: Roman Catholic authorities have called for medical reports to establish whether a miracle occurred in the case of a Communist who reportedly was healed at Lourdes. The Communist, Louis Oliveri, is said to have recovered from paralysis while bathing at the holy shrine. Archbishop of Nice, Paul Remond, said no pronouncement of a cure can be made until doctors have made their report to the verification office at Lourdes. Oliveri said his right side had been paralyzed from a fall from a ladder and a hospital chaplain had suggested he seek a cure at the shrine at Lourdes.

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In Denver, Dr. J.H. Jackson of Chicago again has been named to the presidency of the National Baptist Convention.

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A mood like a tearful twilight, but also like the fresh lilt of sunrise is pervading Jewish homes and synagogues. It is an extraordinary sense of reverence born of the Jewish spiritual new year. Observance began Wednesday evening and will continue until next Saturday evening. The president of the Rabbinical Council of America, Rabbi Solomon Sharfman, defines it as a time of spiritual regeneration. The celebrants join their voices in prayer and psalms, such as, “I will lift mine eyes unto the hills….” Jewish tradition holds that before God will pardon a transgression, the sinner must first seek the forgiveness of the person who has been wronged and try to right the wrong.

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The new National Chaplain of the American Legion is the Reverend Bernard Gerdon of Indianapolis. Father Gerdon was a Roman Catholic chaplain in World War II and in the Korean fighting. He was elected at the Legion’s final convention session at Los Angeles on Thursday.

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The director of the information center of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City says Communism will never undermine the Christian church. The Reverend Charles McManus says Christians must be honest in expressing their own spiritual worth. What the Communists do not understand, continues father McManus, is that God had redeemed us and uses us to carry out his policy and program. The remarks were made to the more than 400 lay and clerical workers of the New York Catholic charities at their annual Day of Recollection service.

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One item in the week’s news recalled to mind that this reporter dealt with the same subject some months ago, and in this year of elections, it might be well to think seriously on it was we are besieged from both sides to support this or reject that. The subject is the question of what is happening to the family farm, and where do we as a people want to go in the matter of our farming pattern. To put it bluntly, there are two alternatives: to let things go on as they are, and the family farm as known historically in America will disappear, to be replaced by the tractor in the field, huge farm corporations controlled by capitalists and managed from executive offices in the cities, and farmed by hired help who spend little if any other than their working hours on the soil.

Now it is easy to indulge in bucolic nostalgia and revere the family farm as an element of our past, and to do so wholly without regard to the march of mechanization in agriculture. On the other hand, it is undeniably true that the huge surpluses we hear about today are largely the creation of the giant corporate farms, not the result of the activities of the family-sized farm. Furthermore, the family farm contributed something to human values that the corporate farm cannot. First there was, of course, the family security felt by the farmer as he realized that he lived within an economic framework that would provide him and his the necessities of life. Second, there was the constructive, creative satisfaction he and is family received by seeing concretely the result of their efforts in managing the soil, planting crops, nurturing them to maturity, and harvesting the results. And third, but by no means least, farming was not only a way of making a living, it was a way of living at life, and there is little doubt that the farm family felt in a way that they were partners with the Creator in utilizing natural forces to produce foodstuffs to sustain human life.

Perhaps few of us would go so far as the speaker at the Catholic Rural Life Conference did a few years ago when he declared that the farmer’s is a dedicated calling, as much as is the minister who is called to serve the spiritual needs of humanity, but there is little doubt that the framework of farm living encouraged, inculcated, and nourished a set of values that find no counterpart in non-rural living.

Well, as a people, what do we want to do about it? Neither party offers anything in the way of discouraging the trend toward fewer and larger farms and the concentration of land ownership and management in fewer and fewer hands. The two differ only in how much parity they will advocate. Neither offers anything suggesting the use of governmental efforts to encourage more widespread farm ownership for young people who wish to make careers of farming. As one humorist recently put it, farm population is declining because the farmer’s daughter moved to town to get a job, and the farmer’s son had to move to town to get a date. A lot more farmers moved to town because they decided to follow their profits.

Politicians throughout our history have given lip service to the nobility of the farmer’s calling, but few have done very much to ennoble that calling, and now it looks as if the time is not far distant when the small farmers, as Mr. Benson recently put it, will be plowed under and family farm life will be only something our children will read about in history books. When that is true, the homely but sound virtues spawned by family farm living will doubtless be transferred to the textbooks also. So, we can do either or a combination of three things. 1. Set forces in motion to stimulate and encourage ownership and operation of farms of family size; 2. Take the attitude that nothing can or need be done about it, which seems to be what we are doing now; 3. Decide that we want large-scale agriculture and set forces in motion to speed up the process of concentration of ownership and management. Whatever we do, whole scales of human values and human satisfaction will be involved.

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Last Sunday I devoted a major portion of the time on this program to a consideration of the integration debacle at Clinton, Tennessee. Little need be added, I take it, to relate what has happened since. Sturgis, Kentucky, and a nearby community seem to be repeating much the same picture as did Clinton and Oliver Springs. However, something new has been added in the form of a statement that emerged from the President’s news conference on Wednesday of this week. When asked about his attitude toward use of federal force if necessary to uphold the law, the President took refuge in a statement that is entirely true, but leaves us about where we were before the question was asked. His words are, “It is difficult through law and through force to change a man’s heart … but I do believe that we must all, regardless of our calling, help to bring about a change in spirit so that extremists on both sides do not defeat what we know as a reasonable, logical conclusion to this whole affair, which is recognition of equality of men….”

Now nobody can object to this statement. Certainly changing attitudes, or spirits, or whatever you want to call them, is a major problem in dealing with the question of integration. However, the President did not declare himself on or even recognize the fact that what Clinton and Sturgis are dealing with is behavior resulting from attitudes. We may not change people’s hearts by force, but behavior is something overt that can be controlled, and that is what the National Guard contingents in the two states are at their present locations for. Furthermore, behavior that violates this law is violation of a federal law, and while this reporter is a staunch believer in states rights, he also believes that the national rights of the individual citizens are paramount to the prejudiced behavior of citizens who would deprive him of those rights. The President’s statement, while true and admirable, tells us nothing of where the administration stands on the matter. Veritably, the so-called middle-of-the-road is getting crowded these days, by non-committers in both parties.

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A final item deals with a column by a syndicated writer this week who urges school teachers not to be “justa,” going on to defining “justa” as the reply that is often received when a teacher is asked her occupation, to the effect that she is “justa” teacher. The writer goes on, “I urge them to take pride in the wonderful profession to which they are devoting their lives. They deal with children and have unlimited opportunities for molding human character and implanting ideals.”

Well, all true enough. But many teachers are getting pretty bored with hearing all this. We know it already, and repeating it will not help much. As to whether teaching is a profession is a matter of how one defines profession. From this reporter’s viewpoint, it hardly rates as one. Many of us teach for three reasons:

1. We like the kind of work entailed: study, reflective thought, organization, presentation of materials.
2. It affords us a living, of a sort, though the layman has little if any idea of the demands made upon the teacher in many ways, simply because he is a teacher, and those demands far outweigh the scope of the salary of the average teacher.
3. We have faith in the possibility of people, through learning, to learn not only to make a better living but also to live better lives.

Maybe you can think of other reasons, but boiled down, those seem to this reporter, who has spent many years in the classroom, to about cover the subject. Personally, I don’t care much for the missionary preaching that is handed out to teachers about the nobility of our calling. We already know all about that for we’ve heard it hundreds of times, many times extended to us in lieu of salary increases. Maybe I’m ill-adjusted, but I guess I’m just a teacher.

 

First, a potpourri of religion in the week’s news as reported by United and Associated Press services.

A 12-day World Methodist Conference opened yesterday at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina. Delegates and visitors from 70 nations are attending. The conference is sponsored by the World Methodist Council which represents about 18 million Methodists. Bishop Ivan Lee Holt, of St. Louis, the council president, calls this conference the biggest international gathering of Methodists ever held. The World Conference itself was organized in 1881 and last met in the United States in 1947. It is not expected to meet again in this country for some 15 or 20 years.

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From Washington it is announced that Pope Pius has relocated ecclesiastical boundaries and established two new dioceses in Missouri. The dioceses of Kansas City and St. Joseph have been united under archbishop of Kansas City, Edwin V. O’Hara. Former bishop of St. Joseph, the Most Rev. Charles H. Blond has been transferred to a new titular see. A new Diocese of Jefferson City was established with the Most Rev. Joseph M. Marlin as first bishop.

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At sundown this coming Wednesday start the 10 holiest days in the Jewish year. They are the High Holy Days, begun with Rosh Hashanah in the spiritual new year, not the festive one. The latter – Simhath Torah – comes 23 days later, and is known as the rejoicing of the law. Rosh Hashanah in reality marks the creation of the world for the Jews, and as such marks the year 5171 in Jewish history. Messages and statement issued by Jewish leaders and civic groups throughout the world, anticipating Rosh Hashanah, have stressed hope for peace and freedom. For example, the Rabbinical Council of America has pleaded for peace and international cooperation.

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The National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. notes American churches will observe Labor Day in services for the 47th year. The council says in its annual Labor Sunday message that the U.S. seems to be enjoying widespread prosperity at the moment. It also states unemployment is still a threat in many communities. The Protestant church group further declares Christians cannot ignore the economic and moral issues involved in the effect on the U.S. economy of such proposals as those caring for workers during unemployment. The council sees it as the church’s task always to uphold the ethical principles and Christian values that are to be applied even to complicated economic and industrial situations.

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Tomorrow the General Synod of the Evangelical and Reformed Church is to vote on authorization of a unifying general session with the Congregational Christian Church. Approval for the union is expected in Cleveland next year. Even so, the Evangelical and Reformed Church proposes to carry out a new three-year “program of advance,” as it puts it. After the uniting session, a new constitution would have to be written and then adopted by the newly merged groups, which would have the name “United Church of Christ.” The three-year advance program includes establishment of some 100 new churches in North America, recruiting 200,000 new members, and training some 200 new missionaries and overseas workers. The church now has about 2,800 congregations in 34 states, and about 750,000 members. The Tenth Triennial Session of the Synod is being held in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, one of the very early strongholds of the Reformed Church in America.

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The Vatican says that more than 1 million Poles have given evidence of continued Roman Catholic strength in Communist Poland. It adds that many attended recent ceremonies honoring the Virgin Mary. The observers marked the 300th anniversary of the proclamation of the Virgin as “Queen of the Polish People.” Pope Pius has wired his blessing of the gathering.

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Within the past week we have seen here in Tennessee, at Clinton, the origination and development of a situation that is depressing, disgusting, and disturbing. It all began when a dozen colored pupils were admitted to the local high school as a beginning of compliance with a court order for integration in education with all deliberate speed. As in almost every other situation where incidents have occurred over integration, the center of the disturbance is outsiders. One, a John Kasper from Washington, D.C., is apparently a professional agitator. His real motive is not entirely clear, but it is highly likely that he hopes to swim in the waters that he is doing his best to keep troubled. As his activities began to receive more and more publicity, members of the White Citizens Council of Alabama rushed into the already uncertain situation, and took up where Kasper was forced to leave off after a contempt of court citation. There is little if any evidence that a crisis of any kind would have occurred if outsiders, and this includes local residents who are not going to school, as well as those out of state, had not intruded themselves into the situation.

But, like the proverbial snowball, once the emotional jag started rolling, it became larger and more dangerous, until by the end of the week the situation was described by the Associated Press as “tense”, “a mob of feverish pitch,” and the like. Cars have been stopped, people molested, property has been destroyed, and houses have been broken into. It appears that school authorities are standing firm, but such statement can hardly be made regarding assistance requested from the state government in Nashville. [Governor] Clement called out National Guard.

Well, what’s it all about anyway? The whole thing rests on the mistaken assumption of this idea of racial superiority, for which Hitler and company were famous – or infamous. It assumes that a person, because of his race, and because of that one factor alone, is superior in all ways to an individual of another race. But what is this thing called “race” anyway? The truth is that nobody knows. Anthropologists would like to expunge the word from our vocabulary, for it has no precise scientific meaning. But since it is a word that is used popularly and widely, albeit loosely, they try to define it as simply saying it refers to a grouping of the human race who have certain physical, inheritable qualities that passed on to offspring through the process of conception.

But, they hasten to point out, quite rightly, that even taking the three great racial groups – Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid – there are more similarities among individuals of different groups than there are differences. All have the same bodily structure, there are no physiological differences among members of the various groups as to cultural potentialities, that is, an American of white, Anglo-Saxon parentage, reared from birth by a Chinese family, would be culturally just as much Chinese as would an individual of Mongoloid parents.

Moreover, and this is vitally important to keep in mind, there is simply no such thing as a “pure” race today. The ancestry of all peoples is mixed. To illustrate, let me recall for you that in the eighth century Charles Martel drove the Moors – Negroes – south of the Pyrenees, out of France and into Spain. In the process, several hundred Moors were taken captive back into France. There they were at first slaves, but the easy-going Gallic nature of the Frenchman soon permitted those captives their freedom, and finally full rights within the social order. During the course of history these Moorish people have disappeared through merging with their much more numerous white neighbors, and today, many of us who claim to be pure white, though of French descent, might well ask ourselves if it is not possible, even likely, that some of the blood coursing through our veins may have been contributed by our Moorish ancestors. To me that is not a matter for emotional disturbance, it is simply a fact of history. But perhaps the emotionally aroused mobs of Clinton do not know or want to know much history.

If they looked at our own history in this country, they would recognize that it is in the South, where laws and other artificial barriers of all kinds have been set up to keep the races apart, that the most racial mixing has occurred. And this mixing has gone on despite laws, or other factors.

But to what does all this add up as far as “Religion in the News” is concerned? Well, maybe it is easy for me to oversimplify an admittedly complicated phenomenon, but it is difficult for me to see how one can believe in a god who is the father of us all, and yet makes some of us better than others simply because of a minor difference in skin color, or other unimportant detail. Integration, not only in education, but in every aspect of our lives, has been a challenge to the churches long, long before there was any Supreme Court decision on the matter. One wonders, naturally enough, how comfortable the racial supremacists could or will be in the infinite beyond if they find around them members of another racial group. Not only is integration the law of the land, it is a challenging practical situation where men of good will of whatever faith have an opportunity to put the principles we preach so much about to work in our own community.

Christ’s concern began and ended with the individual. Race, color, national origin, made no difference to him. The woman of Samaria, outcast though she was in the eyes of “respectable” Jews, was as precious to him – perhaps more so – than the canting, hypocritical pharisee. The penitent thief on the cross received assurance that Pilate, with all his earthly pomp, could not get.

America has been built and made great and strong by many peoples of all lands and races. Even our language is a hybrid composed of borrowings from about all the languages of the world. The American Indian contributed immensely to our knowledge of the land, new foods which are with us today, staples that our pre-Columbian forbears never heard of; the Chinese blasting his way through the Sierra Nevada Mountains to help build the First Continental Railway; the Italian laborer in the mines and the mills; the German, Swedish, Russian pioneers who wrung a civilization from the wilderness; the Jew who peddled his wares from door to door, providing a service badly needed by the people of earlier America; and so on down – or up – it goes. A complete catalog of those who helped make America what it is today cannot be compiled.

Here, out of diversity, we have been continually working toward unity with diversity. Our declaration of principles in 1776 said “all men,” not just “some.” The Bill of Rights and the rest of our Constitution make no allusion to racial differences. But as a people we have been marching, though not always steadily, toward a realization of the principle that certain rights should be shared by all, and these include the traditional freedoms of speech, religion, etc., and the right to equality in education. Perhaps we shall never fully attain our goal of equal justice for all, but if we ever reach the place where we stop struggling toward it, we shall become another kind of social order.

This kind of equality does not force anyone to become personal associates with anyone who has undesirable characteristics. We whites make all sorts of distinctions among our acquaintances. Some whites we know we do not care to be around or associate with at all. Your and my children going to school have their own preferences among their class and school mates. There is no enforced equality in the classroom other than that minimum necessary for the common welfare of all in seeking better learning conditions. So there is no point in waxing emotional over the idea of more than one race occupying the same classroom.

Certain it is that the program of integration is one that calls for calm, rational thinking, not emotional outbursts of indignation. It is also a program that is going to demand in every community the support of straight-thinking citizens who believe in the essence of American democracy, i.e., the dignity and rights of the individual, regardless of his color or race. It is difficult to see how religion of the Christian variety can be squared with any other concept.

 

Religious tolerance has long been a part of our American tradition, in precept if not always in practice. Perhaps not too much credit should be given to us for this, for it has been a matter of expediency and even necessity as much as, perhaps more than, any inherent broad-mindedness on our part. It has been a necessity because we are of such diverse religious groupings that all have recognized that an attack on one today may presage an assault on another tomorrow, with the end result that each one fears the chain reaction of such discrimination may in the end result in its being the object.

However, there is considerable evidence that some of the worst religious bigotry with respect to public officials at least is waning. As reported here some weeks a recent Gallup poll indicated that religious affiliation with the Catholic Church, per se, would not be nearly as great a handicap as it was in 1928 when Al Smith lost several Southern states largely because of his religious conviction.

In the recent Chicago political convention, it was remarkable the way the Southern state delegates backed Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a Catholic, for the vice presidency. Granted that there was more than lack of religious prejudice here – in fact there was a great deal of political prejudice against one of the other candidates – it is still encouraging to note that the climate of religious tolerance has changed so drastically in the years since 1928 that it is difficult to think back and re-create the angry atmosphere that existed then. So, little by little, we let bitter controversy yield to patient persuasion and common sense. It may not be too much to hope that in the near future we can progress from mere religious tolerance to religious respect, for most of us are not content simply to be tolerated; we want to be respected also.

Well, the two national conventions are over, choices have been made, the captains and the would-be kings depart, and both the Stock Yards and the Cow Palace can now be turned over to their usual usages. All of the hoopla that went on is part of our American tradition, though it is highly speculative whether the flowery speeches, the pointing with pride and the viewing with alarm, did much to change anyone’s mind. Each party tried to brainwash us into believing that only it could save the country from dire results. That is, of course, rankest nonsense. Both promised that campaigning this year would stick to the high road; that smears, gutter tactics would not be used. It will be interesting to watch how, or whether, either or both keep this pledge. It is more than a good guess that as the campaign waxes hotter, deterioration of its level will set in.

As to platforms, there is little difference in the two as to semantics. Both are phrased, as usual, in such a way that most of them can be logically interpreted in almost any way. Hence, they can mean everything or nothing, depending upon your own interpretation. All this, of course, leaves us about where we started, except that four men are offering themselves for the two highest offices in the land. Your and my job as voters is to study carefully the performance of all four; to weigh what they say with how they have performed in the past. Pretty speeches that sound good mean little unless they square with what has gone before, or we have good reason to believe the speakers will live up to what they are saying. Here is your and my job cut out for us, to inform ourselves, think, listen, watch, and do our best, both mentally and physically to bring about the election of the persons whom we are convinced will honestly carry into practice the principles and values which we as voters hold. Upon how well we do that depends the future of our democratic system. Only we can fail now.

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An item that is hardly news, in the sense of recency, but which merits thoughtful attention because it strikes at the very root of our system of things, is the attack upon the Chief Justice of the United States by at least two malcontents who disagreed with a Supreme Court decision that held it was not the intent of Congress to make government employees in non-sensitive positions subject to summary dismissal because of security reasons.

In the first place, Warren did not write the decision; Justice Harlan did. In the second place, Congress could, should it choose, amend the law to apply security provisions to non-sensitive positions. But facts have little effect on people whose minds are already made up and who cannot brook any opinion or decision with which they disagree. Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, a Republican, said that he did not accuse Chief Justice Warren of being a communist, “but there is something radically wrong with him. In the communist book, Earl Warren is a hero.”

Not to be outdone by his Republican colleague, Democrat – not democratic – Senator Eastland said, “I’m not accusing him of being a Party member, but he takes the same position they do when he says the Communist Party is just another political party.” Again, Mr. Warren did not say this last. Probably no other American understands better than Warren the conspiratorial nature of the Communist Party and its threat to democracy.

But look at the two statements. The Founding Fathers worked out in meticulous detail a three-branch system of government. Each is coordinate with the other two. Warren underwent careful scrutiny by the Senate before he was confirmed for his present position, and he was confirmed without a dissenting vote. Nobody who knows the facts about the many facets of his career could by the most fantastic stretch of the imagination conceive him to be anything but an American who believes implicitly and explicitly in the democratic process. Those who impugn the motives and character of any citizen without cause does violence to that process. And it is no credit to those who smear citizens by saying, “He may not be a communist but…” The mere association of one’s name with the Moscow conspirators is enough, in the eyes of the unthinking, to brand one’s loyalty and good citizenship as questionable. It is almost, if not quite, as bad as bearing false witness. Anyone who has violated the law deserves to be punished after conviction under due process; until such has been done, he has the right to be presumed innocent. And that goes for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court as well as for the lowliest citizen among us.

One of the things about which we often chide our politicians is their lack of consistency, and quite often they are inconsistent. However, no instance of American history comes to mind in which our own political figures were so inconsistent as have been those of Russia in recent months. It was only three short years ago in March that the Premier Malenkov, Deputy Premier Beria, and Foreign Minister Molotov were delivering eulogistic orations at the funeral of “good old Joe” Stalin.

Beria has since died of lead in the head and the other two face the twilight of political obscurity if not extinction. Reports are that Bulganin and Khrushchev were silent on the occasion of the funeral. However, the others made up for it. Malenkov said Stalin’s “works will live forever. His name ranks with the greatest men in the history of mankind – Marx, Engels, and Stalin.” Beria chimed in with his “Our party now closes its ranks. It is united and invincible. Great Stalin left us a legacy that will be treasured as the pupil of one’s eye.” While Molotov, not to be outdone, asserted that “This infinitely dear man will live in our hearts forever. The fame of his great works for the good and happiness of the workers of the whole world will live through the ages…” – and thus it went.

Bulganin and Khrushchev now spit on the corpse of the man who was their leader in crimes unspeakable. They rose to high office as members of the Soviet cabinet only by the will and approval of the man they now say they despised. Brave lads? They say they were helpless to speak while Stalin lived. Yet millions of Russians went to death or Siberia because they did resist the living Stalin. One cannot help but wonder how long the brave Russian people will follow these now self-convicted cowards.

And while on the subject of Russia, it might be observed that the Jehovah’s Witnesses sect, with 600,000 members in 160 countries, is circulating a petition containing two resolutions directed to the powers-that-be in the Kremlin. One resolution requests permission for a delegation of witnesses to visit Moscow to discuss the status of church members in more than 50 slave labor camps. The resolution contains documented accounts of communist mistreatment of witnesses. The other resolution requests Bulganin to set free some 9,000 members of the denomination now imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain. The resolution declares that “We can do nothing else but inform the world about Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russian prisons, penal damps and deportation centers, but we would prefer to be able to tell the world that the government of Russia has ordered witnesses to be freed to work as free citizens and live a calm and quiet life which they believe to be in harmony with “the precepts of their faith.”

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It was the Scotch poet Burns who uttered the oft-quoted phrase “O wud some power the giftie gie us, to see ourselves as others see us.” Well, we got a brief glimpse of something of that sort in the remarks of two English clergymen recently visiting this country under the auspices of the National Council of Churches and the British Council of Churches. Christianity, they found here, is a bit overwhelming to them. One remarked that he wondered whether the church in America is not somewhat frightened by this boom in religion. He went on, “The fantastic interest in church building, church attendance, and education is a strange, alarming phenomenon about which we must not be cynical. It is difficult for people in the United Kingdom not to be cynical about it. Each of us has much to learn and much to contribute …” While his colleague summed up his impression by saying that “It seems to me that there is a great deal of vigor, vim, and virility in American life, which expresses itself in devotion to a competitive free economy. The same spirit, I have a suspicion, displays itself, at least in the externals, in the religious sphere, which to an Englishman seems rather odd at times. On the lighter side, for example, I recall an advertisement which began, “Is any church air-conditioned cool as…?” and members of the congregation were invited to share the delights of an iced fruit drink after the service. The U.S. minister seems to feel he is in a competitive world where other loyalties attract, and that he must ‘sell’ religion…. I have been very impressed with the consequent emphasis on ‘plant,’ on technical efficiency, on grading in Sunday school work … with the willingness of lay people to accept responsibility in terms of finance and service.” This reporter made essentially the same remarks about the current scene some months ago, to which some of you listeners, and quite rightly so if you felt that way about it, took exception.

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There has been a great deal in the press in recent days about the after-effects of the steel strike just settled. The workers won a 3-year contract with a boost in wages that will enable them, partly at least, to keep pace with the increased cost of living. Now the steel companies have announced an advance in the price of steel to the tune of some $8 or $10, and the howl that has appeared in the news articles and editorial columns would have one believe that the unions were somehow united in a conspiracy to fleece the American people by demanding exorbitant wages with which to house, feed, clothe, and educate their children. Is it not strange that nothing is said about the real agency responsible for pushing this added cost onto the American public, that is, the operators? The fact is that the steel companies, along with other giants, like General Motors, e.g., have consistently shown higher and higher net profits after taxes and all other expenses have been met, these last 3 or 4 years. According to their own published statements, they are in no sense in financial straits. Yet, in order to keep their profit margin exceptional, and perhaps to disparage labor unions in the eyes of the public, they would have that public believe that they must raise the price of their product to meet rising labor costs. That is only half-truth, and there is a certain degree of morality here, for blame should be assessed at the point of responsibility for it, and that point in this case is the steel companies. Could it be that the newspapers follow along with this line of persuasion because steel companies are more profitable advertisers than are either the unions or the general public?

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During the next two weeks the two major parties will be holding their usual quadrennial conventions. In both Chicago and San Francisco millions of words will be spoken and will be channeled into our homes via radio and television. All these words will be designed to catch and hold the fancy of the greatest possible number of voters. Much of what is said, written, and done will be so much eyewash to catch the unwary, but all of us as voters should take what is going on seriously. Four candidates are to be selected, two of whom we shall elect in November to guide the destiny of this nation for the next four years. As voters, we have a solemn responsibility to listen and read carefully what is said, to study just as carefully the contenders in the coming campaign, to try to understand issues, to appraise the candidates, not only in what they say but in what they have previously said and done. We have a right to expect the two parties to take stands on fundamental issues that are sufficiently different that we voters, when we go into the polling booths in November, will be confronted with real choices instead of choice between Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Only in this way can there be a real functioning of our two-party system which is so much a part of our American way of life. We as voters cannot evade our responsibilities; the parties should not be permitted to avoid their own either.

 

 

Vatican City: The machinery of the church is moving slowly to beatify Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val, who died in 1930. He was secretary of state to Pope Pius X, 1903-1914. The proceedings so far have reached the stage at which the Holy Congregation of Rites has approved the cardinal’s writings.

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Vienna: For the first time in history, an important international conclave was held on communist soil during the past week. The meeting was that of the 90-member central committee of the World Council of Churches. The committee met in a village in Red Hungary. The theme of the meeting was “Proselytizing and Religious Liberty.” Delegates from churches in all the communist countries, including Red China, were present, along with those delegates from the Western, democratic countries.

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New York: Two New York rabbis returned from a trip to Russia and satellite countries saying that Jews in Poland and Czechoslovakia are not better off than those in Russia. Rabbi Harold Gordon and Rabbi Israel Mowshowitz said in both countries there are severe limitations on Jewish cultural activities. And in Czechoslovakia where the salaries of rabbis are paid by the state, the synagogues, like the Christian churches, are more and more coming under the iron control of Red politicians.

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Frankfurt, Germany: An American minister says Russian Baptists who recently visited America were sadly disappointed because they found American women too worldly. The Rev. R.J. Smith of the Church of Christ recently returned to Frankfurt after a 10-day visit to Russia where he met the Baptist leaders who visited America. They told him they were shocked that women in America smoked, used lipstick, and had other worldly ways. In the Soviet Union, devout Baptists do not drink or smoke and the women use no cosmetics. Mr. Smith said the Soviet government gave him encouragement in his plan to get visas for ministers of the Church of Christ to visit Russia.

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New York: The Brotherhood of the United Lutheran Church in America may change its name to The Lutheran Church Men. The change will be proposed at the biennial convention at Kitchener, Ontario, September 20- 22. The idea is to get a more modern and inclusive name. For example, the women’s auxiliary of the church which once was known as the “Women’s Missionary Society” now calls itself “The United Lutheran Church Women.”

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Atlanta: Pope Pius has divided the state of Georgia into two Catholic dioceses. The Most Rev. Francis Hyland, who has been auxiliary bishop of the Atlanta-Savannah Diocese since 1949, becomes bishop of the new Diocese of Atlanta. Archbishop Gerald O’Hara continues as head of the Diocese of Savannah. The new Atlanta Diocese will comprise 70 counties.

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The first U.S. Roman Catholic priest to enter Russia as a tourist is due to arrive in Leningrad today. He is the Rev. Walter C. Jaskiewicz, director of the Institute of Contemporary Russian Studies of Fordham University, in the Bronx, New York. Father Jaskiewicz, a Jesuit, speaks and reads Russian fluently. He considers it always profitable to test the value of theoretical knowledge against reality. And he adds his 30-day visit to the Soviet Union will be in the nature of practical checks within the limits of feasibility. The Fordham educator will visit, among other Russian cities, Riga, Leningrad, Kiev, Odessa, Yalta, Tiflis, Kharkov, and Moscow. No Catholic priest has been in Moscow since March of last year. That was when the Rev. George Bissonnette was expelled as chaplain of the U.S. colony there.

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Reports of greatly improved treatment of six U.S. Catholic missionaries in Red Chinese jails leads to a church opinion that they may be released soon. The Catholic newsletter of Hong Kong says the Americans are getting special food, apparently in an effort to remove signs of prison life. The publication got the information from a British subject recently released from a Chinese Communist prison.

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A U.S. rabbi recently returned from Russia says he used Yiddish newspapers printed in the U.S. to set up contact with Jews in the Soviet Union. Rabbi George Lieberman of Rockville Centre, Long Island, adds he read the publications in the lobby of his hotel or carried them conspicuously when he attended a theater. He relates some Jews approached him openly. Others sought him surreptitiously to get information. They made appointments to meet him in subways or parks or on the steps of libraries. Then the American and the Russian would sit side by side and talk, each with his face buried in a newspaper. Rabbi Lieberman says the Russian Jews were much interested in news about Jews. But he adds they had astonishingly poor knowledge of recent developments.

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The new head of a group placing Bibles in hotels is P.J. Zondervan of Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was elected president of Gideons International at the organization’s recent annual convention in Atlanta. Mrs. Clarence Haan of Chicago has been chosen president of the Gideons Auxiliary.

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The young peoples’ organization of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, has voted to set up a preparation program for young persons entering military life. The plan of the Walther League is based on the belief that too many church young people are spiritually and morally unprepared for what the young Missouri Lutherans term the temptations of military life. The secretary of the league, the Rev. Alfred P. Klausler of Chicago, has told the league’s convention that the problem is part of parish youth programs. He explains potential service people are in church youth ranks until they are 17. The Rev. Mr. Klausler, who is a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, says it is the church’s responsibility to prepare the draftee for his life in the service. The delegates to the Ames, Iowa, meetings have decided, among other things, that young people at home will keep in touch with absentee members in the service.

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The North Carolina legislature has just adjourned after passing a series of administration-backed bills aimed at meeting the segregation issue in the public schools. The lawmakers were called into special session last Monday by Governor Hodges and presented with the bills embodying the recommendations of a special committee on education set up by the 1955 assembly to study ways and means of circumventing the law. These bills provide for amendments to the state constitution to (1) allow the states to pay private tuition grants to parents who object to their children attending mixed schools; and (2) authorize local school boards to close their schools by majority vote of the people when “intolerable” conditions occur. It will be interesting to see what happens.

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Some weeks ago this reporter was kidded somewhat freely for saying on this program that there was no likelihood of the school aid bill getting any action this session. Well, “I told you so’s” are fairly hollow in the face of a failure on the part of our elected representatives to face up to a moral issue and provide for the education of our growing children. But Congress has adjourned, the school aid bill died in committee, and nothing will be done on the part of the federal government at least until next session to provide aid so badly needed. In the meantime, both Democrats and Republicans will go back to their respective states and districts and each will blame the other for failure of the school bill. Just remember this, whatever those politicians say: both are to blame. It would have taken support of both to pass it, and neither can morally blame the other more than he can blame himself.

Other unfinished items on the Congressional agenda include such items as the civil rights measure. There the Democrats must take the blame, for while Republicans probably gleefully maneuvered the bill into the Senate knowing that undemocratic Democrat Sen. Eastland’s committee on the judiciary would not let it get out of that body, had the Democrats been in favor of passage, it would have taken place. It is something of a sad commentary on the term “Democrat” that one calling himself so would prohibit passage of a bill that would have simply safeguarded for all citizens, regardless of race or color, those rights which he demands for himself. There is no excuse for the behavior of the Eastlands. Their very actions make their oath to support the Constitution close to perjury, for they swear to uphold the Constitution, then proceed to subvert it by refusing to enact legislation to carry into effect the clear decisions of the Supreme Court interpreting that Constitution.

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Left unfinished also is action on the pernicious Walter-McCarran Immigration Bill, a statute that both Democrat Stevenson and Republican Eisenhower pledged themselves to revise. The statute, and if you have not read it, I urge that you do so, clearly militates against certain nationalities and religious groups. All of this is understandable if you understand its authors, both self-styled Democrats, who wrote into the law of the land discriminatory doctrines that are in spirit, if not in letter, alien to the clear implication not only for our tradition as a people but to the declared meaning of our Constitution itself.

There is more than mere comment involved in all this. We the people have a right to expect honest and forthright action by our representatives on matters on which they declared themselves at the time they asked for our confidence at the polls. It is like welshing on a bet, backing down on a promise. In essence, it is bearing false witness, and voters should take these matters into account when they are asked to support those who failed miserably to live up to what they promised two, four, and six years ago.

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Debunking is a healthy and somewhat time-honored American tradition. Americans generally take a dim view of pretension and affectation, whether it be intellectual or moral. They often correctly suspect that the high-flown phrase is without substance. As the late Will Rogers said in the early 1930s, “Maybe ‘ain’t’ ain’t so correct, but I notice that lots of folks who ain’t using ‘ain’t’ ain’t eatin.” Well, bad grammar will not make a false statement true, or a true statement false, nor is it the hallmark of character or wisdom. Why, then, do so many Americans take so much delight in ridiculing the professor? Maybe it is because we take pride in being what we call ourselves, “practical people.” We ask not, “Is it true?” but “Will it work?” But I’m convinced that the reason is deeper than this somewhat healthy skepticism. A new and sinister element has entered the American attitude toward learning, an attitude springing from a general sense of insecurity and expressing itself in a suspicion that any form of free speculation somehow is aimed at subverting our morals or our institutions. There is nothing intrinsically new about all this. We can recall the Salem witch-hunts of the 17th century; the Know Nothing movement of the 19th and the K.K.K. of a more recent day. Today the attacks come from self-appointed crusaders and vigilante groups who have set up arbitrary criteria by which to judge the loyalty or patriotism of other individuals. Books have been attacked, usually not because all the attackers have read and understand them but because someone has said they are dangerous. The importance of these attacks is that they are aimed not at a creed or a sect or a radical minority or an unpopular belief but at the very principle of tolerance itself, and at the people who have traditionally restored our emotional equilibrium after a period of hysteria – the much-abused intellectual.

A man who has lived with error and has known the difficulty – and the joy – of conquering is not likely to be dogmatic. He will not deny to others the right to seek the truth in their own way, even though he may see pitfalls into which they are bound to stumble. That is why the intellectual is both a doctor for our ills and a defender of our basic liberties. And that is why the forces of intolerance must not succeed. They must not succeed because a single shackle placed upon man’s right to knowledge is a shackle upon truth and upon that freedom that has made this nation great and, God willing, will make it greater. Nearly a hundred years ago, the army of Northern Virginia invaded the state of Maryland, and the commanding general issued a proclamation to the citizens, a few sentences which are worth our attention now:

“No constraint upon your free will is intended – no intimidation will be allowed. Within the limits of this army, at least, Marylanders shall once more enjoy their ancient freedom of thought and speech. We know no enemies among you, and will protect all of every opinion.”

The man who said that was endowed with far more than common military values. Their utterance on the field of battle, in enemy territory, was an act of supreme moral courage and could only have been inspired by a passionate devotion to the highest democratic ideals. Today freedom of thought and expression – man’s right to knowledge and the free use thereof are a part of our American heritage that must be preserved for and handed on to future generations.

 

Sometime ago I indicated that I planned to devote one program before the election to the theme of “The Christian and His Vote.” On August 2, less than a month away, Tennesseans will be going to the polls for the final election of local officials and will vote in the primaries for state and federal officials. Hence, today we shall dispense with the current aspects of religious news and examine a few of the many reasons why Christians especially have a peculiar responsibility for and interest in voting – at least they should have.

Shortly after Hitler’s blood purge in Germany in the 1930s, a group of American teachers and ministers were meeting in the heart of Berlin. An internationally known scholar of the New Testament from the University of Berlin addressed them. The meeting itself was held in his library and upon his instructions the Americans came to it two-by-two so as not to arouse suspicion. While he talked about the prospects of religion under Hitler, an American started taking notes. The face of the German went pale and he said “Don’t do that. You will endanger my life. Destroy what you have written here.”

One minister remarked afterward, “As I watched those men tearing up their notes into tiny pieces and throwing them in the fire, I saw in one moment what democracy ought to mean to us in America.” Under our system here the state is the servant of the people. When, under a dictator, the reverse becomes true, untold evil awaits a nation. The crucial point for us is that wherever tyrants have come to power, they did so in almost every instance because of indifference on the part of the mass of citizens toward their civic responsibilities.”

How do we Americans rate with respect to these responsibilities of ours? Well, in 1880, 78 percent of the eligible citizens in this nation voted. Yet, 60 years later, only 53 percent voted, and in that year, you will recall, two colorful and dynamic figures were the standard-bearers and, until then, the unbroken third-term tradition was at stake. In 1948 our voting percentage dropped to 51 percent, while our record in 1952 was only slightly better. It should be a matter of shame resting upon us as a people, a free people as yet, that so many of us so disregard our heritage that we never take the trouble to vote.

And yet, it would be a mistake to say that the nearly half of us who do not vote are intentionally bad people. Edmund Burke said in this connection that “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” While many Christians and affiliates of other religions stay away from the polls through indifference, gamblers, racketeers, and big time criminals are rounding up their supporters and seeing that they vote.

All this is not merely a political duty resting upon us; it is a religious responsibility to exercise our franchise since democracy as we know it is directly in accord with the Christian teaching of the infinite worth of every human being. Many years ago the Englishman, Lord Bryce wrote, “Religion has ever been the motive power of true democracy,” and adds that no free government can long survive without recognition of moral sanctions. It was the conviction that man belongs, not to the state but to the Creator which motivated the founding fathers in laying a firm and strong political structure of this republic, making it possible for the people to control the state at all times, if they only wish enough to do so.

There is another aspect of our voting behavior, or misbehavior, which should make us shamefaced. We in America, who have been entrusted with such a heritage, find ourselves today the nation that is the foremost advocate of the free way of life, the rallying point of all nations that love liberty. This makes it particularly anomalous that we of all people should sell our birthright for less than a mess of pottage. How can we expect elected officials to take their responsibilities seriously if about half of the electorate is so indifferent to the character of leadership in this nation that they will not even take the trouble to register and vote?

All of us have heard, perhaps sometimes we have said, that politics is corrupt, that government is run by a machine. If so, the responsibility for such corruption lies squarely at the door of every indifferent citizen. The Bible deals with no subject that it does not illumine. This is true in the matter of elections. In the book of Exodus we are told that, on one occasion, Moses was visited by Jethro, his father-in-law. A great crowd of people was waiting for an opportunity to present their case to the lawgiver. Jethro pointed out to his son-in-law the perils of such a situation. “You and the people with you will wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you, and you are not able to perform it alone,” said Jethro. “You must at once elect deputies. They shall be the ruler of thousands and of hundreds and of fifties. Let the people come to them for judgment. Every great matter they shall bring to you, but lesser matters they shall decide for themselves. Now, this is the criterion by which these leaders are to be judged. Provided out of all the people able men such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness, and place such over them.”

The Revised Standard Version puts it more concisely and in more current form by saying, “… choose able men from all the people, such as fear God, men who are trustworthy, and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people.”

This is one of the earliest records in all literature of a free election, and it would be difficult to find a higher standard by which to judge rulers. Note that four qualifications are underscored. [The first is] ability (and for us that should mean ability to do the job for which he hopes to be elected, not whether he can shake hands a certain way). The second criterion is fear of God. The third [is] men who are trustworthy. (What do you know about the candidates for the August election in this respect?) And the fourth: men who hate a bribe.

There is some historical evidence that Alfred the Great, an able monarch who ruled England during the ninth century based his Saxon constitution of sheriffs in the counties on this mosaic example of government set forth in the Bible. It is not impossible that the free institutions of our English-speaking peoples originated in this system of representative government instituted 3,000 years ago. I am aware that if any of my history colleagues are listening, they are probably thinking this is a very flimsy linkage, but it is not impossible, and conceivably may be true.

Rather frequently someone raises the question, “Should religion and politics be mixed?” Before that question is answered, it should be made clear just what is meant by it. Certainly few would argue that a church should become a lobbyist and turn his pulpit into a political rostrum. Religion and politics should not be mixed in such a fashion. If the minister engages actively in politics, acclaiming one specific party, or it he electioneers for one candidate, he is leaving his pulpit to descend into the turmoil of the political arena, using by implication at least authority for political affairs which the church has conferred upon him for religious and spiritual purposes. However, even here it is entirely conceivable that a great moral or spiritual principle may be at stake in an election, and in such case the minister may have a duty to speak out without hesitation and regardless of consequences. All in all, it would seem that the church, as a church, should avoid identifying itself with political programs and platforms, but this does not mean that the members of the church, as citizens should not be individually concerned.

If the question, “Should politics and religion be mixed?” means that the moral influence of religion be infused into political life of the nation, then the answer should be an emphatic “Yes.” No finer standard of judgment could be applied to the candidates in any election than was set forth in the mosaic declaration 3,000 years ago, “Moreover thou shalt choose from all the people able men such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness, and place such over them.” If we are to secure as national, state, and local leaders men who possess these admirable qualities, the people who are entrusted with the use of the ballot must in some measure possess these qualities themselves, or at least have respect and admiration for such qualities. No form of government existing today demands so high a standard of life for its successful continuance as does a democracy. One reason why democratic government has collapsed in many nations is that the moral level of the people was not sufficiently elevated to maintain it. Here we are at the heart and core of the church’s task. If the church fails to nourish a noble life among the citizens of the nation, what other institution can be depended upon to do so?

It is not sufficient merely to proclaim the necessity of high moral standards, for that alone will not be enough to make mean men generous, cruel men kind, greedy men unselfish, or vile men clean. Morality must be under-girded by deep moral convictions, and these convictions must be expressed through practice in being alert, informed, and active citizens, who register and vote and who keep constantly in mind the fourfold standards of judgment which the Bible proposes for leaders – able men, God-fearing, trustworthy, who hate bribery. The whole question is somewhat like the poem contributed by an anonymous person who put it this way:

God give us men a time like this demands;
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor – men who will not lie …
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty and in private thinking.

The Methodist College of Bishops of the Southeastern Jurisdiction have heard this week, in their meeting at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, a prediction that there will be a decrease of radical discrimination in the South and an increase of it in other sections of the country. This forecast was made in a 48-page episcopal address prepared by Bishop William T. Watkins of Louisville, Kentucky, with the approval of the seven other members of the college. In predicting this decline in Southern racial discrimination, the bishops based their statements on the premise that racial relations are governed by the percent of Negro population, and they noted a movement of the Negro away from the South. This, in their report, indicates that as the Negro population thins out in Southern areas and increases in Northern ones, discrimination will thereby shift.

Well, their premise is not always true. Areas with large percentages of population have worked out democratic and satisfactory racial relations, while those with relatively few Negroes have, in some cases, had the most serious discrimination. But the good bishops did not ask for the opinions or information of your reporter.

Methodist memberships have given increasing attention to racial matters since the General Conference in May, at which time there was a proposed amendment to the constitution which would allow integration. The Lake Junaluska conference devoted much time to this. As one dispatch put it, “The change would not mean Negroes will sit side-by-side with whites in Southern churches (though parenthetically, the question might well be raised, why not?), but it could bring about absorption of the single Negro Methodist jurisdiction by the five geographical white divisions. As one bishop asserted, “The doors of racial brotherhood cannot be blasted open.” In comment, it is a sad commentary on the much-mouthed phrase of “Christian brotherhood” that such doors should have been shut in the first place. All men are brothers or they are not, and if that brotherhood cannot find practical expression in religious matters, then there is something wrong with our religion, or with us – and I speak as a Methodist. This is one of the few situations where the issue is clear-cut (I almost used the pun of black and white).

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One of the basic principles in our constitutional system, a principle upon which many of our freedoms rest, including freedom of religion, is the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to due process of law. In the Compulsory Testimony Act of 1954, Congress, upon the recommendation of the attorney general of the United States, in effect amended our Constitution in an unconstitutional way and thereby committed an assault on the conscience and dignity of man. The Compulsory Act says that if a witness is assured that he will not be prosecuted for whatever he may testify to, he cannot then invoke his constitutional right under the Fifth Amendment to testify.

Early in congressional investigations of alleged subversion, witnesses challenged the right of the House Un-American Activities Committee to pry into their political beliefs, basing their refusal to answer on the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of thought, speech, and assembly. They had powerful historical justification for invoking this First Amendment, for as Dr. Alexander Meiklejohn said, this amendment admits of no exceptions. It tells us that Congress and by implication, all other agencies of government are denied any authority whatever to limit the political freedom of the citizens of the U.S. It declares that with respect to political belief, political discussion, political advocacy, political planning, our citizens are sovereign and Congress is their subordinate agent.

Pretty soon, however, congressional committees were no longer recognizing the First Amendment. Screenwriters who became known as the “Hollywood Ten” were cited by the [House ] Un-American [Activities] Committee for contempt, indicted, and convicted. Thus, only the Fifth Amendment remained – to use the words of a former Supreme Court Justice – “as a safeguard against heedless, unfounded and tyrannical prosecutions.”

Subsequent witnesses, equally unwilling to testify as to their political beliefs but preferring to stay out of jail, refused to answer questions under the protection of the Fifth Amendment. Their refusal was sustained by the courts but their victory was a costly one, for political demagogues coined the epithet, “Fifth Amendment Communist,” by which men were adjudged guilty until proven innocent, and this in direct violation of the principles on which our system of justice is founded. For asserting their rights of citizenship and for invoking the Fifth, men stood in danger of summary dismissal from jobs, of the blacklist, expulsion from unions, eviction from housing developments, denial of passport, deportation, and denaturalization.

Dean Erwin N. Griswold of the Harvard Law School, in his carefully reasoned little book entitled 5th Amendment Today, calls that amendment “one of the great landmarks in man’s struggle to make himself civilized.” He gives many reasons as to why a witness should logically, and legally invoke the Fifth Amendment, such as reluctance of a nervous though wholly innocent witness to venture on the stand; the fear of waiver of his rights too soon; and lack of confidence in the proceeding. Is it untoward today to question the good faith of a hearing before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, for example, when a witness already knows that its chairman, Sen. Eastland, though bound by his oath of office to uphold the law of the land, is leading the rebellion against the Supreme Court’s desegregation decision of 1954?

Whatever the reason that prompts a person to seek protection of the Fifth Amendment, his invocation thereof cannot label him a “Fifth Amendment Communist,” for the Supreme Court spoke decisively on this matter in the Slochower case on April 9, 1956, with Mr. Justice Clark reading the majority opinion:

“At the outset we must condemn the practice of imputing sinister meaning to the exercise of a person’s constitutional right under the Fifth Amendment. The right of an accused person to refuse to testify, which had been in England merely a rule of evidence, was so important to our forefathers that they raised it to the dignity of a constitutional enactment, and it has been recognized as ‘one of the most valuable prerogatives of the citizen.’”

Yet, the amendment, as a bulwark, has been weakened against political inquisition by the Compulsory Testimony Act. This act is the brainchild of the late Senator McCarren, who likewise spawned the Internal Security Act and the Walter-McCarran Immigration Act. Under the Compulsory Testimony Act, a witness faces grim choices: He may maintain silence and go to jail for contempt; or he may take, what is to many the odious way, of informing on the political beliefs of his associates and thereby sacrifice his own conscience and dignity. Whatever his course, he risks perjury. And this risk is particularly bad when a witness undertakes to answer questions concerning events 10 to 25 years in the past. Two witnesses who did testify freely in 1948, Remington and Hiss, were later convicted of perjury in trials whose outcome left a legacy of great doubt as to American jurisprudence.

What has all this to do with religion in the news? Everything. IF the Constitution can be twisted in order to get at, today, those whom some believe to be enemies to our way of life, it can, tomorrow, be twisted to discriminate against others, whether they be political or religious dissenters. Which, one may ask from a moral point of view, are the real subversives? Those who advocate undemocratic doctrines and do so within the framework of our constitutional system, or those who take solemn oaths, and this applies to Republicans and Democrats alike, to uphold the Constitution, and then proceed to subvert it under the cloak of saving that which they thereby subvert?

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Another item in the news that reflects something of an inconsistency in our thinking about ourselves in connection with other peoples involves whether U.S. servicemen abroad should be tried according to U.S. laws or the laws of the country in which they are stationed. The U.S. Court of Appeals has just ruled that a foreign country has the right to try U.S. military personnel for crimes committed in foreign lands, i.e., off military posts. That is as it should be. Imagine how we would feel if we had an army of occupation in our midst and they were not responsible to our laws but could be tried only by the laws of their own country. Of course professional patrioteers, political demagogues, and others will view this with alarm, but veritably it is a matter of “As ye would that men do unto you, do ye even so unto them.”

 

Americans are giving an ever-increasing proportion of their philanthropic gifts to church-sponsored drives. Federal figures for 1954, the last year available, show that 53 cents of every dollar given to philanthropy goes to churches and church-sponsored enterprises and drives. The total given to religious charities that year was $2.85 billion out of a grand total of $5.4 billion. In 1952, by contrast, churches and church-sponsored charities got only 47 cents out of the philanthropic dollar. In spite of the present era of high taxes, the total of American gifts to philanthropy have increase from $1.189 billion back in 1930 to the present $5.5 billion mark.

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Meadville, Pennsylvania: One-hundred-tweny young people, a number of them newly-married couples, are attending a summer training school for foreign missionary work at Allegheny College. They represent ten Protestant communities. About half are clergymen. The others are medical or technical missionaries. At Allegheny, they are being briefed on rapid methods of learning native languages, how to teach reading and writing simply and rapidly, simple farming, how to endure a tropical climate, and how to cope with the new problems for missionaries raised by surging nationalism in many lands.

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One of the largest laymen’s religious conventions ever held in the U.S. will open in Cleveland, Ohio, on September 14. It will be for men only and will be under the auspices of the United Church Men. Billy Graham, the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale, Congressman Walter Judd of Minnesota, and Mayor Roe Bartle of Kansas City will be among the speakers.

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Out in Chicago, 26 prominent laymen have formed a national committee to launch drives to raise money for 475 colleges that are church-affiliated. Executive editor Milburn Akers of the Chicago Sun-Times is chairman; J. Irwin Miller of the Cummins Engine Company of Columbus, Indiana, is vice chairman; and the secretary-treasurer is Hal Lainson of the Dutton & Sons Company of Hastings, Nebraska.

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Berea, Kentucky: Berea College and the National Council of Churches have commissioned composer Norman Lockwood to write an oratorio. It will be an hour and a half in length, and for orchestra, chorus, and soloists. The libretto, by Mrs. Clara Chassell Cooper of the Berea faculty, is from biblical themes. Lockwood has written a number of major choral works.

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Washington: The Apostolic Delegation in Washington announces Pope Pius has appointed Bishop Raymond Millinger of Rockford, Illinois, to be the new auxiliary to Samuel Cardinal Stritch, archbishop of Chicago. Monsignor Donald Carroll will succeed Bishop Millinger as bishop of Rockford. He is now secretary of the Apostolic Delegation in Washington.

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The two U.S. Roman Catholic priests newly returned to freedom from Red Chinese jails say they had a three-year nightmare of questioning and threats. The Rev. John W. Clifford and the Rev. Thomas L. Phillips add that their only crime was in being priests. Fathers Clifford and Phillips, both from San Francisco, returned to Hong Kong from Shanghai yesterday aboard a German freighter. They had been released last month after imprisonment on the usual communist charge of espionage and counter-revolutionary activities. Father Clifford, 39 years old, says he was questioned almost daily for five weeks. He adds his worst days in four Shanghai prisons were in a cell next to a raving maniac. Father Phillips, 52, says he and Father Phillips were seized the same night – June 15, 1953. He adds that he was subjected to at least 150 interrogations. One charge against him was that he had told Chinese Catholics not to register with the Red police as members of the Legion of Mary, which the priest describes as a purely religious order. The release of the two priests leaves 11 Americans, mostly missionaries, still in Red Chinese jails.

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A Vatican branch for spreading the faith, Propaganda Fide, says only 44.5 million of Africa’s 210 million persons are Christians. Catholics claim 22 million; the Protestant Africans are said to number 11.5 million. The remaining belong to Eastern rite churches. Islam is the religion of most Africans – about 85 million of them. The Vatican agency says the 80 African non-Christians are decreasing rapidly.

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The American Jewish Committee European headquarters in Paris says anti-Semitism has become a key issue in the Polish communists’ internal struggle. The agency reports attacks against synagogues, desecration of Jewish cemeteries, and discrimination against Jews in schools and other institutions.

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In Moscow this week, American Jewish rabbis told Soviet Union leaders that they are disturbed by the lack of Russian religious facilities. An Orthodox rabbi from Lawrence, New York, told Premier Bulganin and Communist Party Chief Khrushchev that he looked forward to seeing more synagogues established in Russia for Jews. Through an interpreter, Bulganin told the U.S. Jewish leader, Gilbert Klapperman, that that was up to the Jews themselves.

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A Los Angeles physician has criticized persons who eat too much or who eat not enough of the right things and then expect their religion to perform miracles. Dr. Wayne McFarland also told the New Jersey convention of Seventh Day Adventists, at Kingston, New Jersey, that such persons expect their prayers to keep them physically fit. Dr. McFarland is a former medical official of the General Conference of Adventists.

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Without knowing whom the speaker had in mind, but having one or two in mind myself, I could not refrain from passing along the words of Roman Catholic Bishop John King Mussio of Steubenville, Ohio, in a recent issue of The Catholic Weekly entitled “The Ave Maria.” “We have,” he says, “suffered enough from those Catholics in name who have exploited the field of political service for their own profit and advantage.” The corrupt Catholic politician – and I might add that the same could be said of any corrupt politician, Catholic, Protestant, Jew, or atheist – is neither Catholic nor a politician. Speaking bluntly, he is a cheap crook who uses the faith as another gimmick to help him into the lush field of easy pickings.”

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Something that gives new food for thought, or food for new thought, is contained in a statement made recently by a Canadian physicist in London, Ontario, Dr. Austin D. Misener, who told a United Nations youth seminar that there are two kinds of forces in the modern world – those that divide people and those that unite them. Science, he said, unites; the churches divide. He was not speaking of Christianity but of the way the churches operate, tending to separate nations, peoples, and races.

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This week saw something of a ridiculous performance by the U.S. House of Representatives in its action over the proposed federal aid to education bill. This bill, which, if passed, would have provided some $1.6 billion to help meet the constantly increasing crisis of classroom needs, was at first passed by the House. Later, it was effectively killed by a vote of 224 to 194. Spokesmen for both parties had all along declared that it was a must piece of legislation, but when Adam Clayton Powell, Democrat of New York, succeeded in getting tacked onto the original bill an amendment which would have denied aid to schools that permit segregation, it was obvious that even if it passed the House in that form it would have been filibustered to death by the Dixie Democrats in the Senate. As it was, a number of Republicans, mainly from the Middle West welcomed a chance to vote for the Powell Amendment in the hopes that it would be killed, and that the blame would be placed on the Democrats. Now, both sides are claiming credit for trying to pass the measure and each is blaming the other for its failure. To the simple man in the street, like this reporter, both sides are to blame for making a political issue out of something that has obviously been needed for years. When the roll call came, 146 Republicans and only 77 Democrats voted for the Powell Amendment, and when it came to final passage, only 75 Republicans and 119 Democrats were for it. It should be clear that since the Congress is Democrat organized and presumably has the votes to carry party measures, that the blame this year must be laid at the feet of the Democrats, just as it has been laid in previous years to the Republicans. So, while Congress hastily passes more legislation in the next few weeks, which the rank-and-file member has not even had time to read, and prepares to adjourn in order to get out into the districts to campaign for re-election in November, children in September will be going back to overcrowded classrooms, and underpaid, and in many cases not fully-certified teachers. But the politicians will each, regardless of party, try to convince us that they were all out for better schools. Their action this week in Congress does not show that. There was a fundamental principle involved in this issue: namely, whether Congress should provide federal funds for states that violate the Constitution. But it was also one of those rare occasions when principle had to be measured against urgency and necessity, again, namely, the shouting need for better education for children. Interestingly enough, the three Negro members of the House – all Democrats – divided on the issue: both the others voting against the Powell Amendment. Obviously, the ones who are going to lose most by House politicking on the issue are the children who will not stop growing until cheap political tricks are disposed of and constructive legislation, with or without the Powell Amendment, is passed.

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And while on the subject of legislation, one more item of House business this week involved a matter discussed some weeks ago in detail on this program, and a matter that involved a moral principle also. The Post Office Department has from the beginning been considered a service rather than a profit-making government agency. The present Postmaster General Summerfield, prodded considerably by Treasury Secretary Humphrey, has been trying to get Congress to hike postal rates in order to reduce the annual deficit of the Post Office Department. This week the House passed and sent to the Senate a bill which would increase such rates by about $430 million a year. Among other things, it would boost first-class mail rates from 3 to 4 cents. As pointed out here before, this is the only class of mail that does pay its way, and it is the kind of mail that benefits everybody, including the little fellow, and that is just about all of us in these days of corporate giants. In other words, the House voted to require the mass of citizens to pay more than the service costs for their first-class mail in order to help out on a deficit brought about by the large publishing companies of books, magazines, and other types of mailing matter. You might ask your congressman how he voted on that bill when he asks you to vote for him next November. Fortunately, it is being privately predicted that the Senate will send the measure to its own dead letter office.

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Within the past few days the world has seen an uprising among Polish workers in Poznan and other cities in the country in the now dubbed the “Bread and Freedom” revolt. Just what it means is anybody’s guess. Even our own “Secretary of Statements” [John Foster Dulles] has not come out with his usual bundle of contradictions on the subject. However, the U.S. promptly seized the initiative, for once at least, and offered to make huge quantities of bread available from our own surplus stockpile. Some have sneered that this was a political trick only, but it does not seem to this reporter that such a charge is important, if it is true. Doubtless most Americans would gladly donate the offered goods to other human beings who are hungry. The cynical and brutal refusal on the part of the Kremlin’s hired boys in Poland to accept this gift is a revealing indication of the ruthlessness with which the Communists work, and it should be a warning to anybody who might be tempted to fall for the party line. How can you reconcile this refusal with party line propaganda? You cannot. The people asked for bread, but their government gave them nothing but stones.

 

In Atlantic City, New Jersey, the Central Conference of American Rabbis has called for a summit conference (How those phrases do go around!) on religion among Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish groups. Purpose of the conference would be to work out a guide for clerics and laymen on the issue of segregation. At their convention, the rabbis elected Rabbis Israel Bettan, of Cincinnati, president of the Central Conference, succeeding Rabbi Barnett R. Brickner, of Cleveland.

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St. Paul, Minnesota: The Convention of the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church is considering a resolution against intermarriage between Lutherans and Roman Catholics. The resolution objects that in such a marriage, the non-Catholic must agree to rear any child born of the marriage as a Catholic. This prenuptial agreement, says the resolution, is an infringement on the Christian conscience.

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Vatican City: Pope Pius made a five-minute appearance Friday before 50,000 pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square. It was the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul. Thousands of the pilgrims had attended pontifical Mass in the basilica. The pope made his appearance at his bedroom window, four floors above the square, and blessed the assembled pilgrims. To mark the feast day, which is a national holiday in Italy, the Vatican State was bedecked with gold and white flags.

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Atlantic City, New Jersey: Abraham Shefferman of Washington, D.C. has been elected to a second two-year term as president of the National Association of Synagogue Administrators of the United Synagogue of America. Shefferman was reelected during the group’s fifth annual convention in Atlantic City.

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Omaha, Nebraska: The General Council of Congregational Christian Churches has ended its 13th Biennial Conference without acting on a racial incident involving one of its members. Instead, the council ended eight days of hot debate over the matter with a quiet prayer for guidance. The incident involved a Congregational Negro pastor who allegedly was refused a room at an American Legion post club because of his color.

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Kingston, New Jersey: Seventh Day Adventists in New Jersey are holding their annual 10-day conference at Kingston. The convention is being attended by an estimated 2,000 persons, many of them putting up in family tents. It is believed to be the largest old-fashioned camp meeting of its kind ever held in Kingston.

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New Orleans: The president of the World Methodist Conference says the Methodist and Protestant Episcopal churches are taking definitive steps toward a merger. Bishop Ivan Lee Holt, says such a merger would be a stride toward the beginning of the United Protestant Church of America.

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Out in Salt Lake City, Utah, a controversy has been brewing now for some two months that is of definite religious significance. On May 31, The Salt Lake Tribune announced a proposal to give public school credit for sectarian education. In other words, children in the schools would be released during school hours to attend classes in religion, and for such attendance would be granted credit toward graduation. Arguments of both protagonists and antagonists have been flying somewhat thick and fast. The former insists that no doctrine is taught, since, as they state it, the King James Bible is the text used: that this is the only true Bible. To which antagonists point out that some of the most important manuscript finds have been since the appearance of the King James Bible in 1611, and they go on to insist that, anyway, this is sectarian teaching. They say further that even if teaching on released time is confined to the Old and New Testaments that teaching cannot help but be sectarian, since passages are in dispute regarding the nature of Jesus, the virgin birth, the resurrection of the dead, and so on. The president of the local school board insists that under the circumstances, no constitutional issue is at stake in the matter.

As a matter of historical statement, it might be pointed out here that the makers of our Bill of Rights intended to erect a wall of separation between church and state. The federal amendment as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court has preempted the field of separation of church and state and no legislative or administrative unit can legally change it. The First Amendment reads, in part: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It is apparent that this amendment would have to be repealed to make public school credits for sectarian education legal.

In the case of Illinois, McCollum v. Board of Education, in 1948, the heart of the U.S. Supreme Court decision was as follows: “The state also affords sectarian groups an invaluable aid in that it helps to provide pupils for their religious classes through the use of the state’s compulsory public school machinery. This is not separation of church and state.” Four years later, in the New York case, Justice Black wrote as follows on the matter of released time for religious classes, “In the New York program, as in that of Illinois, the school authorities released some of the children on the condition that they attend the religious classes, get reports on whether they attend, and hold other children in the school building until the religious hour is over … the state thus makes religious sects beneficiaries of its power to compel children to attend secular schools. And use of such coercive power by the state to help or hinder some religious sects or to prefer all religious sects over non-believers or vice versa is just what the First Amendment forbids.”

Well, there is the court’s decision. That would appear to have settled the matter, but zealots, sincere or otherwise, keep on trying to secure their own special advantage regardless of court decree.

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It is somewhat refreshing, to this reporter at least, to turn from dealing with such a subject as just treated to another that indicates that we as a people are becoming more tolerant of religions different from our own. The American Institute of Public Opinion has recently released the results of a poll taken and has compared these results with one made 16 years ago, in 1940. In that year the Institute found a majority of 62 percent of the voters questioned voiced no objection to voting for a generally well-qualified nominee of their party for president if he were a Roman Catholic. Today, the number who would have no objection to such religious affiliation has jumped to 73 percent, or virtually three out of four voters.

It is a well known fact of history that a great American, Alfred E. Smith of New York, was defeated for president in 1928 partly because of his Catholic faith, and many of us who believe in both political and religious liberalism have continued to resent this fact, regardless of which political side we were on. Since that time, many students of American politics have concluded that a Catholic could not be elected president. This question may be of some pertinence, even this year, for Ohio’s favorite son presidential candidate, Governor Frank J. Lausche, is a Catholic. There is also some speculation that the Democratic Convention this year might conceivably turn to either Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts or Mayor Robert Wagner of New York City, both of whom are Catholics, for the party’s vice presidential nominee.

In the institute’s recent poll, it is interesting to note the effect of education upon the results obtained: 79 percent of those with a college education would pay no attention to religious beliefs; 77 percent with high school training would not; while only 63 percent of those having only a grade school education would vote for a Catholic of their party.

Age was reported to be a factor also. Of those in the 21-29 years age group, 83 percent would disregard religious membership; those from 30-49 said that 79 percent would disregard it; while those 50 years of age and older showed only 62 percent.

Of interest too is the showing of the various regions. The East was the most liberal with 81 percent having no objection to a Catholic candidate; the far West was next with 75 percent; the Midwest came next with 74 percent; while the South was last with only 59 percent.

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In numerous ways and areas we seem within very recent years to be getting back to the American principle of fair play and due process, in others the progress is not so apparent. What brought this observation on was an item that came to my desk this week from a federal circuit court decision way back in 1887, which reads as follows, “A general, roving, offensive, inquisitorial, compulsory investigation, conducted by a commission without any allegations, upon no fixed principles; and governed by no rules of law or evidence, and no restrictions except its own will or caprice, is unknown to our Constitution and laws; and such an inquisition would be destructive to the rights of the citizen and an intolerable tyranny. Sen. Eastland and Rep. Walter, please note.

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During recent months, considerable conversation, even controversy, has been aroused over the nature and meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Writing in the April issue of The Atlantic Monthly, Duncan Howlett, Unitarian minister of the First Church of Boston, writes of these scrolls, “The desire to know what the scrolls contain and what these writings mean rises, I believe, from a deep-seated yearning on the part of people everywhere to learn more about the enigmatic figure known to men as Jesus Christ, a figure who is the center of the religion of most Americans and perhaps half the population of the earth. Most men know what is to be found in the Bible. But what we know is not enough. We are not satisfied with a Christ of faith. We want to know everything we can about the Jesus of history. It is … Christ who lived and taught in Galilee about whom we want to know, and about whom we can never know enough to be satisfied.”

Mr. Howlett goes on, “The finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls will increase our knowledge of Christian origins. On this all are agreed. And in the end, we find that the discovery does not affect our theology at all. But the discovery has also served to remind man once again that he cannot successfully divorce his theology from the world of fact.”

What the Rev. Howlett says bespeaks not only a universal wish to believe but also a desire to be able to find a factual basis for that belief.

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Sociologist Carson McGuire of the University of Texas, speaking at the Southern Regional Conference on Human Relations Education at the University of Oklahoma asserts that school children in this country are, as he puts it, much more religious than their parents. He draws this conclusion from the fact that among the children, something like 85 percent of them have some sort of religious affiliation, while only 59.9 percent of adults in this country claim church membership.

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At its recent convention in Minneapolis, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, with a membership at approximately 1 million voted to join the World Council of Churches, thus removing about the only barrier to merger with two other Lutheran bodies, namely, the American Lutheran Church and the United Evangelical Lutheran Church. The resulting new denomination will be called the American Lutheran Church and will come into existence, probably in 1960. Combined membership will be nearly 2 million, and will make it the third largest branch of that denomination in the United States.

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A final item comes from the cartoon “The Country Parson,” but it seems good enough to share with you. It reads as follows. “You have to be practical. It is hard to interest a man in being saved in the next world while doing nothing to relieve his suffering in the present one.”

 

New York: One-hundred-forty young Americans from 36 states are foregoing their summer vacation to work on goodwill projects overseas. Under sponsorship of the National Council of Churches, they will sail from New York and Montreal next month to do manual work in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. They’ll spend five weeks digging ditches, painting houses, and laying bricks in 30 Protestant church-sponsored work camps in 22 countries. The Americans are part of about 1,200 young people from 40 countries who will take part in the fix-up program.

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Washington: A prominent scholar of the Bible says the famed Dead Sea Scrolls contain nothing that will require any revision of orthodox Christian doctrine. Dr. J. Carter Swain says the famous scrolls are not nearly so revolutionary as some writers have pictured them. Dr. Swain is executive director of the English Bible department of the National Council of Churches.

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La Porte, Indiana: A British church leader says Billy Graham has had a good, but passing, influence on people during his visit to England. The Rev. Claude F. Freeland, secretary of the General Conference of the New Church in England says Graham did a world of good in making people stop and think. “But,” he adds, “I’m afraid they’ve stopped thinking again.”

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Washington: The House of Representatives has voted to let the major airlines carry clergymen at reduced fares. The House measure amends one already passed by the Senate in that it would confine reduced fares privilege to those airlines not drawing federal subsidies. In general these are the major airlines. Trains and interstate buses already can give clergymen cut-rate travel. A House and Senate conference committee must now act on the two measures to bring them into harmony.

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Knoxville, Tennessee: A prominent Presbyterian churchman says rural churches are declining in number at the rate of 1,000 a year because they are not doing the job they’re supposed to do. Dr. James M. Carr, secretary of the Town and Country Department of his church says in many areas, so-called sect churches which deviate from general religious tradition are rising because the older established denominations fail to meet the needs of the people.

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Chicago: A Negro minister has been appointed to a pastorate by the Rock River Conference Methodist Church, for the first time in history. He is the Rev. Charles E. Frost, who will become pastor of the Church of the Redeemer in Chicago on July 1.

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Vatican City: Pope Pius has elevated three American clergymen to new duties. Monsignor Philip Hannan, chancellor of the Curia in Washington, has been appointed auxiliary to Monsignor Patrick O’Boyle, archbishop of Washington. Monsignor James Byrne, bishop of Boise, Idaho, has been named to the suffrage of Portland, Oregon, and Monsignor William O’Brady, bishop of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has been appointed coadjutor with right of succession to Monsignor John Gregory Murray, archbishop of St. Paul, Minnesota.

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Washington: Congress has been asked to make St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Philadelphia a national shrine to religious liberty. The church was built in 1733 and the following year the colony’s government allowed it to hold service. If it becomes a shrine, it would become part of Independence Park, which includes Independence Hall.

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St. Paul, Minnesota: Doctrinal differences have blocked a proposed merger between three of the nation’s largest Lutheran denominations. The Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church has decided against joining with the United Lutheran Church in America and the Augustana Lutheran Church. However, in Minneapolis, the Evangelical Lutheran Church Conference urged its lawmakers to unite with any or all three other Lutheran groups. This branch has been negotiating since 1949 toward union with the American Lutheran Church, the United Evangelical Lutheran Church, and the Lutheran Free Church. The United Evangelical Lutheran Church has voted in favor of the merger at its conference in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

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At the University of Tennessee this past week there has been in session a summer school for town and country ministers. During the course of one of its sessions, Dr. A.E. Wilson, rural sociologist at the University of Wisconsin, emphasized that no phase of our life has been more affected by science than has agriculture. He went on to point out something that most of us knew already, however: that fewer and fewer people are needed on the land to produce the necessary food for our people. Perhaps that is one of the reasons that rural churches are declining in number, as I indicated a moment ago Dr. Carr had lamented about. Another speaker at the conference, U.T.’s farm management specialist, told the ministers that the church and improved farming programs go hand in hand, citing an instance of where one farmer had built up the fertility of his small hilly farm to support nearly twice as many dairy cows as formerly. “The farmer,” says Mr. Gambrill, “and his family are active church members, and often have daily worship at home.”

At this same conference, a poll of ministerial preference as to rural or urban churches produced an overwhelming majority in favor of the rural. However, the source from which my information was taken does not indicate whether it was a cross section of the entire conference, or merely a questioning of persons who are now rural pastors. The question put to them was: “Given your choice, would you serve a city or a rural church?” The [rural] church was their unanimous choice. Several of those asked had at one time or another held city charges. The Rev. Robert H. Bates, who has the Pleasant Mountain and McCain’s group of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Maury County, put it this way: “I feel at home with rural people. I feel I can do my best work among them. I also feel that a rural church offers more of a challenge than the average city church.”

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One wonders sometimes as he reads the news just what are the values of us Americans. We do a lot of talk about people being important, saying that our human resources are our greatest assets. With all of which this reporter can well agree. However, we pass, or have on the threshold for passing, a highway bill that plans on spending nearly $33 billion for a 41,000- mile super highway system. Now nobody seriously suggests that we do not need highways. However, this same Congress, as have many before it, has haggled over a puny federal aid to education bill. This bill is now bogged down and will not come out of committee this session. If it does, it will not get anywhere. There may be a lot of talk about it for political propaganda purposes, and Republicans and Democrats will blame each other for its not passing. The truth is that both are to blame, and have been for years. In the meantime, children will continue to go to increasingly overcrowded, inadequate, unsafe classrooms, while Mr. Eisenhower and his cohorts are worried about infringing upon the rights of the states by supporting an adequate educational program. Very apparently, to both Democrats and Republicans, highways are important; the education of the children of this nation is not. It is time for deeds, not words, as Mr. Dulles is so fond of saying about the Russians.

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Most peoples of the world subscribe to religion of some sort. In fact, religion is a universal phenomenon, occurring amongst all people, in some form or another. Most of us are likely to think immediately of our own denomination when we hear the word, but how many of us try to define just what our religion really is? Certainly, I have no comprehensive, all encompassing definition for it, but it might be well for each of us to try to put into articulate form just what it means to us. As a matter of fact, it is many things. It is yearning for more than life can give. It is an aching sense of the chasm between the what-is and the what-ought-to-be. Always we long for the full circle, completion, and fulfillment. We are not content to be going there; wherever it is, we want to be there. Thus the imagery of heaven and nirvana follow psychologically if not always logically. Are these emotionally fed feelings valid ambitions? Are they the way to progress and happiness? Apparently peoples of many religions think so, for they seem to be something of constants in a continuously varying world.

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Sometimes in this age of unreason (in some ways chaos), it is good to look at history. Today many timid souls fear freedom and try to find security in conformity – perhaps my educational colleagues would call it adjustment, though I personally detest the implication of that word.

Anyway, in the Middle Ages, the church was a state – really a super-state. To dissent from its dogmas was to revolt from the state and to threaten the vested interests of same. The heretic was the anarchist, the Red of his day. His dissent from majority opinion was so monstrously a wicked thing the motions of all decent people of the time were aroused to destroy him.

Yet, incredible as it seems, when this monopoly of the church was broken, both church and state survived, and the church survived as a purified and more respected institution. Today no one is an outlaw because of his religious beliefs or lack of them. There is security in religious freedom.

Today, however, the innovator in political, economic, or other social affairs, occupies much the same position as the heretic of the 13th century. As orthodox Christian belief was the test of good citizenship then, so an orthodox support of the present order is the test of good citizenship today. Again it is the vested interests of a few that are threatened. Whether the timid soul likes it or not, another reformation is on the way, after which, perhaps, no one will be an outlaw because of his social ideas or lack of them. There is security in this kind of freedom too, as well as in the freedom of religion.

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On a future broadcast, I propose to deal in some detail with the citizen’s responsibility to vote. However, today I should like to pass along a very few items resulting from a study just completed by the American Heritage Foundation.

Voting is, of course, a responsibility of every citizen, but it is especially one for the person who subscribes to religious faith, for government is the … institution that regulates many aspects of our living, including certain ones of religion. And I am sure that all of us can remember who the candidate in 1952 was that termed the campaign a “great moral crusade.” Anyway, the American Heritage Foundation found that in 1952 only 63 percent of the adults in the U.S. voted. Even this was an improvement over 1944 when only 53 percent went to the polls. Comparing our own record with that of other countries, we find that in Belgium 90 percent of the eligible voters cast ballots; in England the figure reaches around 83 percent.

The Foundation found also that education was a factor, for 90 percent of college-educated persons voted, and 88 percent of those in professions or management positions. City people voted in a greater percentage than did rural folks; and it is not surprising that socioeconomic status was a factor, with the more well-to-do voting in greater number than poor people. Low-income groups voted only 53 percent in 1952, that is, those with incomes of $2,000 a year or less. Understandably enough, Negroes had the lowest voting record. I say understandably enough considering poll taxes in many states, intimidation, and other discriminatory practices. The voting record of women was decidedly below that of men. The former cast only 59 percent of their potential 53 million votes. Some of the reasons given by women for not voting were: “I can’t make up my mind,” “One vote doesn’t count,” “Politics are a bore,” “I don’t understand how government works.” (Parenthetically, it might be asked here, does any one of us?)

One of the startling finds of the Foundation was the very low voting record of young people between the ages of 21 and 29. Those in this age category cast only 50 percent of their potential 20 million votes.

One encouraging thing is that not only the Foundation, but a great many other organizations are starting early this year to arouse people to a realization of the importance of their votes. One hundred twenty-five national organizations are starting early this year to arouse people to a realization of the importance of their votes. One hundred twenty-five national organizations have agreed to cooperate in getting people, regardless of party, to register and vote. The advertising council is cooperating, as well as magazines, radio, television stations, movies, and various other agencies. It is important that you register and vote, for each and every one of us has a responsibility to express his point of view on the most important business in this country – its government.

Sometimes it is very easy to become very pessimistic over the hazards of today’s living. There are the Cold War, H-bomb fall-out, possible imminent economic crisis, anticipated effects of radio-activity upon succeeding generations, and the like. These things are all too horribly real, or potentially possible. However, it may be something of an antidote for such pessimism to realize that today is also a time of miracles. During the last half century, for example, more progress has been made in the conquest of disease than in all the centuries of man’s previous existence upon this planet. At the turn of the century, it was expected as a matter of course that some 7,000 children would die every year of whooping cough alone. Last year there were only 310 deaths from this cause. Yellow fever, cholera, and smallpox have been almost completely banished, while such diseases as diphtheria, scarlet fever, typhoid fever, tetanus, rickets, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and pernicious anemia have all had most of the sting taken out of them. Tuberculosis killed nearly 200 people out of every 100,000 of the population in 1900, but in 1954 the death rate was only 10.8. One could go on enumerating the areas in which amazing progress has been recorded. However, amazing as this record has been, there is no reason why still greater progress cannot be made during the next 50 years.

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And while speaking of medical progress, it may be a good place here to call attention to another item dealing with medicine that came to my attention this past week. The American Medical Association, meeting in Chicago, has passed a resolution in its house of delegates demanding a halt in government distribution of free Salk polio vaccine. The resolution sets forth that free vaccine has “been extended to include many more than the indigent group, thus constituting unnecessary government spending.”

It is easy to wonder just what value the association really sets upon human life, and how far it will go, or try to go, in extending its monopoly over medical services that can mean life or death for millions. All of us are taxpayers, and I have yet to see a protest from any taxpayer about the spending of tax funds to provide polio protection for all who wanted it. It would be a great deal easier to sympathize with the cause of the association were it not for the fact that back in the 1930s, when not even doctors were making any money, the same association recommended a plan of compulsory health insurance strangely like that proposed in California by a Republican Warren and one proposed about the same time by a Democrat in Washington by the name of Truman. Yet, it was all right with the association in 1930; it was rank socialism when proposed 10 or 12 years later. Obviously, whether government spending is socialism or not depends to a great extent upon who is getting the benefit of such spending. Consistency and logic seem to have no place in such arguments.

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Every so often legislators – at least some of them – display an amazing lack of information or a complete disregard of certain constitutional passages. A few years ago it was mainly a very vocal senator form Wisconsin, more recently it has been a senator from Mississippi. The occasion for this item is based upon the hearings during the past week of a subcommittee of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the words are of one Rep. Bernard Kearney of New York. It appeared at the hearing that a president of a Long Island construction company, one Henry Wilcox, had, in 1952, gone to China to attend a so-called peace conference. He admitted in his testimony that the conference was mainly a sounding board for attacks upon the United States, and that he himself was disgusted with what took place, though he insisted that he had gone in good faith. Whereupon, simply because the witness admitted attending a communist peace conference, patriot Kearney promptly denounced Mr. Wilcox as a traitor, saying, “I’m firmly convinced that if there was ever a flagrant case of treason this is it. I suggest that the proceedings be sent to the Department of Justice.”

Now admittedly I have not had a chance to read the complete and official transcript of this hearing, but am basing these comments upon newspaper and radio reports. However, even Mr. Kearney should know that the framers of the Constitution took scrupulous care to write into that document a definition of treason, saying that it “shall consist only of levying war against the United States or of giving aid and comfort to its enemies.” And there certainly is nothing in published reports thus far to indicate that Mr. Wilcox did any of these things. Moreover, while Communist China may be our ideological enemy, we are not at war with her. It might be well for Mr. Kearney to read not only the Constitution, but also that portion of the Ten Commandments wherein it enjoins us that we “shall not bear false witness against our neighbor.” Let us hope that such irresponsible vaporings of McCarthyism dissipate in the sunlight of clear thinking and fair play. If Wilcox disobeyed a law, he should be punished. There is nothing in the record thus far to indicate he did. And, anyway, since when has it become treasonable for anyone to talk about peace with anybody? We cannot get peace with our enemies unless we talk about it with them.

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In Harrisonburg, Virginia, this week, ghosts of Calhoun flitted around the convention hall for a while where the Virginia Methodist Conference was holding its meeting. A state legislator had made an attempt to get a secession resolution through that would have taken the Virginia conference out of the national Methodist organization. Fortunately, cooler, and better-filled heads prevailed, and the conference adopted a go-slow approach toward solving the segregation problem, which was what the furor had started about in the first place. The conference unanimously adopted a committee report asserting that the issue must be faced up to in a spirit of Christian discipleship. “Let us realize,” it said, “that we cannot improve human relations by either forcing the matter or by avoiding responsibility. We can do too little too late as well as too much too soon, and God alone can cause us to see the fine distinction here.” And from this reporter as to that, the proverbial, “No comment.”

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Washington: Churches, labor unions, and merchant’s associations in many parts of the country are joining forces in an effort to curb retail stores from conducting business on Sunday. Once Sunday selling was confined largely to drug stores and delicatessens. But for a number of years the open-on-Sunday sign has been appearing at automobile agencies, appliance, hardware, and furniture stores, even supermarkets. Both Protestant and Catholic leaders consider it a greater threat to the church’s teachings than Sunday movies or baseball.

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Vatican City: Pope Pius XII is moving to his summer place at Castel Gandolfo a month ahead of schedule. Vatican sources say the pope will go to his villa 16 miles south of Rome on June 30 instead of July 30, as he did last year. He’s leaving early to escape the heat, which contributed to his recent case of fatigue. Other sources say the pope may call a consistory in November or December to fill eight vacancies now existing in the College of Cardinals.

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Norwalk, Connecticut: Nine missionaries of the Roman Catholic Holy Ghost Fathers are on their way to assignments in the United States, Africa, and Puerto Rico. They completed their studies at St. Mary’s Seminary in Norwalk and were assigned to their new destinations by the Very Rev. Regis C. Guthrie, of Washington.

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Moorhead, Minnesota: The Augustana Lutheran Church has decided to admit to membership in its synod churches from nationalist congregations which conduct services in their own language. Heretofore the church has had a basic rule that all member congregations must conduct their programs in English. In adopting a resolution to reverse the stand, the synod pointed out that foreign-language-speaking congregations would be expected to develop English-speaking programs at the earliest moment.

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Seattle, Washington: Five Russian Baptist leaders attended opening sessions of the eight-day American Baptist Convention at Seattle last Friday night. The convention is being attended by an estimated 10,000 persons including ministerial and lay delegates and their families. Five Russian clergymen have been visiting with American Baptist groups during the past month. They will return to Russia following the Seattle convention.

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Ocean City, New Jersey: The Northeastern Jurisdictional Conference of the Methodist Church has wound up its sessions without taking action on a request for a new episcopal area in West Virginia. The West Virginia delegation had asked for a sixth episcopal area and a new bishop, but the conference postponed action on the proposal until 1960. The conference represents 12 states from Maine to West Virginia.

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Knoxville Tennessee: The head of the United Presbyterian Church’s foreign mission charges that the regime of Premier Nasser is seriously hampering missionary work in Egypt. Dr. Don C. Black of Philadelphia says the Egyptian Revolutionary Council considers itself responsible for the total welfare of every individual, including medical care, education, and religion. He said missionaries in Egypt either must teach Islam to Moslem peoples or get out of education work.

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Knoxville, Tennessee: The United Presbyterian Church of North America has elected Dr. Robert W. Gibson as moderator of its 98th General Assembly. Gibson is president of Monmouth College, Illinois. He succeeds Dr. George A. Long, president emeritus of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and will serve as moderator of the General Assembly and as titular head of the church until June 1957.

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Shanghai, China: Early yesterday two U.S. Roman Catholic priests reported their release from a Red Chinese prison. They also asked, in a telephone interview, that their loved ones be informed they are well. The freed churchmen are the Rev. John William Clifford and the Rev. Thomas Leonard Phillips, both of San Francisco. The Chinese Reds announced their release Friday, exactly three years after they were jailed. Last November, during their imprisonment, they were convicted of espionage and counter-revolutionary activities against Red China. Fathers Clifford and Phillips were given three-year jail sentences and apparently got credit for their previous time in jail. Eleven U.S. citizens, including missionaries and businessmen, still are in Communist Chinese prisons.

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The largest Roman Catholic child-caring home in the U.S. is increasing its facilities. This coming week a new quarter-million dollar cottage for high school girls and a health and recreation wing will be dedicated by the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin, at Mount Loretto, Staten Island, New York. The 80-year-old mission is one of the 36 child-caring institutions among New York Catholic charities. It shelters and educates more than 1,000 dependent and neglected boys and girls from 3 – 18 years of age. The child-caring center is gradually converting from what is described as the congregate type to the more modern cottage system of institutions. It began in Lower Manhattan in 1871 as a newsboy’s lodging. Now the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin comprises a farm, home school, with about 50 buildings and cottages, including a church, elementary schools, a trade high school, athletic fields, gymnasiums, and a half-mile beachfront.

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Evangelical churches backed by U.S. citizens have won a victory in Italy. The Italian Constitutional Court has ruled police permission is not needed to hang a sign or poster. Thus ends a three-year battle by the Evangelical Church of Christ in Rome against a police rule dating back to fascist days. Police had torn down the sign three times. A suit by the Church went through five courts until it reached Italy’s highest tribunal, the New Constitutional Court. The decision is a broad one that also permits political posters without prior police permission. Italy’s own non-Catholic churches also will benefit.

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Communist Polish newspapers have admitted anti-Semitism is still widespread in their Red-ruled country. They place the blame for the anti-Semitic trend on Stalin’s “Cult of the Individual” and on Berianism. The latter is named for the one-time Soviet police chief, who was executed by Russia’s current rulers.

The nation’s major Protestant churches and theological seminaries will make a three-year study of methods of selections and training for tomorrow’s ministers. The project, announced jointly by the National Council of Churches and the Educational Testing Service, will cost an estimated $85,000. It will be financed by funds given by the Lilly Endowment, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana.

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In Princeton, New Jersey, the Very Rev. Dr. James A. Pike, dean of the Cathedral the Divine, in New York, has called for a hundredfold increase in the ministry. It looks as if the ministry is facing something of the same situation as the schools in regard to trained personnel, and it is difficult to see how this increase is going to come about unless conditions within the ministry are made attractive to young men and women who must invest years of their lives and a small fortune before they are ready to begin. The same goes for school teaching and teachers.

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Washington: Professional fundraisers this year will take over the traditional role of laymen in hundreds of American churches: the job of raising money. Authorities estimate that professional organizations will direct drives to raise more than $300 million among more than 2,000 churches. The efforts of the professionals will be directed chiefly in drives for new construction funds. However, some churches will also use them to raise funds for meeting regular operating budgets.

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Toledo, Ohio: Dr. Eugene Carson Blake says talks between American and visiting Russian church leaders are clearing up what he calls some very real misunderstanding between the churches of the two countries. Dr. Blake, who is president of the National Council of Churches, says there is clear progress in our mutual expression of what we agree are the Christian principles upon which peace must be based. However, some 250 members of the American Council of Churches have protested the visit of the eight Russian churchmen to the United States.

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Washington: The Senate has passed and sent to the House legislation which would allow airlines to give cut rates – or even free rides – to bona fide ministers of religion. Clergymen already receive such special advantages from railroads.

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Bogota, Colombia: The Evangelical Confederation of Columbia charges that there is a growing religious persecution against Protestant denominations throughout Columbia. The confederation says two additional churches recently have been closed and a Protestant pastor arrested. It quoted a Roman Catholic publication, Aurora, which accused Protestants of being fearful enemies of public peace, incubations of communism, assaulters of private property, and betrayers of the motherland. Well, there’s not much else they could accuse them of. We Protestants must be a pretty bad sort of citizen.

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Cairo, Egypt: Egypt has expelled two British missionaries for teaching the Christian faith to Moslem children. The expulsion orders were issued for the head mistress of a school for girls in Suez, and the headmaster of a school for boys at Ismalia. Egyptian state law forbids teaching Christianity to Moslem children.

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The so-called Defense Department, with the approval of the State Department, recently sent, almost secretly, arms to Saudi Arabia out of the obscure port of Sunny Point, North Carolina. It is difficult to think of more immoral behavior than supplying the means of killing human beings to any nation, Saudi Arabia or any other. Not many years ago it was held by apologists for the government that any laws prohibiting private manufacturers from shipping munitions of war abroad would be unconstitutional. Now our government itself, with the consent of Congress, is doing it. Thirty years ago the conscience of America would have welled up in protest that may well have swept those doing this out of office. Granted that we are living in a different world from that of 1926, it is amazing the emphasis that we can place on devising and distributing instruments of destruction, and how little effort, time, and money is spent in devising machinery which, once in operation, would make destruction less likely.

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Certainly a nation has a right to take measures to preserve itself. But that society is best that can induce a common idealism among its members, that provides for diversity without losing its unity, and that achieves a high degree of solidarity while preserving large areas of individual freedom.

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Not infrequently, considerable skepticism – not to say at times cynicism – is heard voiced regarding the practice of dedicating children, infants. Of course some denominations do not practice this, and that is all right if they choose it that way. However, it is just as well not to be superstitious about being superstitious. It is hardly likely that any informed person looks upon dedication of infants as casting out devils, or erasing original sin. Dedication is hardly a sacrament, for no metaphysical change is claimed. It has nothing to do with the state of the dead. And it is not even to be confused with “baptism unto salvation.” The new citizen, so dedicated, is presented formally to the church, identified as to the name and family, and placed in the religious care of the church and its parents. He is dedicated in the name of goodness, beauty, and truth to the service of man. And is there anything wrong with this?

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The Rev. Theodore Abell, of Sacramento, California, has written in an editorial some wisdom that seems well worth sharing with you. He says as follows:

There are none so blind as those who will not see. There are none so weak as those who will not walk. There are none so ignorant as those who will not think. ‘Ignorance is bliss’ is one of the most damming of all myths.

In ignorance men of ancient times allowed themselves to be hitched like horses and whipped to labor until they dropped from exhaustion; in ignorance, men and women threw their first born into the sacrificial fires to placate a supposedly angry God; in ignorance men opine they can establish a just social order by force of arms; in ignorance men are led to believe that mankind is altogether evil and corrupt and can of itself do no good; in ignorance people are led to believe that all the troubles of the world today came about because men dared think about the origin and nature of the universe as a result gave up their allegiance to medieval doctrines and institutions. Ignorance is never blissful; it is slavery.

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And, after such an editorial excoriating ignorance, what about our ignorance of existing circumstances regarding our present rate of growth, diminishing resources, and volume of resources being used daily? It would appear that in this connection, science and reason are our only hope. Within half a century, it is entirely conceivable that the U.S. will be the most acutely have-not nation in the world. Our rate of population growth is a good percentage above any other country. Yet, we have so far depleted our resources that we, who account for less than seven percent of the world’s population, now consume half of the world’s raw material supply. What can we do when we are even more dependent upon foreign resources, and are also in competition with the rest of the people of the world who are now industrializing at a rapid rate?

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In a recent article in the Woman’s Home Companion, historian Arnold Toynbee, in discussing the power of American women, goes on to discuss something quite different in a way. After pointing out that women generally approach politics and other public subjects with more of an emotional tinge than men, he goes on to say that we are entering a new age in which the historic world religions will be much more in intimate contact with another than ever before. Each will have to take account of the other’s principles and points of view. It is hoped, he says, that the women of the world will not set their faces against this necessary task of stocktaking. They would be doing a disservice to the human race if they were to try to perpetuate the old and outworn hostilities that the respective followers of the different world religions felt toward one another in the past, and with such terrible consequences.

Here is a real challenge, not only to women, but to men also. Here in our own country we have many hundreds of denominations and cults. After much quarreling as to the rightness of each, we have settled down to what looks to be something of a long truce. Methodist and Baptist, Catholic and Jew, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Unitarians – all build churches in the same town. But while we insist that we believe each person should have the right to worship the way he chooses, Mr. Toynbee would go beyond the churches that have either as the center of their teaching the Hebraic-Christian ethic or are closely related to it, and points out that we should show the same measure of tolerance for other world religions.

Few sincere and objective people could honestly disagree with this. To far too many of us, to mention the word “religion” is to bring to our mind our particular denomination, not realizing that this denomination is only a very small portion of religions generally throughout the world, for religion is a universal phenomenon among all people. Religious zeal in the future must be tempered with such tolerance as Dr. Toynbee advises, or we may wreck rather than save the world. Without such tolerance, it is doubtful if there can ever be the much-talked-about “Peace on Earth.”

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Alarm is expressed in Holston Methodist Conference circles over a membership decrease reported at minus 3,235 members during the closing conference year. This alarm was expressed Friday by Bishop Roy H. Short, presiding bishop of the conference, now meeting in Chattanooga. Quoting the bishop’s concern about it, we find these views: “It is inexcusable for ministers to let church records fall into such shape that members go away and are lost. We are the shepherds of men’s souls and it is our duty to follow the member if he leaves our church, into another Methodist church or a church of some faith.”

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Not long ago when Queen Elizabeth passed out birthday honors, she awarded the Order of the British Empire to a flying angel. This was to the Rev. Cyril Brown, 52, a minister who sports no wings and is reported to look more like a gray-haired Pat O’Brien than a member of the heavenly host. But the organization he heads is better known in the seaports and ship lanes of the world by its nickname, the Flying Angels, than by its official title, “Missions to Seamen.” The idea for such an organization began all of 120 years ago when a young vacationing Anglican minister stood looking over the Bristol Channel. His little boy, pointing to two lonely islands, asked, “How can those people go to church?” Next day the man, John Ashley, put off in a boat to find out. He found that the inhabitants of these islands – fisherman, lighthouse keepers, farmers, and such – had no church at all. So Ashley began visiting them from time to time. Sometimes he called on ships that were anchored in the channel and held services on them. For the next 13 years he built up a unique service, and in 1856, upon Ashley’s retirement, the British government gave it official recognition and named it “Mission to Seamen,” which is now one of the 12 main missionary societies of the Church of England, having 53 chaplains and 25 laymen to operate in some 80 seaports around the world. A short time ago, on a ship moored in the Thames, Missions to Seamen held its annual meeting and observed its centenary. The Rev. Cyril Brown added up last year’s achievements of the organization, which amounted to visits 57,000 ships, 5,300 hospital calls, some 12,500 entertainment programs, and nearly 13,500 religious services. Which is a record of which any organization may well be proud.

 

First, a potpourri of the religious news of the week as reported by AP and UP:

New York: Thousands of Americans vacationing in the national parks this year will have the opportunity to worship out-of-doors. The National Council of Churches says more than 100 specially trained seminary and college students will establish summertime parishes in the scenic wonderlands of 24 national parks throughout the country. Among them are Yellowstone, Glacier, and Mt. McKinley. They are located in 11 states and Alaska. The preachers and religious workers will include both men and women, and will represent 21 denominations.

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Washington: Leading Protestant clergymen say the New Revised Standard Edition of the Bible is stimulating more interest in Bible reading. The new Bible is easier to read, and easier to understand. Bible sales this year are expected to hit an all-time record of more than 6 million copies. Catholic scholars are now at work to complete a modern translation of the scriptures, and Jewish scholars are bringing out new editions of the ancient Hebrew scripts. The first revised edition of the Talmud in 76 years is scheduled to go to press later this year.

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Atlantic City, New Jersey: Nathan Brilliant of Cleveland, Ohio, has been elected the new president of the National Council for Jewish Education. He succeeds David Radavsky, of Newark. Brilliant is also executive director of the Bureau of Jewish Education.

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Wiesbaden, Germany: An American official of the Protestant Church of Christ charges that a crowd of Catholics led by two priests broke up an evangelist meeting held by a former Catholic clergyman. R. J. Smith, of Terrell, Texas, says the two priests and others continually heckled and interrupted the speaker. The Church of Christ has been in a running fight with Catholics in Italy. Recently it won a court order permitting it to hold and advertise religious services in Italy.

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Philadelphia: Delegates to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. predict that merger with the United Presbyterian Church of North America will be completed in another year. The proposed merger was approved by the assembly and now must be accepted by the individual Presbyteries of both churches and the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church of North America when it meets at Knoxville, Tennessee, later this month. Approval by the Knoxville assembly is regarded as certain.

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New York: The National Council of Churches is sending literacy experts into Tanganyika, East Africa, this summer to conduct a three-month campaign of literacy and literature. Dr. Floyd Shacklock, executive director of the program, says the team will concentrate on developing and perpetuating native leadership in such training programs.

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Hartford, Connecticut: A conference of Methodist ministers has been asked to consider refusing marriages to couples who permit liquor at prenuptial social events and at wedding receptions. The request was made by William H. Veale, of New Haven, to the New York East Methodist Conference. Veale says such a stand was taken recently by a Methodist minister in a Southern city.

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New York: Avery Dulles, the youngest son of “Secretary of Statements” [John Foster Dulles], who is 37, is among 36 seminarians, members of the Roman Catholic Society, who will be ordained by Francis Cardinal Spellman at Fordham University. His father is an elder of the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City. Avery became a Roman Catholic in 1940 while attending Harvard University.

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Kansas City, Missouri: The Southern Baptist Convention has approved a record budget of $11 million for 1957. Almost $4 million of the total will go to the church’s foreign mission, and a little over $1 million to its home mission board.

At the same meeting, the convention revived a religious tradition this week. At the meeting, Baptists brought into use again the old-fashioned amen chorus during an address by Billy Graham. Graham told the 13,000 churchmen that in his meetings around the world he found no difference in the heart of men. As for segregation, he asserted the issue in the South must be faced. “It will take courage, prayer, humility, love, and above all, patience,” he said. However, Graham agreed with the request of the Convention president, the Rev. Dr. Casper Warren of Charlotte, North Carolina, that the racial question not be reopened at this meeting.

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Montreat, North Carolina: On the other hand, the 96th session of the Southern Presbyterian Church has been told that a solution must be found for social and racial problems. The retiring moderator, Dr. J. McDowell Richards of Atlanta, also stated it must be found in a spirit of love. The Southern Presbyterians are to consider again this year a union with the Northern and the United Presbyterians. They rejected it in 1955.

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A newly ordained minister is making ready to take over the pastoral duties of the United Lutheran Church of the Transfiguration in New York City. The Rev. Robert Neilssen is white. His congregation is all Negro. The former pastor, the Rev. Paul West, a Negro, is in poor health.

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Vatican City: Pope Pius XII held a big general audience in St. Peter’s yesterday. The assembly on the anniversary of his namesake attests to his quick recovery from temporary fatigue three days ago. Earlier this week, the pope’s doctors had urged him to go to his summer residence in the hills south of Rome.

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Roman Catholic authorities in Austria say they have heard Hungary has rearrested and imprisoned Josef Cardinal Mindszenty. The reason given is the prelate’s refusal to sign a pledge of loyalty to the Hungarian communist regime. Since last July he has been out on probation from a life imprisonment sentence.

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The National Conference of Jewish Communicable Service has heard two recent Supreme Court decisions are being subjected to nationwide attack, condemnation, and evasion. The American Jewish Congress’ associate general counsel, Leo Pfeffer, told the St. Louis meeting that dissatisfaction with the school desegregation case has been limited exclusively to the South. But, he adds, opposition is widespread to the decision prohibiting teaching of religion in the public schools. The Jewish social workers also have been told that all Jewish groups oppose introducing religion or sectarian practice in the public schools. Jules Cohen, the coordinating officer for the National Community Relations Advisory Council, explains the organizations think separation of church and state is the best safeguard of all religious liberty.

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And again on the matter of segregation, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. this week, meeting in Philadelphia, adopted a report calling for total elimination of racial segregation in this country. The report was directed toward employers, homeowners, and politicians. It said, rather pointedly and succinctly, “Nowhere in this land can Negroes, and to a lesser extent other minority persons, escape the indignity of segregation or discrimination in one form or another.” It recommended specifically that:

1. Christians preparing to sell their homes keep uppermost in their minds the need of minority families for equal housing opportunities, and make their homes available to all qualified purchasers regardless of race;

2. Employers take all necessary steps to break the pattern of discrimination in employment;

3. Politicians “work for the removal of the poll tax and other restrictions which prevent many American citizens from exercising their legal rights.”

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Metropolitan Nikolai, Russian prelate, arrived in this country yesterday heading a delegation of Soviet church leaders who will spend some 11 days in this country, returning a visit that a nine-member delegation of the National Council of Churches made to Russian in March. Not only has Nikolai been active in religious matters, he has taken part also in Russian politics. In October 1950, for example, he declared that the church was solidly behind the capitalist warmongers, and went on to denounce what he called American aggression in North Korea. And as late as May 1952, he spearheaded a meeting of representatives of most of the churches in the Soviet Union, called primarily to denounce the United States. At this meeting he dwelt upon what he called an evil American germ warfare in Korea and went on to picture the United Nations as an instrument of war. His demeanor on this visit doubtless will be one of let’s-be-friends attitude, mirroring something of the present expression of the boys in the Kremlin. However, he may find it a little more difficult than he thinks if the persons whom he meets know something of his background. And it is not unlikely that he will be reminded of some of the things he said earlier but – of course consistency has never been the forté of communists, whether of the Russian or American brand.

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As reported some months ago here, the National Council of Churches has appointed an “ethics kit,” or a “do it yourself” approach to the problem of making religion practical in our modern complicated world. The executive director of this move, the Rev. Cameron F. Hall, says, “Many feel that Christianity is a little too impractical to apply seriously in a highly competitive modern world. We hope this new program will help people see how Christian ethics can become a living, vital force to help solve the different decisions we all face Monday through Saturday.” (Well, it may not be in the best ethical tradition to say, “I told you so,” but a question was raised a few weeks ago here as to whether the great problem of Christianity, and religion of all kinds, for that matter, is not one of ethics rather than ethology.)

But what are these kits like? Each contains five filmstrips, five long-playing records, and five discussion manuals. All the materials deal with practical ethical problems anyone is likely to run into. Pilot discussion groups are already operating in more than 20 states, and churches in 16 Protestant denominations report tremendous interest in the program.

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One of the earmarks of a teacher is his unceasing quest for truth through critical questioning of things with which he comes in contact. What brought this on was something of a chance remark of a teacher whom I know who, according to the implications of what he said, finds nothing in this world that needs improvement; his not to reason why under any circumstances. Well, there are at least two views of the role of the teacher. One is to go along on his own little groove (I almost said “rut”) seeking nothing but those things that pertain directly to his own little field; taking the position that his only proper role is to keep class during stipulated hours, and see no evil, speak no evil, and see no evil – or anything else, for that matter, aside from his own particular specialty.

The other view is that the teacher is an active citizen in his school community, interested in and trying to find out more about every facet of the school society of which he is a part, and, expressing his views wherever appropriate, for whatever they are worth on any subject that bears directly or indirectly to perceive and understand just what effect his own instructional activities have upon the total educational pattern, wherein what he does fits into, or fails to fit into, the summary picture.

Any person functioning in this latter conceived role, then, refuses to be shackled by tradition, to mouth phrases that mean little if anything simply because they are handed down by superiors or handed up by inferiors. He refuses to be smug or complacent, or to pretend to be wise in his little own conceit, but keeps active, flexible interest in the world about him. He is probably a restless soul, doubtless many times he rushes in where both fools and angels fear to tread. But where would we be without the radical Master of Galilee who was impatient of and unwilling to conform to the Judaism of his day? Where would this nation be without its Sam Adams, its Jefferson, its Carl Schurz, its Eugene Debs, and all the other illustrious once-termed radicals who found fault with the existing order of their day for the sole purpose of making it a better order?

In New Orleans this week, on the second anniversary of the Supreme Court decision outlawing racial segregation in the public schools, a cross was burned on the grounds of the residence of archbishop of the New Orleans Diocese. The cross was soaked with gasoline and propped against a wire fence in front of a building adjoining the archbishop’s residence. It was quickly extinguished by the fire department, and apparently police have not discovered who put it there or ignited it. Archbishop Rummel has been under fire from some laymen’s groups recently for his opposition to segregation, and for indicating that its end was in sigh in parochial schools. More recently still, he ordered the pro-segregation Association of Catholic Laymen, Inc. to disband. As reported last week, the group agreed to the order but announced it would appeal to the pope over the issue.

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For the first time in 50 years, church leaders of Russia began a visit to this country on Friday of this week, making the religious traffic between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. a two-way street. Last August, Baptist leaders from this country were guests in Russia. Included in this first group of religious representatives are five Russian Baptists. Scheduled to arrive on June 2 is a larger, nine-member group representing the Russian Orthodox Church and including high-ranking leaders of all the major bodies of religion in Russia. This second group will be returning a visit made to their country early this early this year by a delegation representing the National Council of Churches, which includes 30 church denominations with some 23 million members.

Both Russian delegations will visit churches, schools, seminaries, and other religious centers across the country. The Baptist group that arrived Friday will attend the Southern Baptist Convention in Kansas City, May 30 to June 2.

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One interesting and fruitful development of activities by churches is the effort on the part of many priests, ministers, and rabbis to aid in promoting better labor management relations. In fact many of these people are devoting full time to it. The Rev. Dr. Clair M. Cook, associate director of the National Religion and Labor Foundation asserts that activity in the field is a growing concern among Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish groups. In many places throughout industrial areas in this country, clergymen have become familiar figures at conference tables and among both employers and employees, helping iron out disputes by acting as consultants, conciliators, and arbitrators. Nearly all the principal denominations in this country have some sort of social relations committees that give special attention to labor questions. Catholics alone are now operating more than 100 labor schools. The Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. has industrial relations institutes in Pittsburgh and Chicago, while three years ago the Methodist Theological Seminary in Boston set up a similar summer program to help deal with labor management problems. The Lutheran Church last year set up a church industrial relations department to conduct seminars for both ministers and labor leaders across the country.

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And along the same subject it should be observed that the blinding of Victor Riesel, labor columnist, a few days ago has evoked from a plea for a federal investigation of labor racketeering which, he says, infests labor unions. Now several things should be kept in mind regarding this tragedy. Many unionists, including this reporter, have found much in Reisel’s column over the years with which they disagreed. But that is no reason why he should not have a perfect right to say what he pleases. Moreover, doubtless there is racketeering among some unions. Indeed, it would be astonishing if there were not, considering the relative youthfulness of the labor movement, its rapid expansion during recent years, and the possible opportunities for unscrupulous men to capitalize upon the confusion inherent in such rapid growth. But none of these excuses anyone, including a union racketeer – if such were the agent who did this – of the dastardly act of poison-throwing. Men of good will and sincere intentions, both within unions and without, will condemn this for what it is: cowardly, immoral, and illegal. Perhaps there is no other field in which ministers of all faiths could better direct their efforts than toward improving labor-management relationships, for labor is here to stay and so is management, and they must learn how to get along with each other.

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A report as to how the U.S. Protestant minister spends his time comes from a study made by Samuel W. Blizzard, Jr., sociologist at Pennsylvania State University, with funds granted by the Russell Sage Foundation. The report tries to get at an understanding of the requirements of the modern ministry. Blizzard found that the average minister spends 26 percent of his time on pastoral duties; 19 percent as preacher; 12 percent as organizer; and 5 percent as teacher. He points out further, that most ministers have what he calls a “theological concept” of the church.

Most frequent theme for sermons was man’s spiritual obligation to the deity; with some 51 percent. Forty-four percent of the sermons were devoted to the value of religion to society, while 23 percent dealt with the value of religion to the individual. Thirty-six percent of the ministers felt that they needed more time for reading, study, and private devotions. Thirty-eight percent felt that the minister should have an unusually radiant personality – whatever that means. Eleven percent were bothered by conflicts. Despite their avowed desire to know all kinds of people, ministers tend to associate with leaders of the community. And more than a third of them admit that their effectiveness is impaired by a failure to maintain a fellowship with all groups.

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A topic dealt with here more than once is that of conformity versus individual thinking, and the occasion for this reference to the subject is a passage from a sociology text just off the press and which came to me yesterday. It says, “The older American vocabulary of exhortation – “work hard, lead, strive, stand out from the crowd, and take your stand against the whole world if need be” is being encroached upon by the new vocabulary of “fit in, adjust, don’t stick your neck out, take the other’s point of view. “How does he get along with his associates,” it says, is now a standard item on all recommendation forms. That question, the author goes on, fits perfectly the requirements of a bureaucratic social order. Opposed organizations may conflict, but membership within each organization must increasingly accept and adjust.”

If all this is true, what is happening to the historical, traditional individualism so widely praised as one of the American virtues? Is there no longer any place for the Jeffersons? The Schurzs? The Debs? One who believes in the doctrine of revolution embodied in the Declaration of Independence, in true individualism in thought, can read the above only with a feeling of nostalgia. For if those words are correct, something fine and unique has gone of out the American sense. Now this reporter has no desire to go around arousing unnecessarily the ire of those with whom he does not agree. On the other hand, he has no intention of being overtly concerned with keeping “adjustment” as his primary aim. On the contrary, he has no intention of adjusting any more than he has to do so in order to be law-abiding and respond to the common amenities of living. The path of adjustment is a monotonous, dreary one that does little to encourage not only original thought, but thought of any kind. James Russell Lowell put it pretty well, when he said:

They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three. (“Stanzas on Freedom”)

And Lincoln put it even more forcefully in his first inaugural when he said, “If by mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a normal point of view, justify revolution – certainly would if such a right were a vital one.”

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Vatican City: Pope Pius has given qualified approval to the grafting of corneas from dead bodies to the eyes of blind persons. The pope said the Roman Catholic Church has no moral or religious objection to cornea grafting as such. But he warned that operations should be performed only if the cornea is willed by dead persons with the consent of relatives, and that donating a cornea should not be presented as an obligation.

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And from Los Angeles the president of the International Council of Christian Churches has charged that clergymen from Moscow are agents of the secret police. Dr. Carl McIntire, of Collingswood, New Jersey, says the Reds are using the church simply as a tool in the Cold War. Dr. McIntire and other church officials came to Los Angeles to conduct a series of rallies to protest against the visits of Russian clergymen. Other such rallies are scheduled for New York and Chicago.

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From Newton, Massachusetts comes the item that a Negro minister next month will become the first clergyman of his race to have two white congregations. The Rev. Joseph Washington, son of a retired Baptist minister, has accepted a call to Newfield, Maine. There, beginning June 3, he will serve as minister of the Methodist Church of Newfield and the Congregational Church of West Newfield. The Negro clergyman is not being sent there; he was called by the congregations themselves after they had heard of his work during the past two years as associate minister of a Baptist church in Woburn, Massachusetts.

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In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a defrocked Lutheran minister has lost his first fight for reinstatement. A five-man committee of the Northwest Synod of the United Lutheran Church rejected reinstatement of the Rev. Victor K. Wrigley, pastor of a church at Brookfield, Wisconsin. He had been convicted of heresy charges last November and was defrocked in January. But his congregation has refused to dismiss him. Church officials say the Rev. Wrigley will have another chance to appear before the committee next January.

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Some Americans in the Near East have a unique Sunday school class. They travel to the scenes of their lessons. The Americans in Amman, Jordan, can do it because they work and live not far away by automobile from many biblical localities. So far, the 25 – 30 in the class have visited scores of places, such as Jericho, Elisha’s well, Joshua’s tomb, Hebron, Mt. Nebo, and the site of Christ’s baptism. They also have seen the Mount of Temptation, where Satan offered Jesus all the cities of the earth. The American Sunday schoolers have visited, too, the remote Essene monastery, where the famous Dead Sea Scrolls were recovered a few years ago. The call serves the double purpose of making the Bible more real and of giving the Americans a better understanding of Jordan. And it gives Jordanians the opportunity to know the Americans better.

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Some U.S. rabbis plan a trip to the Soviet Union soon for the purpose of renewing broken spiritual ties with the Russian Jewish community. The Americans will include Rabbi David Hollander of New York, president of the Rabbinical Council of America; Rabbi Samuel Adelman of Newport News, Virginia; Gilbert Klaperman, of Lawrence, New York; and Emanuel Rackman and Herschel Schacter, both of New York City. Rabbi Hollander says the U.S. delegation will try to reestablish relations broken 30 years ago and develop means of stimulating a Jewish religious revival in Russia.

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Former President Harry Truman has told a news conference in Rome that he still favors establishing diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the Vatican. He says he has always favored it. Truman has described himself as a good Baptist, but says he thinks it would help the peace of the world to have U.S. – Vatican diplomatic relations. The former chief executive is to have an audience with the pope today.

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And the Vatican on its part has praised the U.S. Fulbright educational program as a maintainer of the proper balance between the spiritual and the material. Pope Pius made the remarks this week at a special audience of 86 U.S. professors, researchers, and their families.

 

 

 

 

 

Note on the transcript: In the original transcript, there are two episodes dated “May 27, 1956,” but none dated “May 20, 1956.” The one put into the binder first was this one, so I’ve labelled it “May 20, 1956.” In addition, there appears to be at least one page missing from the end of this episode.

The pharisee gave thanks that he was not like other men. Many of us are thankful, too, for men who are not like other men, but in a different way from that which the pharisees had in mind. For everyone today who prays to be different, there are perhaps thousands who pray that they may be indistinguishable from the crowd. Progress, however, depends upon those who are deviates from the monotonous mold of conformity. Dr. Frank C. Baxter of the University of California put it in common day parlance by saying that it is the eggheads who set the pace, referring, as he hastened to emphasize, that he was talking about the socially valuable intelligent people, not the superficial intellectuals. He goes on to point out something which many of us realized all too well that America is today afraid of eggheads. And because of that fear, we are bankrupt today in leadership. Churchill dared to be different, but he is through. And yet, many of us who try to teach are painfully aware that under the present methods of mass education, we cater to the mediocre, leaving the potentially valuable human stuff to go to waste. As Dr. Baxter points out, “It is a sign that the mediocre and the unpotential should set the pace for their betters. It is wrong that the superior student with rich capabilities should be denied the chance to unfold to the limits of his powers.” Many will argue on this point, but it makes sense to this reporter.

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From one R. Carter Pittman, president of the States Rights Council of Georgia, Inc., comes this week some words of wisdom – or something – regarding the doctrine of human equality. Speaking before the Tennessee State Rights Council monthly meeting, Pittman says, “The doctrine of human equality is found neither in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, nor the Bible.” “The doctrine,” he goes on, “is found in Das Kapital, which is the bible of communism.” Now we are getting somewhere, though just where I am not sure. Mr. Pittman is an attorney of Dalton, Georgia, and he goes to insist that “The Declaration of Independence does not say that all men are created equal. It says that they were created equal. There equality ended. Creation is over when life begins.” And there is more but in the same vein. Mr. Pittman should know his Declaration of Independence more thoroughly, for Mr. Jefferson did say that all men are created equal, so this was some 70 years before Das Kapital. Furthermore, I believe it was Paul who insisted that “God hath made of one blood all nations of men.” And this was at least a few years even before Mr. Marx and his Pittman-hated writings. It is one thing to be for segregation. It is quite another to twist and distort history to substantiate your prejudice.

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A wee bit of advice that seems dangerously near to being sensible comes from the Rev. Theodore Gill, managing editor of The Christian Century who warns wives of beginning ministers that they should take a more active part in parish life. He says, “You don’t have to be ghostly to be godly … beware lest your piety get too drab and narrow.” And that could well apply not only to ministers’ wives, but also doubtless to some ministers, and, without doubt, to many laymen.

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A short but informative article on a subject about which we Protestants, and, I suspect, many Catholics, are little informed appears in the current issue of Time magazine, a publication for which this reporter has no particular fondness. However, the article deals with the Catholic press in America. It points out that the total magazine and newspaper circulation of Catholic publications reaches some 24 million readers. It varies from dailies to quarterly publications, and in content from superficial items of current happenings to profound discussions of theological questions. As measured by secular standards, the Catholic press has come a long way from being the “dreary diocesan drivel” it was once called. Many of its publications, for example the liberal Commonweal, issued by laymen, and the layman-edited Monthly Jubilee have professional polish and a telling impression among the people [to whom] they circulate.

Again, as I suspect many of us Protestants have thought otherwise, the Catholic press does not present a monolithic view of the news. Actually the news in the papers has no “official” status, i.e., emanating from church authorities as a sort of “party line” for followers to adhere to. Only such things as papal decrees, etc. can be regarded as being the official voice of the church and binding upon members. Indeed, some Catholics have expressed a feeling that journalism in their press has gone too far in promoting something of an intramural controversy, confusing not only non-Catholics but many of the faithful also. At the farthest poles of journalism in the Catholic press are The Tablet, a very conservative, even at times reactionary paper published in Brooklyn, and, a short distance away geographically but poles apart journalistically, the radical Catholic Worker, published in Manhattan.

It might do us Protestants good to read as widely in the Catholic press as we can, for all too many of us know nothing about these powerful organs influencing public opinion in this country, and only a minority of their contents deal with religion as such, but most deal with daily issues that have religious implications.

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In 11 states and Alaska this summer, vacationing Americans will have the opportunity to worship in natural settings of creation. Once more the National Council of Churches will be in operation. The services will be conducted by 110 young ministerial and college students – both men and women – who represent 23 Protestant denominations and come from 25 seminaries and 50 colleges. The young religious workers will hold campfire powwows also and songfests on weekday evenings. But that is not all. The men students will earn their keep by driving trucks and doing general maintenance for park hotels and other concessions. The girls will be waitresses and aids. The programs director, the Rev. Warren Ost, terms it the ideal preparation for the ministry. He also says it provides tourists a rare and unforgettable experience of worship. The parks in the National Council worship program are situated – in addition to Alaska – in California, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Utah, Colorado, Texas, and Michigan.

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The moderator of the Southern Presbyterian Church sprang a surprise at the annual assembly in Philadelphia, of the Northern Presbyterian Church. The Rev. J. McDowell Richards, president of Columbia College, in Decatur, Georgia, declared the Christian church has failed to prepare the public properly for racial integration. The Rev. Mr. Richards had accepted an invitation to bring good wishes of his own branch of the church to the Philadelphia meeting. In addition, the northern Presbyterians heard him declare that in many respects these are the most difficult times for Presbyterians since the Civil War. The Southern church leader also asserted “It is with deep humility that we face the situation and confess that as Christian leaders we have not done what we should in preparing our people for this hour.” It was the Southern Presbyterians who, last year, rejected a three-way merger with their Northern communion and the United Presbyterian Church. Points of theology as well as integration were the stumbling blocks. Meanwhile, the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., the Northern group, has been considering a union with the United Presbyterians. Debate is scheduled for early this coming week. One stumbling block toward this merger has been the claim that the smaller group – the United branch – would get too much prominence in the proposed new name: the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Shades of Socrates! Why not just call it “American Presbyterians”?

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Former President Harry Truman says he discussed U.S. and Vatican diplomatic relations with Pope Pius XII on the diplomatic basis, not the religious one. Truman said it is not a religious matter. The one-time chief executive now touring Italy also spoke to 300 U.S. Roman Catholic student priests at the Vatican’s North American College. He told them, “You have one of the greatest careers a man can have … teaching honor and honesty and the love of Christ.”

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The head of a Jewish men’s groups has urged diplomatic relations between Israel and the new Arab state of Morocco. President Philip Klutznick of B’nai B’rith believes it might be a first step toward Arab-Israel rapport in the Middle East.

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A new edition of the Bible has been published in Russia for the first time in 38 years. It contains the New and Old Testaments, with pictures of scenes illustrating the voyages of St. Paul to the Holy Land. There is no indication how many copies of the new Bible are being printed, where they are sold, or how much they cost.

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Moscow: The chief rabbi in Russia, Shloma Schlieffer, says the Soviet government has authorized establishment of a Jewish theological seminary for training of rabbis and cantors. He also announced that the government has authorized the opening of an official kosher butcher shop selling meat under rabbinical supervision. Rabbi Schlieffer said a kosher restaurant will be opened soon in Moscow – the first in the capital.

———

New York: An American churchman who recently toured Russia says the Soviets never will abandon their goal of closing every church in Russia in spite of seeming recent relaxation on restrictions against the church. Dr. Walter Van Kirk, a Methodist minister says there has been a let up in open persecutions for religious belief. There has been no throwing of sticks and stones or desecration of altars. However, he added, the Russians believe that once the new … indoctrination possesses the minds of the present and future generations, the roots of religion will be destroyed.

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Madrid: The Catholic Church is reported increasingly concerned with social conditions in Spain. Informed sources say the church is campaigning for fair family wages and a more even distribution of wealth. The sources say the church is not going against the government, but is pressuring it to push social reforms faster.

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Vatican City: Pope Pius has received a report on persecution against the so-called “Church of Silence” in communist-ruled countries. Members of the Catholic Committee for the Church of Silence handed the pontiff a 374-page volume outlining the conditions of Catholics in Russia, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, China, Korea, Yugoslavia, Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Vietnam.

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Vienna: Communist Czechoslovakia says Catholic Archbishop Joseph Beran is neither in jail nor in custody, but has been barred from acting as archbishop of Prague and primate of Czechoslovakia. The Czech premier says Beran was expelled from his position in March of 1951. He added, “It is our right to protect the state against all infringements of law. However, this does not mean there is not religious freedom in our country.” The statement is the first official one on the archbishop since he was expelled.

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Philadelphia: David Proffitt of Maryville, Tennessee, has been elected moderator of the next General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. He succeeds Dr. Paul S. Wright who told the delegates at the opening of the 168th General Assembly that the church is more effective than atomic weapons in bringing about international peace. With this statement no sensible person will disagree. It can only bring the opposite, and those from Mr. Dulles down who talk about the weapon as an instrument of peace are either kidding themselves or trying to kid the rest of us. Either is risky business.

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Rangoon, Burma: This week has marked the 2,500th anniversary of the birth of Gautama, founder of the great Buddhist religion. More than 1,000 Buddhist monks from all parts of the world gathered in Rangoon to take part in observances at a 17-hundred-year-old temple, claimed to be the oldest religious temple in the world. Non-Buddhists, particularly Hindu visitors, far outnumbered Buddhists at the ceremonies.

 

Some weeks ago I reported on the situation in Louisiana, where the bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese ordered an end to segregation in parochial schools. And where prominent Catholics in the legislature who disagreed with this order announced their intention of going ahead with legislation that would have as its objective prohibition of mixing races in such schools. This past week, in New Orleans, Emile F. Wagner, Jr., president of the Association of Catholic Laymen, organized to fight desegregation, announced that under the pressure of the threat of excommunication, his organization was, temporarily at least, ceasing its activities. However, the organization plans to send an appeal to the pope to step in and straighten matters out, for, as Wagner sees it, Catholics are “greatly alarmed at the casual way the matter of excommunication and mortal sin has been bandied about,” and, he goes on, “We greatly fear this has caused great confusion among Catholics.”

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And while on the subject of integration, it is reported that the Alabama Congress of Parents and Teachers adopted recently a resolution declaring, in part, “We will not concur in or be bound by any policies or statements of the national PTA favoring anything other than separate schools.” This resolution followed speculation that the state group might secede from the national congress. Some local PTA groups in the state had been reported considering such action in protest against of the national organization’s 1954 policy statement. Well, it would appear as if the school administrators, political demagogues, and racial bigots have pretty well under control the voting strength of local PTA groups. Of course these local groups have every right to secede from the national organization if they wish, but it would appear about as sensible as cutting off one’s head to cure a toothache. On the other hand comes the heartening news that another Southern, or border state, Oklahoma, has closed 23 more all-Negro schools and is stepping up the integration process.

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In the thinking of many people today, the frontier of religion is not so much in the field of theology as it is in ethics. Not so much an abstract rationalization of what seems to be right, but a matter of practice of what, in the light of human experience, has proved to be best. To many people, also, psychology, sociology, and the other social sciences are a threat to ethical standards and practices. To others, these fields are a challenge to men to establish a higher order of ethics than any than have heretofore existed. Are these two points of view poles apart? Not necessarily. Both protagonists desire improvement, but one would proceed on a pragmatic basis, while it seems not unfair to say that the other insists that its basis be dogmatic. I certainly have no crystal ball, but I may hazard a guess that in the long run it is the former that will win out.

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The cartoonist Herblock, of the Washington Post, and syndicated in numerous other newspapers, says of McCarthyism that “The sickness is still with us, and even if his song of hate is ended, the malady lingers on.” And, I might add, a la [Senator] Eastland, for example.

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One item from a church paper came across my desk this week that seems worth passing on. It says that some parents insist on biblical instruction for their children but are themselves too unfamiliar with the contents of the Bible to know the values it contains for education purposes, or the appropriate ages for the appropriation of these values. We have not, it goes on, yet fully appreciated the necessity (if we are to make a liberal view of religion available to our children) that leaders in the education program themselves must be persons with liberal attitudes. The teacher is still the most important equipment in the education of the child. Children do not gather grapes from thistles. The minister spends more time and patience than he can well afford in order to correct among his adult members the mistaken notions they were formerly taught in church school. Is this true? Of your minister and your church school?

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In its quadrennial conference that ended in Minneapolis this week, the Methodist Church adopted some far-reaching policies that surprised some of its own members, including this reporter. In its 13 days of sessions, among the major actions it took were:

1. Adopted procedures permitting integration of the Church’s racially segregated administrative structure. (And this was long overdue);

2. Extended full clergy rights to women, who had had only limited rights previously;

3. Allotted $1 million to establish a school for the training of diplomats and other Foreign Service personnel. As far as I know this is the first undertaking of its kind by a religious denomination. The school will be set up in Washington;

4. Decided to establish two new theological seminaries and to expand the facilities of 10 others in order to meet the problem of an under-supply of ministers;

5. Set up machinery to raise an additional $48 million to strengthen the church-related colleges during the next four years;

6. Decided to broaden its program of stimulating work of local churches in their social and religious influences in their home communities;

7. Condemned legalized liquor as a spreading menace to the welfare of Americans;

8. Gave official sanction to birth control;

9. Increased its missionary budget by some $19 million;

10. Adopted a strong resolution opposing any government laws requiring loyalty oaths from churches.

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A moment ago I referred to the matter of dogmatism. A certain denominational laymen’s group has put out a folder saying that you are not a Christian unless you believe that:

1. God made the world and man;

2. Man turned away from God and this is the original sin;

3. Jesus was not a philosopher or healer but the Son of God;

4. The Holy Ghost is not a phantom but a real source of strength and power.

Well, it is not for this reporter to say which of these is true or not, or whether all of them are. It seems pertinent however, to point out the peculiar technique employed here. It is to decide what you want to believe, say this is Christianity, and then go on to say that those who do not believe these things are not Christian. This is bigotry.

Now the truth is that Christianity did not come into an empty world. At the time of Jesus and Paul there were as many religions in the Mediterranean basin as there are today in Los Angeles, or perhaps in Johnson City. Christianity was born in controversy and has been in controversy ever since. There never has been a revelation delivered once and for all to the believers. Each of many denominations claims its religion is revelation. Christianity is a culture that includes a collection of related religions. We here in the Western world cannot escape history. In a broad cultural sense we are Christians, not Buddhists or Moslems. But if by “Christian” one means acceptance of one of the orthodoxies of the past to exclusion of consideration of all others, we are ignoring stubborn historical facts. When someone bobs up and says you are not a Christian because you do not believe exactly as he does, it might be well to pin him down to a definition.

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The call to the ministry should get an impetus form three recent graduates of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. All were varsity baseball players. One is the Rev. Thomas Foster, vicar of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Atonement in Fairlawn, New Jersey. Another is James Waring, in his second year at the Episcopal Church’s General Theological Seminary in New York City. The third is William Eastman, who is in his first year of study for the Congregational ministry at the Yale Divinity School, New Haven, Connecticut. Along with these three, the Rutgers coach has also helped promote the idea that athletes can be churchgoers and more. The coach stated that some kids are actually ashamed to attend church because they are afraid someone will accuse them of being soft. The coach goes on to describe Foster, Waring, and Eastman as perfect examples of great athletic competitors who were deeply religious.

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Kentucky’s Governor Chandler thinks his state administration has been pretty successful in reestablishing what he terms “a religious atmosphere” in Frankfort, the state capital. Those words were part of Chandler’s welcoming remarks to the 3,000 delegates to the 1956 North American Christian Convention in Louisville this past midweek. The convention is an inspirational meeting of church members from 26 states – an assembly that transacts no business. Individually, of course, they are voters. This reporter cannot help but be somewhat skeptical, perhaps even cynical, about political leaders of any party in this country who parade the idea that their administration has created a religious atmosphere in government. Government workers’ main responsibility is to do a good job in their positions, and if they pursue it with religious conviction, so much the better, but let us keep church and state separate. Many of us are getting pretty tired of public officials using religious atmosphere to give flavor to administrative policies that may or may not be wise from the standpoint of public welfare.

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The Jewish Service Organization, B’nai B’rith, has called for creation of what it terms an “experimental international group” that would act consultatively on world Jewish problems. The organization reelected President Philip Klutznick of Chicago. Three objectives were outlined for the proposed international group:

1. To act on world Jewish problems when advisable;

2. To coordinate action taken by affiliated groups;

3. To make clear its stand on what it termed “sectarian religious indoctrination in public schools.” (To which, it is somewhat superfluous to say, it is opposed, and understandably so.)

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Washington: Experts on Soviet policy say Russia’s new leaders are doing everything possible to give foreigners the idea that religious freedom exists in Russia. The experts say the Kremlin’s attitude toward religion has not actually changed – that it still follows the thinking of Lenin, who called religion “the opiate of the people.” Since the death of Stalin, they say, a small number of new Bibles have been authorized for distribution, and a few famous churches have been repaired and redecorated. But, they say, religious instruction of children and youth within the church is still banned.

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Elgin, Illinois: The Illinois Conference of Congregational Christian Churches has called on its 90,000 church members to try by prayer and deed to keep the intercontinental ballistic missile from every being used. The council adopted unanimously a resolution calling this missile the most urgent threat to the peace of the world. Well, there is nothing wrong with such resolutions, but it is difficult to see what influence this may have on nations who choose to use it. Perhaps this action falls into the “useless motions” category. There is a way to stop use of such missiles, but not by passing resolutions saying these missiles are dangerous. That we already know.

The Methodist Church has adopted what is called the fastest and longest step possible toward ending racial segregation now within the church. The quadrennial general conference of the church, meeting at Minneapolis, adopted a statement of principles against racial discrimination and segregation. It also proposed a series of amendments to the church constitution permitting the Negro conference to transfer to jurisdictions which include white conferences. The amendments must be approved by the annual conference of the church before becoming a part of the Methodist constitution.

Another important step taken was the decision to give women equal ecclesiastical standing with men. That means women may be full ministers, instead of the “lay supply pastors” they now are. The final vote was an overwhelming one, but earlier discussion and action on the removal of restrictions on women was long and sometimes tumultuous. Even some women delegates were against granting their sex full clerical rights.

But the world’s largest Protestant denomination has had to indicate it is sadly lacking in filling its pulpits. The Methodists will make major expansion in their ten theological seminaries and establish two new ones. The aim is to get closer to the 2,800 new Methodist pastors needed every year. About 900 yearly are being ordained now. In trying to meet the situation, they have given a decidedly new twist to the usual practice of sending missionaries abroad. Instead, they will bring some overseas ministers to the U.S. to help fill the need.

In still further news coming out of the conference is the announcement that church membership increased by some 10 percent in 44 foreign countries between 1951 and 1955.

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A Philadelphia churchwoman says Christians must work hard to match the zeal of the communists in the battle for men’s minds. Mrs. Frank C. Wigginton, chairman of the Baptist Foreign Missionary Society says there are more Christians than any other single religious or cultural group. But, she adds, they have not been as effective as they should in converting persons to their faith.

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A Dutch judge has asked municipal authorities in Rotterdam to take away the citizenship of Rotterdam’s new Roman Catholic bishop. The judge charges the bishop entered the service of a foreign state by becoming bishop. He says recent controversy has shown that bishops prefer the church’s canon law to Dutch civil law. Apparently that was in reference to a case in which a couple was married in a Catholic church without previous civil ceremony as required by law. A civil ceremony was impossible because the bridegroom already was married under civil law. A spokesman for the bishop, however, said that when the pope appoints a bishop he does not act as head of 220 acres constituting Vatican City, but as head of the Catholic Church. Thus, he added, a bishop does not function as a subject of the Vatican state but as a member of the church.

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Ministers in seven Denver, Colorado, churches, in a pre-arranged program to ease racial tensions, delivered sermons last Sunday against racial prejudice. There were six Protestant denominations among the seven churches. The ministers emphasized that there is no room in the Christian faith for racial prejudice.

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Washington: There is a growing tendency toward merger of churches, which reverses an historic tendency among Protestant churches to split into more numerous sects. In 1954, there were some 250 separate Protestant bodies in the United States alone. At present, according to a survey of the World Council of Churches, a total of 28 church union negotiations are in progress. Some are aimed at merging two denominations; others would bring together three or more bodies. Prospects seem to be bright for a merger of two Presbyterian groups perhaps by next year. Negotiations are also under way among three Lutheran bodies to form a New American Lutheran Church by 1960. And exploratory talks are continuing between the Methodist Church and the Protestant Episcopal Church, two of the largest denominations in the United States.

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Twelve Catholic workers have presented to Pope Pius XII a gilded bronze statue of Christ the Worker. The statue was flown to the Vatican by helicopter. It was purchased by donations from workers in four countries. Eventually, the statue will be transferred to a new church dedicated to Christ the Worker, which is scheduled to be completed in about 18 months. It is located on the outskirts of Rome.

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Leaders of the Christian and Jewish faiths have endorsed an observance set for New York this coming week. By proclamation of Governor Averell Harriman, it will be Religion in the Family Week. In other states and Canada the period will be observed as “Christian Family Week” under sponsorship of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.

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Greek and Russian Orthodox churches mark Easter today. In these ancient rites, which base their date on the Julian calendar, the emergence from darkness to light is symbolized in part of the midnight ceremonies. The priest advances out of darkness and tells the congregation, “Come ye forth and receive the light.” Then the worshipers step forward and light their candles from those held by the priest.

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More than 500 leaders of Conservative Jewish Congregations in the U.S. and Canada are expected at the 27th annual convention of the National Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs beginning today. The three days of meetings at Grossinger’s [Resort], New York, will have the theme “Thou Shalt Choose Life – Ethics for Modern Living.”

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Rogation Sunday, the fifth Sunday after Easter according to the Western churches, was and will be marked by special services in many places today. It’s the day that emphasizes the intimate link between the life of the church and the cycle of seed time and harvest. Thus it has become known by a variety of names – Rural Life Sunday, 4-J Sunday, and Soil Stewardship Sunday. In some areas services are held to bless the land.

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The Frenchman Andre Maurois passes along a quotable quote to the effect that the United Nations can’t guarantee peace any more than a doctor can guarantee health. But, he asks, would that be a good reason for doing way with doctors?

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And another which this reporter cannot resist, even at the risk of censorship comes from the Chapel Hill Weekly, which says, “Vice-President Nixon has a lot of people behind him, but we cannot tell whether they are following him or chasing him.” Hence, we wonder sometimes why he is running.

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A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, last month declared that segregation is a sin and as such should not be gradually accepted. Speaking at a New York luncheon, at which he received an annual award from the League for Industrial Democracy, he went on to say that segregation is based upon the negation of the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God, and degrades, demeans, and demoralizes the dignity of the human personality.”

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A discouraging report from a U.S. Senate committee states that “millions of children still attend schools which are unsafe or which present learning only part time or under conditions of serious overcrowding.” In addition, more than a million children are going to school in buildings not designed originally for school use. Two children out of five have been attending school in structures which do not conform to minimum fire safety standards. Elementary teachers in cities of medium size are paid less than railroad switch tenders, automobile workers, or coal miners. Over 75,000 teachers left the occupation last year. During the next five years the number of school children will rise from 30 million to 45 million, with no means in sight to provide properly for their education. This is not happening in Russia or the Congo; it is happening in the United States, where corporate profits stand at an all-time high, where $40 billion is spent annually for armaments, and where the stock exchange creates new bonanzas and new millionaires almost every day. Many school districts are bonded to the hilt, and state governments in many cases have run out of sources of revenue to tap for school purposes. This makes it look as if our only chance to avoid default on our duty to the children of America is for the federal government to step in and put an end to the school crisis.

A bill is now pending before Congress which would provide a mere pittance of what is needed, but even that is bogged down by the so-called Powell and Lehman Amendments, amendments which, if left in, will probably kill any chances of federal legislation this session of Congress, for the Dixiecrats in the Senate will filibuster it to death. These amendments would prohibit allocation of federal funds to any school system practicing segregation. Nobody is more opposed to segregation than this reporter, as a matter of principle, and he takes the position, again as a principle, that Congress should make a declaratory stand in support of the law of the land as interpreted by the Supreme Court decisions. However, this would appear to be a case where it would be better to get funds if possible, even without the amendments; otherwise we doom both whites and colored to continue in schools otherwise inadequate and unfit. Children grow older each day, and their growth will not await a change of medieval Senate rules under which debate cannot be limited by a constitutional majority.

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What is a girl? Little girls are the nicest things than happen to people. They are born with a little bit of angel shine about them, and though it wears thin sometimes there is always enough left to lasso your heart – even when they are sitting in the mud or crying temperamental tears or parading up the street in mother’s best clothes. A little girl can be sweeter – and badder – oftener than anyone else in the world. She can jitter around, and stomp, and make funny noises that frazzle your nerves. Yet just when you open your mouth, she stands there demure with that special look in her eyes. A girl is innocence playing him the mud, beauty standing on its head, and motherhood dragging a doll by the foot.

God borrows from many creatures to make a little girl. He uses the song of a bird, the squeal of a pig, the stubbornness of a mule, the antics of a monkey, the spryness of a grasshopper, the curiosity of a cat, the speed of a gazelle, the slyness of a fox, the softness of a kitten, and to top it all off, he adds the mysterious mind of a woman.

A little girl likes new shoes, party dresses, small animals, first grade, the girl next door, make-believe, dancing lessons, ice cream, makeup, cans of water, tea parties, and one boy. She doesn’t care for visitors, boys in general, large dogs, straight chairs, or staying in the front yard. She is the loudest when you’re thinking, the prettiest when she has provoked you, the busiest at bedtime, the quietest when you want to show her off, the most flirtatious when she absolutely must not get the best of you again.

Who else can cause you more grief, joy, irritation, satisfaction, embarrassment, and genuine delight than this combination of Eve, Salome, and Florence Nightingale? She can muss up your home, your hair, your dignity – spend your money, your time, and temper – then just when your patience is ready to crack, her sunshine peeks through and you’ve lost again.

Yes, this is a never-wracking nuisance just a noisy bundle of mischief. But when your dreams tumble down and the world is a mess – when it seems you are pretty much a fool after all – she can make you a king when she climbs on your knees and whispers, “I love you best of all.”

Well, that is all Alan Beck says, but every word of it is true – this reporter knows. And to the little girl he has in mind, and who is reaching the ripe old age of ten on Wednesday of this week, her daddy wishes only to say, “Happy birthday, Susan,” for you’re the grandest girl in the world.”

 

One of the things that is very easy to forget, overlook, or evade seeing, is the fact that most religions have more similarities than they do differences, yet we are prone to emphasize those differences, and even quarrel over them. Consider the following:

Christianity says “All things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets.”

Buddhism says “Hurt not others with that which pains yourself.”

Confucianism says “Do not unto others what you would not they should do unto you.”

Hebraism says “What is hurtful to yourself do not to your fellowmen. That is the whole of the Torah and the remainder is but commentary.”

Hinduism says “This issue sum of duty: do naught to others which, if done to thee, would cause thee pain.”

Islam says “No one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.”

Taoism says “Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain, and regard your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.”

Zoroastrianism says “That nature only is good when it shall not do unto another whatever is not good for it’s own self.”

Why not think over these things as you feel an urge to consider a religion different from your own as being inferior?

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A congressman has proposed an amendment to the Constitution of the U.S. reading as follows:

“Resolved that the following article is hereby proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by conventions in three fourths of the several states: Article I, Section 1. “This nation devoutly recognizes the authority and law of Jesus Christ, savior and rule of nations, through whom we are bestowed the blessings of almighty God.”

If adopted this would mean a person could not take a loyalty oath without assenting to a credo that reads like something out of one of Billy Graham’s sermons, or one of the columns of Norman Vincent Peale. Of course, if these two are favorites of yours, you have every right to disagree with this reporter, and he respects that right.

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George Washington said, “Precedents are dangerous things. Let the reins of government then be braced and held with a steady hand and every violation of the Constitution be reprehended. If defective, let it be amended but not suffered to be trampled whilst it has an existence.” This short paragraph is recommended reading for the juvenile senator from Wisconsin, who is a Republican; for Senator Eastland, who is a Democrat; and for Rep. Francis Walter, who is of the same political complexion. What about construing the invocation of the Fifth Amendment as an admission of guilt? The framers never so intended.

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A very heartening demonstration of adherence to American principles of freedom of speech occurred this past week at Princeton University. Alger Hiss, convicted perjurer, had been invited to speak to the American Whig-Cliosophic Society. Rumors were flying during the week that some of the trustees were insisting upon canceling the invitation, but the president of the university secretly refused to interfere. Thursday night, he spoke – his first public appearance since his release from about four years of prison. There were no demonstrations; he submitted to a question and answer period; and then slipped out of a back door to avoid a waiting crowd. It is hardly likely that he changed many things about the subject matter of his speech, but how much better is it that he was permitted to go ahead without fuss. This could have made him a martyr in the minds of extremists. Freedom of speech in our First Amendment means just what it says.

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A report to Harvard University president, Nathan M. Pusey, by the preacher of Harvard University, George A. Buttrick, deals with the decline and upsweep of activity of religious activity and interest. Professor Buttrick does not believe there is a religious revival going on here in this country, revival in the older sense of the word. However, he is convinced that “There is here and elsewhere a revival of interest in religion. “That kind of revival,” he goes on, “if it should run down false trails could be a misfortune; it could lead to emotional escape” (and as an aside, it would appear that there is considerable evidence of this) “or a dubious ‘peace of mind,’ or even to the claim of divine sanction for buttressed systems of theology and entrenched prejudices within our common life. Conversely, this revival of interest could deliver us from arid … too cold rationalism into ventures of mind, a broader human concern, and a deeper reverence.”

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One of the many facets of the problem of integration of the races in the South is that of competition between colored and white workers in industry. While some labor unions have become angered by integration and have threatened to secede, union leaders see little danger of mass secession. On the contrary, industry itself has taken the lead in integration. In the steel mills of Birmingham, e.g., the Negro worker, once relegated to menial jobs, is steadily if slowly moving across the color bar into skilled jobs and non-segregated union locals. In Memphis, the International Harvester Company, since its opening eight years ago, has steadily without fanfare and without serious incident been promoting Negroes into skilled jobs. And Georgia’s biggest employer, Lockheed, has been equally successful in assigning Negro workers to skilled assembly and fabrication jobs at its Marietta bomber plant. Even in Mississippi, where the governor vowed last year to preserve integration until “Hades freezes over,” many colored workers have been integrated without incident. So, if the Negro can be given economic opportunity and educational advantages on a basis equal to his white brothers, he will have achieved the most important of his objectives, and will go a long way on his own to raise his standards of living, become a better customer, parent, and citizen.

Perhaps it is one of the lowest, but admittedly it is one of the laziest, forms of reporting to resort to quotations and slogans. The following that came across my desk this week, however, could not be resisted:

“It is hard to tell where the State Department ends and Life and Time magazines begin.”

Another: “Liberals must believe but they cannot have beliefs…. They must face the challenge of maintaining a creedless credo.”

“Many are liberals for all the liberties already acquired, but are formidable conservatives for those liberties which it is still necessary to acquire.”

Another, this time from Gandhi:

“Individual freedom alone can make a man voluntarily surrender himself completely to the service of society. If it is wrested from him he becomes an automaton and society is ruined. No society can possibly be built on a denial of individual freedom. It is contrary to the very nature of man, and just as man will not grow horns or a tail, so he will not exist as man if he has no mind of his own. In reality, even those who do not believe in the liberty of the individual believe in their own.”

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It has not been so long ago that this reporter was opposing, in as strong words as he could muster and dared used, the tactics of one Joseph P. McCarthy, who violated about every civil right in the book, as well as every known decency in conduct of public officials. Such violation is as reprehensible when committed by members of one party as another. McCarthy was a Republican; but the same performance by Democrats, perhaps in a little less-publicized form, is going on under both Senator Eastland and Rep. Francis Walter, of Pennsylvania, both Democrats. For example, at the recent contempt trial of Mrs. Goldie Watson, Philadelphia teacher, before District Judge Schweinhaut, prosecutor William Hitz, Jr., argued that the House Un-American Activities Committee could, if it chose, summon every American in the country before it and ask him if he was or ever had been a communist. Opponents of this “exposure for exposure’s sake” tactics have argued that the committee must show that their questions have relevance. For instance, in another but similar case, the judge invoked the words used by Chief Justice Warren last year when he said that the congressional power of investigation “cannot be used to inquire into private affairs unrelated to a valid legislative power.” In the case of Mrs. Watson, she earned her contempt citation for refusing to tell the House committee about the beliefs and associations of her fellow teachers, and in doing so invoked the Fifth Amendment.

Now this reporter takes it for granted that a communist cannot be desirable as a teacher in the schools in our democracy because the first commitment of such a teacher is to an honest search for truth, while to the communist, truth is secondary and any means justifies the end. However, there is a vast difference between being a member of the party and being required to give evidence before a legislative committee as to the affiliations and associations of colleagues. In this connection, you are urged to read Dr. Griswold’s able discussion of The Fifth Amendment Today, wherein are discussed the pitfalls of penetrating investigation into the beliefs and associations of individuals. While innocent enough in themselves, these can easily lead to an assumption of guilt that is not really true. Ours has been traditionally a society of belief in freedom of thinking in the fields of politics, religion, and social and economic matters. Unwarranted invasion of these beliefs by a congressional committee is not justified, whether that committee is headed by a chairman of one party or of the other. In brief, it is none of their business.

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The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina takes issue with the national Episcopal Church stand against racial segregation. The 166th annual convention of the South Carolina Diocese adopted a resolution declaring there is nothing morally wrong in a voluntary recognition of racial differences, and that voluntary alignments can be both natural and Christian. It is believed to be the first action by a diocese against the stand taken by the national Episcopal Church.

Now this reporter should like to make it very clear that nothing he has ever said has been in denigration of or in conflict with the idea of voluntary segregation. On the contrary, he believes that a lot of voluntary segregation is going to exist for a long time, regardless of what the courts do. The only position he has taken, and still takes, is that such segregation must be voluntary on the part of both races. If both races prefer to segregate themselves from each other, there is no good reason why they should not do so. However, there is no logical or legal reason why they should be required to do so unless they wish. And if one race wishes to segregate and the other does not, again, there is no legal or logical reason why there should be segregation.

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Whether the following item belongs in a program of this kind, you are the judge. It was difficult to resist including it. John Williams of San Mateo, California, was arrested for speeding on the Ohio turnpike. The patrolman ordered him to report to the Mayor’s Court in Swanton, Ohio. All the way to the court, police say, Mrs. Williams was scolding her husband for his driving. He paid a $20 fine, and left the mayor’s office to discover that wife and car were gone. She had dumped his suitcases on the sidewalk and taken off on her own. Police caught Mrs. Williams again and brought her back to Swanton, with a traffic charge against her too. But her fine was suspended on condition she let her husband back into the car. Police say she did, and they drove off, with Mrs. Williams once again telling her husband what she thought of him. Veritably there is no justice for husbands in this world.

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In Minneapolis, Minnesota, the issue of racial segregation comes before the General Conference of the Methodist Church at its quadrennial session next Wednesday. The issue is expected to provoke considerable debate.

At the same time, a new head of the Methodist Council of Bishops will take office during the week. Bishop W. Earl Ledden of Syracuse, New York, will begin work in the post when the session opens. He succeeds Bishop Claire Purcell of Birmingham, Alabama. The pre-conference meetings of the bishop’s council also has resulted in the election of Bishop W. Angie Smith of Oklahoma City as vice president. He is the 1957 president-designate. The council also selected Bishop Roy Short of Nashville, our Holston Conference bishop, as its secretary. He succeeds Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam of Washington, who has been secretary since the Northern and Southern factions of the church united in 1939.

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At Salisbury, North Carolina, the Synod of the United Lutheran Church has gone on record as opposing the involuntary practices of segregation of the races. At its convention, the North Carolina Synod adopted a resolution in support of equal privileges and unrestricted opportunity for all.

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Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania: The annual meeting of the United States Conference of the World Council of Churches has dedicated a plaque commemorating its beginning in the United States. The plaque was dedicated by Dr. Henry Smith Leiper, of New York. The World Council was organized at Amsterdam, Holland, in 1948, after a meeting by a provisional committee had originated the idea at Buck Hill Falls the previous year.

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Denver, Colorado: Sterling W. Sill, a leader of the Mormon church, says the church recommends that all members keep a year’s supply of food on hand in their homes at all times. Sill says the storage of food is in line with the Mormon principle of being self-reliant and also would provide food during catastrophe or depressions.

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Milan, Italy: An Italian magazine says other parts of the world may have to send missionaries to Europe some day. The journal says during the past 85 years the number of Catholic priests in Italy has dropped by two-thirds, while the population has doubled. Many European parishes, it says, have no priests at all. The magazine points to the acute shortage of priests in France, Spain, and Portugal, as well as Italy.

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Vatican City: Pope Pius XII has urged the world’s scientists to conquer the biblical source of leprosy. In an address before an international leprosy congress last Monday, the pontiff advocated a union of forces of science and religion to wipe out the disease which has claimed millions of victims.

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Again, Vatican City: The pope has named Monsignor Alden Bell as titular bishop of Rodopolis and auxiliary to James Francis Cardinal McIntyre, archbishop of Los Angeles. Monsignor Bell has been parish priest of Los Angeles Cathedral. He was born in Peterborough, Canada, and has served as U.S. Air Corps chaplain, and most recently has been in charge of Los Angeles archdiocesan social work.

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Kansas City, Missouri: The Lutheran Baptist Convention is standing on its invitation to Mayor H. Roe Bartle, of Kansas City to address the convention. Some Baptists had demanded withdrawal of the invitation to Mayor Bartle on the ground that he is in the liquor business. Actually, according to the mayor, he is stockholder in a chain of stores which deal in liquor but are primarily food distributors. Mayor Bartle has offered to withdraw as a speaker, but the program committee chairman promptly reiterated the invitation.

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Plans for an outdoor Roman Catholic cathedral have been announced by the Barnabite Fathers Guild of Lewiston, New York. The cathedral will appear from the air to be a giant cross surrounded by cypress trees. Glass stone aisles will lead to three altars, the central one of which will be topped by a granite canopy. It will be built on a 15-acre sited at Lewiston, New York, at a cost of half a million dollars.

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Washington: FBI director J. Edgar Hoover calls on the nation’s churches to play a more active role in the fight against juvenile delinquency. In an article for the United Press, Hoover says what is needed is an extension of the influence of the church into every home and to make the church the center of the family so that it may hold the place it once had as the wellspring of community activity. The FBI chief added churches opening at 11:00 one morning a week miss their full potential just as do those without dynamic programs of counsel and guidance for their members.

All of which this reporter is in agreement. However, as a student of both history and sociology, he has often wondered just how much more the homes of yesteryear were the center of religion teaching than they are today. How much of such talk is reality and how much is nostalgia or bad memory or wishful thinking? He does not know; he merely asks.

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The Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada has proclaimed this coming Monday, tomorrow, as a day of special prayer and fasting on behalf of peace in Israel. The union represents about 650 Orthodox rabbis.

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A Roman Catholic scholar says superficial and misleading claims are being made about the famous Dead Sea Scrolls found in Palestine within the last few years. The criticism comes from Monsignor Patrick Skehan, director of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem. He is on leave form his post as professor of Semitic languages and literature at the Catholic University of America. In Washington, D.C., he is also on the international team working on the scrolls. Monsignor Skehan tells of the attempts to connect Christianity with some of the Dead Sea texts that contain no basis for such connection. He terms it regrettably true that some persons are much more interested in finding in the Scrolls plausible counterparts to Christian teaching than in evaluating what the documents themselves reveal. The scholar names no one, but many articles and publications suggest that the sect that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls started ideas that were later incorporated into Christianity. Monsignor Skehan also states the general public is repeatedly told this or that phrase or teaching is used in the same by the Dead Sea texts and in the New Testament. But it is not told at all of a connection with Old Testament text or doctrine. The Catholic scholar also takes alleged similarities between Jesus and the leader of the Dead Sea sect, who is known as the “Teacher of Righteousness.” He asserts there is no suggestion in any text that any value of the salvation of anybody was seen in the death of the “teacher.” And where angels fear to tread, this reporter dares not butt in.

 

 

 

A thought-provoking letter in a recent Southern Baptist publication indicates something of the climate of opinion in the South these days toward the matter of segregation. It is written by a retired railroad conductor of Lebanon Junction, Kentucky, who writes that “Throughout the first 60 years of my life, I never questioned that Peter’s confession that ‘God is no respecter of persons’ referred exclusively to white persons. Nor did I question that segregation was Christian. Three years ago my views on this were completely altered, and I became convinced that God makes no distinctions among people whatever their race.” Certain things, he goes on, have convinced him that this is true, despite the fact that interpretations in the churches, i.e., white churches, have almost always either accepted segregation as right, or have ignored it all together.

The writer of that letter is disappointed that he finds no laymen crusading for integration, no pastors making an issue of segregation in their sermons, and no concerted action for integration on the part of the churches. And there is, he says, silence in the denominational papers.

This situation is true, not only of the Southern Baptists, but of other denominations. Perhaps most ministers in the South are troubled, like this layman, but they find other things to talk about in their sermons. Most of those who are vocal are so on the side of the citizens’ councils, to which organizations this reporter gave considerable space a short time ago. One pastor, that of Dallas’ Munger Place Baptist Church, recently insisted that “Now is the time for citizens’ councils to put pressure on your preacher,” and he even goes on to list eight, to him, reasons why it is not Christian to invite persons of the colored race into white churches.

The truth is that most denominations have, on a national level, declared themselves in support of the Supreme Court’s desegregation ruling, but such declarations have been attacked or ignored at the local level. The Catholic Church is the only one that has taken an unequivocal position on the matter, holding that segregation is an offense against Christian morality.

For foregoing is the sort of rationalization going on in the deep South today. A syndicated Southern columnist, John Temple Graves, summed it up saying, “With the brotherhood of man under God so precious in religious faith, no one says men of God should fail to oppose hate, intolerance, injustice, and discrimination.” And Dr. William A. Benfield of Louisville’s Highland Presbyterian Church put it more pointedly when he said in a recent sermon, “In some circles, religion has become an opiate of the people. Present-day Christianity is to many people tame and prosaic, prim and dull.… The Christian church has become too much an ambulance, dragging along behind, picking up the wounded, making bandages, and soothing hurt feelings, when the church should be out on the front line, getting hit in the face, but leading others and conquering the enemy.”

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In Nashville a suit has been filed protesting the reading of the Bible and the singing of hymns in public schools. Persons making the protest contend that this practice is a violation of the First Amendment, which forbids government to prefer one religion over another. Whatever may be our personal attitude toward the matter, it will help keep our thinking straight on the subject if we recall that a great justice of the Supreme Court once said that freedom of speech (and the same is true of religion) means not only freedom for the thought you like but equal freedom for the thoughts you hate. That may be pretty hard for some of us to live up to, but it is the American constitutional way.

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And while on the subject of the Constitution, it might be well to observe that court fights are ahead over the repressive laws passed by some Southern legislatures directed at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. These laws would penalize persons for belonging to the association. Persons and organizations serving notices of protest insist that this is a violation of the First Amendment, which protects the right of people peaceably to assemble, and it is difficult to see where it could be anything else. Up to this date, no news has come in that those same legislatures have entertained any idea of passing similar laws relating to the white citizen’s councils, which are making a veritable reign of terror for colored people in some areas of the Southern states.

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Sometimes perhaps ministers are expected to be mind readers, which of course they are not. The following item records an actual incident. A minister was met on the street by a parishioner who said angrily, “I was in the hospital all last week and not once did you come to see me.” When the minister asked if he had had a doctor, it sent the man’s blood pressure still higher. But the next question brought a reversal of temper, “How did the doctor know you were ill?” It might be well to keep this in mind when expecting of ministers and others performing personal services to do the impossible.

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The year before his death, Abraham Lincoln said:

“I see in the future a crisis arising that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people until all wealth is concentrated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”

Well, not exactly that has happened, but one is reminded of this trend in reading the current attempts to raise the first class postal rates from 3¢ to 4¢. These are the rates that you and I, the little people, pay for sending our letters. The argument is that such a raise is necessary to cover the deficit in the postal department. Well, a little checking reveals that first-class mail is the only class that is paying its way, while you and I, the taxpayers make up an annual loss of nearly $9 million for distribution of Life magazine, $6.5 million for the Saturday Evening Post, over $1.5 million for the Ladies Home Journal, nearly $5 million for Colliers, and over $3.5 million for Reader’s Digest. Furthermore, we pay a deficit of nearly $2 million annually for distributing the Chicago Tribune and almost that much for The New York Times. On these publications alone, there is a deficit of between $25 and $30 million. It would seem that those seeking to be fair about mailing privileges should look first at where the big deficits originate, instead of penalizing those of us who send only a few letters a week, and at that, the postage we pay takes care of all costs of doing so.

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Officials of both the Catholic and Protestant denomination churches say there is a serious shortage of clergymen in the United States. A survey shows that the demand for priests and ministers far exceeds the supply. Thousands of churches in all parts of the country are forced to get along with part-time pastors. As for the Catholic Church, the official Catholic directory says the ratio in its churches has gone up in ten years: one priest in 523 Catholics in 1945, to 700 Catholics today.

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Bishop Donald Harvey Tippett of San Francisco says the Methodist Church needs 2,800 new ministers each year to serve its steadily growing population.

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The Baptist World Alliance says five representatives of the Russian Baptist Union will arrive in this country on May 18 for a tour of the country’s Baptist centers. They will attend Baptist meetings in Washington, Kansas City, and Seattle, and will be in this country for a month.

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The National Religious Publicity Council has made awards of merit to three daily newspapers, and a weekly and monthly magazine. The awards are made in recognition of outstanding service rendered to organized religion through the pursuit of impartial journalism. Newspaper winners of the awards are the Nashville Tennessean, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and the Oakland Tribune. Magazine recipients were Life magazine and the Woman’s Home Companion.

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The chaplain of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, has been elected president of the National University Chaplains. The election took place at the association’s ninth annual conference, held at Vassar College, last Wednesday.

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Cardinal John D’Alton, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Armagh and primate of Ireland, has arrived by plane to dedicate an American hospital. Cardinal D’Alton came to this country to lead the dedication ceremonies today at the $6 million Cardinal Glennon Memorial Hospital for Children at St. Louis.

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A free-parking-for-churchgoers plan inaugurated in Washington last Christmas is paying off in church attendance. Capital parking lot operators say an average of 10,000 cars are being parked each Sunday morning. Non-churchgoers cannot sneak in. After the service, the parking lot attendants collect a copy of the day’s church bulletin from each motorist before he gets to drive his car out.

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In Cambridge, Massachusetts, Rev. Walter D. Kring, minister of the Unitarian Church of All Souls, New York City, has been elected president of the Harvard Divinity School Alumni Association. He succeeds the Rev. Dana McLean Greeley, of Boston.

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Canon John M. Burgess, the first Negro clergyman on the staff of Washington Cathedral, has been named archdeacon of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. Canon Burgess, who is 47, was appointed by the Right Rev. Norman Nash, Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts. He will supervise 13 missions in Boston. He is the first Negro to hold the archdeacon post.

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The chief of U.S. army chaplains has reported improvement in the moral standards of U.S. soldiers in Germany. Major General Patrick J. Ryan says conditions have bettered since his last visit, November 1954.

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A Pacific Northwestern minister says the U.S. now has less religious freedom than it had 20 years ago. The statement is from Dr. Albert J. Lindsey, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Tacoma, Washington. He has also told the National Association of Evangelicals, meeting in Cleveland, that more and more channels are being closed to the intelligent religious discussions and dissemination of facts about religion. Dr. Lindsey adds they are being closed behind a smokescreen of supposed tolerance and broad-mindedness and false profession of religious freedom. The evangelicals have elected Dr. Paul P. Petticord of Portland, Oregon, as president. He is an Evangelical United Brethren minister and president of the Western Evangelical Seminary of Portland. The evangelical association represents about 40 conservative Protestant denominations, with a total membership of almost two million persons.

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Pope Pius XII has appointed two new prelates for Roman Catholics in the far Western U.S. The Very Rev. Richard Ackerman, national director of the Pontifical Association of the Holy Childhood, is to be auxiliary to Bishop Charles Buddy of San Diego. He will also have the rank of titular bishop of Lares. Monsignor Thomas Gill, rector of St. James Cathedral in Seattle, will be auxiliary to archbishop Thomas Connolly of Seattle. Monsignor Gill will also be titular bishop of Lambaesis.

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A retired assistant attorney general of Illinois is giving up a life of ease to become a Catholic priest. Donald John F. McGinnis of Alton, Illinois, will be ordained in the Benedictine abbey of Collegeville, Minnesota, on May 19. The 62-year-old Father Donald will say his first solemn high Mass two days later in Alton’s St. Peter and Paul Cathedral. That will be before the same altar where he and his late wife were married 38 years ago. One of Father Donald’s 11 grandchildren admits he is having a hard time changing from “Grandpa McGinnis” to “Father Donald.”

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Mayor Robert F. Wagner of New York City will be given the first Light of the World award today in New York. Leading educators, public officials, and spiritual leaders are to take part in presentation of the honors, which is sponsored by the World Academy in Jerusalem. The award notes the mayor’s outstanding contributions toward furtherance of the World Academy’s universal ideas. It aims to restore and regenerate the spiritual insights of the world’s greatest sages.

An item of rather unique interest comes this week by way of a national magazine that deals with the Wisconsin Restaurant Association’s deep concern over the competition it is getting from church suppers. The association met recently in Milwaukee, and one of its resolutions called for the State Board of Health to subject food-serving churches to the same health regulations as restaurants. It went on to note that one Milwaukee church served 1,200 fish dinners at its monthly Friday night party. A spokesman for the association summed up the organization’s viewpoint by saying that “These church dinners can be the ruination of a restaurant business.” It might be facetious for this reporter to ask at this point what relation does this situation have to our much-vaunted free enterprise system, if any?

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An attempt is being made by a representative of the Southern Baptist Convention to sell the idea of Sunday schools to Japanese Baptists. Dr. William Howse of Nashville and Andrew Quincy Allen of Dallas, Texas, recently began a three-week tour of the islands. Allen comments that “Japanese Baptists feel that Sunday school is too childlike, but my job is to try to help them see that it is manly and womanly.” Japan now has 65 Southern Baptist churches and some 8,000 members. Allen and Howse think that if the Texas techniques of building Sunday school and church memberships are applied in Japan, that within the next 25 years there can be 1,000 churches and 100,000 members. Apparently the work of the two-man visiting committee is having some effect, for a Tokyo pastor is quoted as saying, “We’re going to have to shift gears in our thinking.”

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Reporting on its progress in trying to bring about a settlement of the Cyprus dispute, the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs says it has asked Britain whether it is willing to proceed with a draft constitution for Cyprus. Britain was asked to consider such a move either on its own initiative or consultation with local representatives. Agency officials say they are now holding discussion with the government and churches involved in the dispute. The immediate aim is to restore as quickly as possible an atmosphere in which negotiations can be usefully resumed.

Meanwhile the commission announced its readiness to call a meeting of church leaders of the countries involved if that seems desirable. Many uncertainties will be removed, the agency contends, if Britain is willing to go ahead with a draft constitution. The dispute stems from the deportation from Cyprus last month by military authorities of Archbishop Makarios of the Greek Orthodox Church. He is the reigning prelate of Cyprus and leader of a movement on Cyprus for reunion with Greece. Britain claims the deportation was for the purpose of avoiding further violence on the island.

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Work is continuing for the planned merger next year of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church – both, Protestant denominations. The new union is scheduled to take place in Cleveland at a joint convention in June 1957. Committees and other technical machinery needed for the merger were set up this week in New York at a meeting of executive groups of the two denominations, both of them the result of previous church mergers. The planned group would be known as the New United Church of Christ, with a membership of more than 2 million. The main purpose of this week’s meeting was to adjust the differences of viewpoint between those favoring the merger and those church leaders opposing it.

In the meantime, today is “get acquainted” Sunday for the two groups. More than 400 ministers of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church will exchange pulpits to commemorate the day. Dr. Albert Coe of Boston, moderator of the Congregational Christian churches, says the exchanges were worked out on a voluntary basis in 16 states and the District of Columbia.

The United States Conference of the World Council of Churches will hold its annual meeting at Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania, April 18-20. Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, president of the National Council of Churches, who recently returned with a delegation from a 10-day visit to Russia will lead the opening panel discussion. Its subject: Russian Christians and the Ecumenical Movement. While this reporter has no desire to be cast in the role of a wet blanket, it is hardly discernible how Russian Christians could, under present circumstances, become active in a realistic way in any ecumenical movement without incurring the wrath of the ruling powers that be in Moscow.

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The Most Rev. Albert G. Meyer, archbishop of Milwaukee, has been elected president of the National Catholic Education Association. Archbishop Meyer succeeds the Most Rev. Joseph Ritter, archbishop of St. Louis as head of this association.

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The Rev. Myron F. Boyd, of Winona Lake, Indiana, will serve another term as president of the National Holiness Association. He was re-elected at the closing session of the group’s convention in Cleveland. The convention also approved a resolution calling for racial integration within the association, deplored what it called “sensuous and pagan appeal of many radio and TV programs,” and condemned obscene literature.

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Although suffering from his second cold in less than a month, Pope Pius XII held his biggest general audience of the year last Wednesday. He received some 20,000 Easter pilgrims. On Tuesday, he addressed 1,400 girls attending the Rome Congress of Catholic Women and Girls and urged them to remain steadfast to spiritual ideals in a world bent toward pleasure and ease.

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A doctor-clergyman says both professions are playing an increasingly important joint role in the case of hospital patients. Dr. Granger Westberg, who also is a professor of religion at the University of Chicago, says it has been shown that recovery is faster and longer-lasting in emotional stress sickness if the cause rather than just the symptom is treated. And, he added, “That’s where the minister comes in.” He also cited premarital counseling as an example of where the doctor and the clergyman work ideally as a team.

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A program has been launched in West Virginia aimed at helping solve the problems of racial segregation in the schools, churches, employment, and other fields. The first of its kind to be sponsored by church groups, the program is expected to serve as a guide for similar projects by church councils in other states having the same problems. The West Virginia Council of Churches describes the program as “a pilot project in human relations.” A group of 20 white and Negro leaders from all parts of the state has been organized to help local areas bring about integration in a peaceful Christian way. This group’s task will include helping to set up educational panels, seminars, and discussion groups at the request of the various communities, and without cost to those communities. Educators, clergymen, physicians, parents, and others experienced in community leadership comprise the corps of 20. The program’s purpose is not, as church officials point out, “to step in and try to tell the courts and school officials when and how to end segregation.” Instead, it will be aimed at trying to help people to understand and solve the complexities of transition.

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A federal judge at Milwaukee this week administered the oath of American citizenship to Monsignor Sigmund Mihalovic in a special ceremony in his Milwaukee hospital room. Federal Judge Robert Tehan administered the oath to the 66-year-old Roman Catholic priest who was driven from his native land by communist persecution. Now seriously ill as a result of two strokes suffered last fall, he was so weak that his raised hand had to be supported as he spoke the few words of allegiance. During his years in Hungary, he worked very closely with Cardinal Mindszenty, a more famous victim of Red persecution. In fact, Cardinal Mindszenty inspired the priest to flee the country several months prior to the Cardinal’s own arrest. The communists tried Monsignor Mihalovic in absentia and condemned him to 15 years in prison for what they said was espionage in favor of American imperialists. He came to this country in 1950 and had lived in Mundelein and Wheeling, Illinois.

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During the past two or three decades, something fundamental has been happening to a very important segment of our population, i.e., those who live, or lived, on the family farm. A profound change is coming over the agricultural life of the country. Some may look at it as progress; others may view it with apprehension, for it does have its tragic aspects. The isolated family farmstead was not only a way of making a living, but it was also a way of living a life, and from this old and deep tradition sprang much of our moral outlook and our conceptions of individualism, our politics, and our folklore. Much of this is now drying up, for the family-size farm and farm family life are vanishing, and with this vanishing, America is never going to be quite the same again.

And while this reporter was born and reared on such a farm and within such a family environment, let him assure you that these reflections are in no sense merely a bucolic nostalgia for a return to the days of his boyhood. But almost everywhere one sees the seeming unstoppable tide of change. Small farmers are selling out to owners of larger acreages and are moving away from the farm to seek a living elsewhere. They just cannot make a go of it today in competition with large-scale factory farms. One such small farm of about 130 acres is operated by an intensely hard-working dirt farmer and his efficient wife. They have no phone, no car, and all expenses are pared to a Spartan minimum. His gross cash income last year was only some $400. Generations of children grew up on this farm, but the end has come. No small farmers will buy these places when their present owners die out, for no profit is possible, and likely they will all end up eventually as part of great properties owned by corporations or city businessmen who can make farming pay on a very large scale, or who will run them for income tax deduction purposes.

One can get a broader idea of how this is happening all across the country by reading a long study just published by the Farmers’ Union Grain Terminal Association in St. Paul. They studied 4,300 family farms in good farming country like the Dakotas, Wisconsin, Montana, and Minnesota. Some of their findings include the fact that net income in 1954 was $2,500, which means $50 a week. To get this much required that the family put in some 5,000 hours of work during the year, more than twice as many as is the standard for the city worker. If this is figured at a five-percent return on investment, it would mean that the income was around $450 for the whole year, earned by the labor alone. While home construction boomed in and around every great city, very few farm homes have been built within the last generation.

The study also points out that in these five farm states, over a five-year period, some 38,000 farm homes have disappeared, or about one family in 13 gave up the life they had tried to live, and this rate of failure seems to be on the increase, not only in the region covered by this particular study but elsewhere throughout the United States. The point is that the independent farmer and his family are leaving the land: the home is vanishing, and the business office is taking over in their places.

Which brings to this reporter’s mind the words of Oliver Goldsmith in his poem, “The Deserted Village,” where he says,

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey

Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.

This being an election year, it seems not inappropriate, even on Easter Sunday, to call attention to the responsibility of the individual in participating in the selection of public officials.

On a Sunday afternoon shortly after Hitler carried out his blood purge in the 1930s, a group of some 20 ministers and educators met at the home of a Bible scholar in the heart of Berlin. This scholar talked about the prospects of religion and the church under Hitler’s rule. Suddenly he stopped and turned to one of the ministers and asked, “What are you doing with that notebook?” The minister responded that he had merely written down the last comment of the speaker. The speaker paled and said, “You must not do that. You endanger not only my freedom but also my life.” “I will scratch it out,” said the writer. “That is not enough,” said the German, “Tear out the page and destroy it right here.”

One minister afterward remarked, “As I watched these men tearing up their notes and throwing them into the fire, in one moment I saw what democracy should mean to us in America.”

Obviously, when the state becomes the people’s master rather than their servant, evil awaits the nation. The history of nations that have succumbed to tyranny shows in almost all instances a constantly increasing indifference on the part of the citizens toward their civic responsibilities. In his parable, the Master emphasized that faculties not employed will ultimately be lost. “Take the talent from him” is something of a solemn decree of divine justice.

When we apply all this to the voting habits of the American people, the prospect is not so encouraging. In 1880, 78 percent of the eligible citizens of this country voted. In 1940, the percentage had fallen to 53 percent. It is not merely a political duty that devolves upon us, but a religious responsibility of men and women to exercise their franchise, since democracy, as we know it, springs from the religious teaching of the infinite worth of every human being.

And yet we hear frequently timid and, perhaps unthinking, people say, “Should religion and politics be mixed?” If we mean by that that a church should become identified with a specific political party and the minister turn into a lobbyist, using his pulpit for a political rostrum the answer certainly must be an emphatic “No.” But if it is meant by the question that the ennobling spirit of religion, injected through the informed and earnest activities of religious men and women at the ballot box, should be infused into the political life of the nation, the answer is an equally emphatic “Yes.”

It is not enough merely to proclaim the need for high moral standards; that will not, alone, suffice to make mean men generous, cruel men kind, greedy men unselfish, or vile men clean. Morality must be undergirded by affirmative action on the part of all to the end that ideals and principles involved in morality are translated into our national life through the wise use of the ballot by men of good will throughout the nation. This is not only an opportunity for the religious person to use his vote and make his influence felt: it is an obligation that he cannot evade if he really wishes to perpetuate our order of things where men are free to speak their minds on religion or any other subject.

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One of the saddening, tragic commentaries on the inability or unwillingness of man to profit by the lessons of history is the fact that the city streets through which Christ walked to his death and triumph years ago are as tense and murderous today as they were then. As there were riots and bloodletting then, so are there now, or threats of them. In the Middle East today, the attempt to build a northern tier alliance – an idea for which our State Department takes credit or blame, whichever you consider it – has brought the Arab states and Israel on the brink of war and has given Russia an opportunity to vault over the half-built wall of the Baghdad Pact into the long-coveted area of the Near East. In the Holy Land there were riots in January, and the hostility between Jerusalem’s Moslems and Jews never fades.

Here at home it would seem that there is something of a bi-partisan conspiracy of silence regarding the much-needed debate on foreign policy. Apparently the Congress, the people, and the press are paying far too much attention to what politicians are saying and too little on what they are doing or failing to do. Verbal battles race over methods and means, and while these are important, they fail to produce constructive results. Men of religious views, as well as, perhaps all others, are concerned with the matters of peace and war. A recently published study made for the Japanese Economic Planning Board bluntly concluded that the U.S. is losing the Cold War in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. With all our emphasis on maintaining a preponderance of military power, it begins to look as if we are being overtaken by the Soviet Union in the one field where we have until now been preeminent. All this does not mean that we face the likelihood of immediate war; the sad part of it is that we may be facing something very like defeat without war. Another sad feature is that any such outcome could be prevented if influential men on both sides were willing to look realistically on what is happening and do something constructive about it.

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Christians the world over prepared for today the climax of their most important religious week: Easter Sunday. Sunrise services were held in the Roman Catholic and almost all the Protestant denominations, commemorating the resurrection.

In many parts of the U.S., special once-a-year sunrise services were conducted. At the Garden of the Gods in the mountains of Colorado, the sunrise service there celebrated its 36th anniversary. Thousands of persons – last year there were 20,000 – attended the colorful ceremony in the rust-hued canyon on the outskirts of Colorado Springs and in the shadow of Pike’s Peak.

Another sunrise service was also held atop Copper Hill, near Leadville, Colorado, some 12,000 feet high…. In New Hampshire, Easter sunrise services were held at Halo Hill, where rainbows often surround the summit from early morning sunlight, reflecting off the fog arising from nearby lakes. Also, a colorful Moravian Easter service is held annually at Winston-Salem, North Carolina. And there is an impressive Easter pageant held annually at Wichita Mountain, near Lawton, Oklahoma.

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The first climax of the Easter week took place in the birthplace of Christianity on Good Friday. A procession of worshipers, including almost the entire Catholic clergy of Jerusalem, walked Via Dolorosa, the traditional route along which Christ carried the cross to Golgotha. Many in the procession themselves carried heavy wooden crosses. Protestant churches in Jerusalem do not possess any of the holy places in the city and their services were on a more modest scale.

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Paris: Germans, Britons, and South Americans are among some 100,000 tourists visiting Paris for Easter. Bookings by tourist agencies showed that Germans topped the list of foreigners. But hundreds of sightseers form Spain, South America, the Low Countries, and the United States and Britain also attended. Many Austrians who flooded in for last Sunday’s soccer match between a French and Austrian team, stayed on for the Easter holiday.

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Jews throughout the world are winding up their most important holy week – the Passover. The week commemorates the escape of the Jews from Egyptian slavery over 30 centuries ago. The Passover, which began last Monday, lasts for eight days for Orthodox Jews and seven days for Reform Jews. Traditional services include the eating of symbolic foods. In a Passover message to Jews of the world, broadcast by the Voice of America, Irving M. Engel, president of the American Jewish Committee said, “It is our earnest hope that the festival will serve as a mobilizing call to liberty-loving people everywhere to work for the strengthening of human rights.”

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And from New York comes word that the church building boom in the United States shows no signs of leveling off. American Iron and Steel Institute says that within the next 10 years an estimated 70,000 new churches will be built at a cost of $7 billion. Expenditures for religious construction during 1955 were $760 million, 25 percent more than for the previous year. And in 1956 expenditures are expected to reach the $900 million mark.

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Catholic services for Easter were held this year for the first time since the Middle Ages in the evening. They began in a darkened church with the celebrant lighting the new fire and blessing the huge Easter candle, which was lit from the fire. This switch form morning to evening services was by order of the Vatican for convenience of the worshipers. It is, in effect, a return to the ancient ritual. The fire lighting ceremony was held in the ancient churches of the Holy Land, in the basilicas of Rome, and in thousands of other churches throughout the world.

Pilgrims traveled by plane, train, car, on foot, and even by ski lift, to mountaintops for Easter sunrise services.

Easter services of various denominations were – and will be – carried by many radio and television stations in the U.S. and beamed behind the Iron Curtain by Radio Free Europe. The Radio Free Europe broadcasts will include Easter messages from Francis Cardinal Spellman of New York, Samuel Cardinal Stritch of Chicago, and Dr. Ralph Sockman, president of the Methodist Board of World Peace.

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A reminder that clothes make neither the man nor the woman on Easter or any other day came from a Methodist pastor in Paterson, New Jersey. The Rev. Mitchell Modisett, pastor of the Epworth Methodist Church said that people were welcome at his services whether in new clothes or old. “People,” he said, “ought to wear their best clothes to church, but they surely ought not to stay home because they have no Easter finery.”

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Did you know that 36 million American children attend Sunday classes in nearly 300,000 churches and synagogues every week? And it is estimated that by 1975 there will be three children in these Sunday schools for every two attending now? To keep pace with this phenomenal growth, churches are expanding their facilities and adding thousands of new teachers and starting new classes every month. One who has not visited a Sunday school recently will find the classrooms and procedures startlingly different from those of yesteryear. Aware of the influence of environment, emotions, and natural growth on children’s development, more and more Sunday schools are being planned as bright, airy, cheerful places where children can feel comfortable and happy. While the emphasis is still on religious concepts and teaching, the approach, especially with younger groups, is through joy, affection, and friendliness. Children are encouraged to make religion an active part of their lives through participation. Rarely are they longer taught abstract religious and ethical concepts suitable only for adults.

Realizing that a child’s feelings about his Sunday school teacher have much to do with his later attitudes toward religion, most faiths are placing leading educators and psychologists on their advisory boards – to train teachers. It is understood today that teachers need more than dedication and effort, important as these are. They need insight into how children grow and learn, how character and personality develop … how to make the best use of good teaching aids. Many faiths now require their teachers to complete a rigid training course before they consider them prepared to deal with the emotional and spiritual problems of modern youth.

One can be glad, whatever his own view may be, that so much thought and effort are being devoted to giving children strong spiritual foundations – their guide to a better world. That is as it should be, for the children of today are the ones who will fashion the world of tomorrow, and all of us hope that they will do a better job of it than we ourselves have done.

Paul’s book of Romans probably did more to shape Christian theology than anything else written. To the early Christians he was a hero, a martyr, a man who gave his life for his ideals, a great and good man. Some, perhaps many, modern analysts do not accept his religion or give him a place in the succession of philosophers. They point out that his work does not have the inner integrity demanded of philosophy today. But he is a massive figure in church history and in any examination of Christian origins he cannot be ignored.

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The following is a quotation from one Tom Savit, and whether you agree with him or not, his statements are always thought-provoking. He says, “Recent prosecutions for subversion in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and other states were based on what people read, statements made, and meetings attended. Today in the U.S. you do not have unlimited right to read what you want to, say what you want to, and to assemble with fellow citizens. Communist practices have made great gains among American enforcement agencies.” Is this true?

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One hears a great deal these days about its being unfair to ship munitions to this country or that. The issue in the matter should be clear enough, namely, that it is not right to ship munitions to any people, i.e., sending them the means to kill and maim human beings. It would seem that the U.S. in supplying the means of death to any people is an accessory before the fact of the greatest crime of which humans are capable. In effect, the U.S. by so doing is condemning to death unknown persons convicted of no crime.

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Since your reporter is not a movie fan, any evaluation of movies that he passes on to you is likely to be that of third persons. So it is with this one, “Picnic,” which seems currently to be one of the favorites. Dr. Harold Scott of Salt Lake City … says about the move, in part and largely in paraphrase:

“The film pushes the old theme of romantic love, physical attraction, being the proper basis for marriage. The film had the audience breathlessly hoping that the gal would run away and marry the incompetent numskull with the big biceps, and that’s what she did to the satisfaction of the audience…. There are an estimated 160 million people in the U.S., nearly half of which are males. It is irrational to hold that any woman must fall into the arms of the first male of no prospects because she is physically attracted to him … [This is] thoughtless marriage philosophy exploited by contemporary magazines and dangerous films like ‘Picnic.'”

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Two articles in as many magazines currently on the newsstands are worth calling to your attention. One appears in the April 3 issue of Look, entitled “The South vs. the Supreme Court.” It is a symposium of viewpoints about the segregation issue, ranging all the way from the most pro- to the most anti- segregationist. It is a 23-page report you cannot afford to miss if you are interested in understanding something of all sides of this rather torrid issue involving human rights.

The other article appears in Time, and like most articles in that magazine, is so phrased to create as uncontroversial an effect as possible. It is entitled “The South,” but the contents all deal with Senator Eastland of Mississippi, the perhaps self-appointed spokesman for the pro-segregationists.

From reading both articles, you will get, not a thorough, but a somewhat penetrating insight into the cauldron that is boiling throughout the South, producing a ferment among white and colored alike.

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At sundown tomorrow, Jewish families throughout the world will begin a candle-lit meal with a prayer: “Praised art thou, O Lord our God, ruler of the universe. Out of love Thou didst give us … seasons of joy and this … our festival of freedom.”

The occasion will be the meal of worship and story telling and song. It is the start of the Jewish Passover, which has been described as the first great uprising against the institution of slavery. Moses began it with his cry, “Let my people go.” Dr. Abraham Feldman of Hartford, Connecticut, president of the Synagogue Council of America, sees that rebellion as the start of a long, still unfinished march, for the promised land of human dignity. The Passover celebration includes symbolic foods, psalms, devotions, and laughter. Mostly it is telling the “Haggadah,” the passing from father to son of an ancestral lesson in liberty. It has been going on for more than 3,000 years, and is the oldest continuously kept ritual. This Jewish heritage of freedom is stamped on many pages of American history, beginning with the Pilgrims. In the American Revolution, many colonial patriots shouted an angry “pharaoh” at the British. The tradition will be emphasized at synagogue services on the first and last days of Passover, with rest from work on those days. In between will be a week of fasting on unleavened bread and gifts to the poor.

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Coinciding with the Jewish Passover observance is the Christian season of Holy Week, marking the death and resurrection of Christ. Today is Palm Sunday, and Christian churches will begin a week of special services to commemorate what is known as the “Passion of our Lord.” Passion in this sense means pain, affliction, or torture. The services and worship pass through Maundy Thursday, the night of the “Last Supper” of Jesus and the 12 disciples … through Good Friday, the day of the crucifixion … and reach their climax on Sunday, Easter, the day of resurrection.

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The Rev. Jules Jeannard has resigned as Roman Catholic bishop of Lafayette, Louisiana. The 77-year-old prelate figured in a racial integration dispute last year when two women were excommunicated after a third woman had been beaten. She taught white and Negro children in religious classes. The two women were later restored to the privileges of the church. Bishop Jeannard retains his title because Pope Pius XII has made him a titular bishop. He will be succeeded by auxiliary bishop Maurice Schexnayder, of Lafayette. Bishop Jeannard gave poor health as his reason for resigning.

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The Negro boycott of city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, has become a famous skirmish in the Southern segregation feud. The question is whether the boycott weapon will be used more widely now, creating a serious economic situation throughout the South. In Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina, the use of economic weapons by both whites and Negroes is growing into a real problem. And it is present to a lesser degree in Georgia and Louisiana. Organizations on both sides – the pro-segregation citizens councils and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People – refuse to take responsibility for the boycotts. Ford dealers in some Mississippi towns have complained they are losing white customers because the Ford Foundation has supported civil rights movements. The Falstaff Brewing Company made a public announcement last year that it had nothing to do with the NAACP. Business had fallen off after word circulated that the company made contributions to that organization.

The merchants are caught in the middle. One merchant says his business would have been ruined had he not supported the local citizens’ council, and now his store is being hit by a Negro boycott. In Montgomery, the boycott, which has cost the bus company some $100,000, has not spread to other economic levels. Negroes still trade in stores run by whites, and no apparent wholesale job losses are reported to have occurred because of their action. However, in north Mississippi, where most Negroes are plantation workers or own small businesses, those who have worked for integration have been refused credit and fired from jobs.

Orangeburg, South Carolina, experienced the longest boycott. It started last September when 20 Negroes signed an integration petition. Both whites and Negroes have suffered, but the boycott continues. One white leader says, “No matter what they do, we’re not going to let them come into our schools.” And that would seem to be a real concrete idea – permanently set and fixed.

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Nine Protestant church leaders who made a 10-day tour of Russia have returned to the United States with the view that religion is dying out in the Soviet Union.

They point out that the Russian government no longer persecutes the church, but that the Russian church leaders have a narrowly confined view of the church’s function. A joint statement issued by the Americans says the Soviet church leaders regard their function as that of saving souls and preparing people for the next world, and that they show little concern for the social or intellectual life of their people. It was the prevailing assumption, the statement said, that science involves reason; religion involves feelings. The American churchmen believe the greatest usefulness in establishing relations with Russian churchmen could be in encouraging the Russians to practice more aggressive Christianity.

While the churchmen may be entirely sincere in their belief, it is difficult to see how, under present circumstances, Russian churchmen could, in their words, practice a more aggressive program. Anyone familiar with the history of the Russian Orthodox Church under the tsars knows full well that it was used widely as a means of bolstering and maintaining the then status quo. How much of this remains in the thinking of the present church leaders as a result of their pre-revolution heritage is unknown. However, it is pretty certain that any churchman in Russia today that dared criticize the existing social and economic order would pretty soon find himself in trouble with a government that brooks no criticism….

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With the coming of Easter week starting today, the most sweeping change of Roman Catholic ritual in 400 years goes into effect. The entire Catholic liturgy of Easter week has been revised by decree by the pope. The reforms are designed to make the ancient Easter rites more meaningful to the modern generation. The new ritual provides for greatly increased participation by the congregation in acts of worship formerly carried out mainly by officiating clergymen. In parts of one service, English will be used instead of Latin. Hours of service have been changed too. Those of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday have been changed from morning to evening, to make it easier for working men and women to attend.

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National leaders of four Protestant organizations for college students are holding a two-day meeting at Chicago to discuss plans for merging. The groups are the Congregational Christian Churches, the Evangelical and Reformed Church, the Disciples of Christ, and the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. A spokesman says the college students in the four groups, numbering about 300,000, likely would be more amenable to merging than their elders. And that by merging they could sponsor more effective campus programs through united efforts.

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At Sarasota, Florida, the unique drive-in church is building a new building. A $185,000 V-shaped structure is being built behind the outdoor pulpit which the Rev. B.L. Bowman now uses to preach to his congregation on wheels.

There will be two auditoriums and a second-floor pulpit in the new building, but the minister says that does not mean he’s abandoning drive-in services. It means only, he says, that some people like to leave their automobiles to attend church and his drive-in will be able to accommodate them as well as those who prefer their cars. The idea for a drive-in church, patterned after drive-in theaters, was dreamed up by the Rev. Bowman while he was chaplain in World War II. Similar churches have been organized since.

 

 

 

One of the things that is as true of a society as it is of an individual is its scale of values, and perhaps as far as society is concerned this is nowhere reflected better than in the compensation it gives for various kinds of services rendered to the community. A rather unusual (I hope) instance of this comes in an item from Springfield, New Jersey, where it is pointed out that while school teaching may have its own rewards, garbage collecting there is more profitable financially. Garbage truck drives, under a new contract with the city, are paid $114 for a 40-hour work week, while teachers, with a big investment of time and money to obtain qualifying college degrees, start teaching at an annual salary of $3,300. This spread over a 52-week year, for teachers must eat during the summer too, means a weekly income of $64.44. After a lifetime career of teaching, they can earn a maximum of $5,500 annually, or $105.76 per week, about eight dollars less per week than garbage truck drivers now receive. Of course this reporter will admit to some partiality in the matter, but looking at it objectively, and giving garbage collectors all the credit which they so richly deserve in helping keep the community clean and healthful, it seems more than incongruous that a community will value services connected with garbage more highly than they do services devoted to helping develop the minds and abilities of children.

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We hear a great deal these days pro and con about the influence of comic books and strips upon the behavior of juveniles. The fact is that nobody knows just what the over all effect of reading these materials is. Moreover, to use the term “comic books” in an evaluative sense, indicating they are bad, is greatly to oversimplify a complex problem. There are comic books and comic books. Some of them deal with high ideals, integrity, deeds of heroism; while others are what most of us would call trash.

However, there is something relatively new in David Crane’s comic strip, though he follows in something of the soapy footsteps of other vocational do-gooders. David Crane is a minister and it is understandable that the contents of the strip are largely of a religious flavor. He deals in a serious way to promote religious tolerance among all faiths, particularly the Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant ones. Incidentally, the idea for the strip was considered and rejected by syndicates other than the one who now runs it, Hall, as too controversial. The creator of this strip is one Winslow Mortimer, a Canadian-born artist living at Carmel, New York. Winslow goes to a Methodist church, collects guns, and is aided by Hartzell Spence, son of a Methodist minister who wrote One Foot in Heaven. Between these two creators they have a problem as old as literature itself, namely, how to make the good as interesting as the bad.

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It is true that we live in dangerous times and have some reason to be reoccupied with “security.” But in an equally dangerous time Benjamin Franklin, whose 250th anniversary we celebrate this year, wrote, “They that can give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” In the midst of the Civil War, Lincoln spoke of “a new birth of freedom.” And Washington’s farewell addresses stresses not the guarding of state secrets but the enlightenment of public opinion. Many citizens today believe that national security measures should be directed against overt acts such as treason, espionage, and sabotage. A phrase like “conspiracy to teach and advocate” is meaningless. And as for the oft-used word these days, “subversion, ” it is too slippery a word for the law, too vague, too fraught with emotion to serve as a proper legal or ethical standard. When the late Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson was U.S. attorney general, he warned that there are no “definite standards to determine what constitutes a ‘subversive activity,’ such as we have for larceny and other legal terms. “Activities,” he goes on, “which seem benevolent and helpful to wage earners, persons on relief, or those who are disadvantaged in the struggle for existence may be regarded as ‘subversive’ by those whose property interests might be burdened or affected thereby. Those who are in office are apt to regard as ‘subversive’ the activities of any of those who would bring about a change of administration.”

And Judge Learned Hand also criticized the increasingly common resort to the term as a question-begging word. He said, its “imprecision comforts us by enabling us to suppress arguments that disturb our complacency and yet congratulate ourselves on keeping the faith as we received it from the Founding Fathers.… All discussion, all debate, all dissidence, tends to question and in consequence to upset existing convictions; that is precisely its purpose and justification. He is, indeed, a ‘subversive’ who disputes these precepts and seeks to persuade me to substitute his own.” Hence, any sort of challenging or probing thought, any intelligent effort at social change, may be construed as ‘subversive.’ Veritably, we seem to have arrived at the position of the character in Alice in Wonderland, where to some people, whenever they use a word it means whatever they wish it to mean.

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A report recently by an army psychiatrist alleged that American prisoners of war neglected their own sick in prisoner camps and were not equipped to resist communist propaganda. Editorial comment on this report laments that the home, school, and church had not given these boys the support of religion and a knowledge of Americanism.

Without being cynical one may well consider that typically American Protestantism teaches no primarily human solidarity, but a salvation of everyone for himself. Those who behaved, as Dr. Mayer is alleged to have said they did, reacted perhaps in accordance with the religious thought in most of their churches.

As for the schools teaching Americanism, unfortunately today, in some, perhaps many, communities, teachers avoid such controversial essentials of real Americanism as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights for fear of arousing the ire of some pressure group. One need read only the “Houston Story,” what has been taking place the last few years in Los Angeles schools, in some in New Jersey, and elsewhere to realized that perhaps some of the shortcomings with respect to teaching an understanding of Americanism may be due to the community climate in which teachers operate.

All of us would agree that home, school, church ­– all should coordinate their activities to the end of producing the best possible, all-round citizens. Neither will do its jobs perfectly, under the best of circumstances, but most shortcomings in homes, churches, and schools have their causes, and it might be well for us all to examine closely those causes before jumping to an assessment of blame.

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Today marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Kent School by the Rev. Frederick H. Sills, priest of the Episcopal Church and member of the Order of the Holy Cross. To mark the event, the entire family of Kent will attend a morning service of prayer, Holy Communion, and sermon at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. The entire student body, the faculty, and the Kent School Glee Club and Choir will attend, along with a large body of Kent School alumni. The preacher will be the Right Rev. Horace W.B. Donegan, bishop of New York.

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New York: Nine Protestant churchmen are on their way by plane to Moscow for an 11-day good will visit to the Soviet Union. The trip is sponsored by the National Council of Churches. Spokesman for the group is the Rev. Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, president of the National Council. Before taking off, he said there will be inter-ecclesiastical conversations to increase mutual understanding and good will between Russian and American Christians. He said the delegation will meet with Soviet government leaders if they are invited.

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A demonstration of Christian integration in churches will be held in New York City a week from today. At the morning service a group of 100 white members of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church will attend the Church of the Master of Harlem. And 100 Negro members of the Harlem church will attend services at the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church. The integration demonstration is intended to show – as one minister put it, “that we are not Christians at arms length,… and that true brotherhood draws no color line.” The idea for the exchange of the two groups was proposed by Dr. John Paul Jones, minister of the Union Church of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

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New Bedford, Massachusetts: The executive board of the Greater New Bedford Inter-church Council has recommended that its 48 member churches hold a joint mass prayer meeting in sympathy with the Negro bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. The prayer service will be held on the evening of March 28 at the Union Baptist Church in New Bedford. A resolution passed by the council says the colored segment of the American population is being denied rights declared by the U.S. Constitution.

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New York: A film with a religious theme, “A Man Called Peter,” was the biggest money-maker of 1955 for the studio that made it. Geoffrey Shurlock, director of the motion picture industry code administration says the picture grossed more than Marilyn Monroe in “The Seven Year Itch” and Clark Gable and Jane Russell in “The Tall Men.” The film, “A Man Called Peter,” is based on the life of a Protestant minister. The screenplay was worked out by three people – a Roman Catholic, a Jew, and the widow of the central character, Mrs. Peter Marshall, a Presbyterian. Shurlock says another religious film, “The Robe,” ranks second only to “Gone with the Wind” as the biggest money-maker of all time.

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Los Angeles: The 400th anniversary of the death of Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, the religious teaching order of the Catholic Church will be observed today. Taking part in honoring Loyola will be some 600,000 alumni from 28 Jesuit colleges and universities, and 45 high schools in the U.S. Festivities are scheduled in 150 major cities. A Mass will be said at Loyola University in Los Angeles, and similar functions in other cities will be either televised or broadcast by radio.

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New York: The National Council of Churches has taken a stand against the sale of radio and/or television time for religious programs. The council contends stations and networks should give the time free as a public service. It is difficult to see the logic in this, but that is what is reported.

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The president of the National Conference of Christians and Jews wants a hard-hitting presidential campaign based on the issues and unclouded by racial or religious bias. The group’s head, Dr. Everett Clinchy of New York, has warned that bigoted appeals for votes are contrary to several things: He names these as American principles, the American spirit of fair play, and God’s moral imperative for brotherhood. Dr. Clinchy declares, “Our people want the facts and what each candidate thinks about the issues.” He adds, “They don’t want this information clouded by racial and religious bias.” He says, “Let us reject all racial and religious bigotry from the 1956 campaign. Let us immunize Americans against this evil.”

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This year’s Jewish Youth Week will be held for teenagers beginning next Friday. Mrs. Sue Strassman of Scranton, Pennsylvania, says the aim is to focus attention on the role, achievements, and potential of Jewish youth in the growth and development of a creative American Jewish community. Mrs. Strassman is chairman of the National Jewish Youth Conference. This year’s theme is “Building a Bridge of Friendship between Jewish Youth of the U.S. and Israel.” The period will be marked by Jewish youth sabbaths, interfaith programs, cultural festivals, field days, forums, institutes, and rallies.

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Today is the day of response to Roman Catholic and Protestant appeals for charity for homeless and hungry persons in other lands. Catholic churches will gather offerings for “The Bishops Relief Fund,” which has a $5 million goal. Last year the Bishop’s Fund gave relief and services valued at almost $133 million to more than 32 million destitute men, women, and children. Relief supplies were distributed in 51 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America, without regard to race, color, or creed.

In the “One Great Hour of Sharing,” most of the nation’s Protestant churches aim for $11 million in funds for overseas relief. The Church World Service of the National Council of Churches also expects Protestants to send much food, clothing, and medicines to distressed persons abroad.

The annual “Passover Appeal” of the United Jewish Appeal is scheduled for Passover week, March 27 to April 3. This drive is for $8 million, also for programs of relief and constructive development overseas.

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A four-day ceremony starting today will mark the dedication of the most magnificent of the 12 Mormon temples. More than 50,000 Mormons are expected at the opening services of the temple in Los Angeles. Features of the $6 million structure include a huge steel baptismal font mounted on 12 life-sized oxen and a series of murals portraying the creation and history of the earth.

 

For several weeks news from Alabama has been plentiful and of the sort of which no state could be proud. First it was the Autherine Lucy case and segregation at the University, a case that is not yet settled. Your reporter steered clear of that one simply because this program had dealt with school segregation so much already.

Now, however, another racial fight has boiled over to the point where it cannot be ignored. Some months ago the Negroes of Montgomery, the state capital, started boycotting the city buses because of Jim Crow provisions requiring colored people to sit in the back seats. Apparently the boycott was pretty effective, for soon the bus company was yelling and trying either to get the force of government to whip the Negroes in line or to seek some grounds for compromise. The last compromise proposed was to set off a section in front of the buses for whites and another section in the rear for Negroes. The latter, quite naturally, refused this as any improvement over what they were staging the boycott about.

During the past week, someone at City Hall came up with an old anti-labor law of 1921 vintage, which forbade boycotts as restraints of trade, and under this law, over a 100 of the Negro leaders of the city were arrested and indicted by the grand jury, among the arrested being some 24 Negro ministers. Free on bond, the Negroes proceeded to church to hold services and to pray over their predicament. Interestingly enough, the spokesman for the group said, “This is not only a conflict between whites and Negroes; it is one between justice and injustice. Whatever happens, do not let anyone pull you so low as to hate them.” That is, indeed, magnanimity that only persons of deep spiritual convictions could display.

The governor, on his part, is seeking to get a bi-racial commission to see if a compromise cannot be reached. Whatever happens, it is unlikely that the colored people will be satisfied with less than justice, and there is no reason to see why they should be. Only bigotry, intolerance, and injustice have thus far been displayed by the powers that be, and there is no justice in any of these.

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The president’s passion for two-gun Western stories has been much publicized, and it is of course his own business what kind of recreational reading he prefers. Moreover, there is considerable evidence that he has spent considerable time, since his back to “full schedule” routine, in boning up on the heavier stuff in his office, or the tightly trimmed summaries of this stuff. However, as reported here some months ago, it is sometimes remarkable the things he is expected to know and which he does not. For example, at a recent press conference he was asked what he thought of Premier Bulganin’s statement calling for another “at the summit” conference of the Big Four. The president, with a straight face and quite casually, replied “That is one I missed.” Yet, it had appeared three weeks before and had turned up on countless front pages of the American and world press.

Shortly after that, Secretary of Statements, Mr. [John Foster] Dulles, created something of a world sensation with his chilling “Brink of War Interview” in Life magazine. Newsmen went to the conference with the president loaded with questions they hoped might unravel one of the major mysteries of American foreign policy. But the president was equal to the occasion. He simply said he had not read the article everyone else was discussing and debating, and besides, he said, Mr. Dulles was the best secretary of state he has ever known.

Your reporter’s guess, before that statement, would have been that the president had known at least one other secretary of state, but apparently he has not.

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And while on the subject of Secretary Dulles, it might be worthwhile in passing to observe that he is heading away for India and the Middle East, apparently in an effort to repair some of the damage done by his own pronouncements in recent months. Your reporter should like to suggest in all humility that as he flies the Pacific and Indian Oceans he ponder the significance of a recent dispatch of The New York Times assessing Indian public opinion. The Times points out that among Indians there is a real fear that the U.S. is bent on destroying the Soviet Union by war; that in spite of the talk about freedom and the American revolutionary heritage, this country is interested in independence movements only insofar as they affect the fight against the Soviets. That, they say, is why the U.S is a friend of the colonial powers. Despite the fact that there is much to criticize about our foreign policy – or lack of one – this Indian assessment is rather a harsh indictment, harsher than the facts warrant. Moreover, it is a wholly unrealistic appraisal of Soviet conduct and intentions. But Mr. Dulles has provided enough provocation during his tenure in the State Department to furnish a basis for Indian criticism of our foreign policy. It is difficult to picture Mr. Dulles performing great feats of good will in India, but it is not too much to hope that he will do his best to keep his celebrated foot out of his equally celebrated mouth while on this trip.

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One sometimes wonders why all the fuss because Senator Case was offered $2,500 that he didn’t accept. That sort of thing is common in American political life. The important thing is that the bill was passed and that it would take millions from the poor and give it to the gas barons. Eisenhower vetoed the bill with the explanation that it was a good bill but he had to veto it because of the attempted bribe. Can you see the logic of that? If he thought it was a good bill, he should have signed it. It is no better or worse because someone tried to bribe someone. One cannot help but wish the president would get different ghostwriters. Those he has sometimes make him say the most asinine things imaginable.

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Arnold F. Westwood comes up with a thought-provoking statement regarding the validity of religious experience. He says, “You see, no matter what we call it or how we want to look at it, the one thing we cannot escape is the validity of the religious experience. The religious experience is as natural as wanting to know how a machine works, as real as the sun on your back on the first warm day of spring, as welcome as an old friend. As long as there is a first time to hold your own child in your arms, as long as we put aside childish things and grow up, as long as we agree to live together with a mate, as long as we die, there will be religion. To be man is to be religious.”

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Anyone who wants to know what is going on in the fields of destruction of American principles, private steals of public resources, labor busting, violation of the principle of church and state, military plots, and most of the things about which the public should know, must dig for the facts, and spend considerable money also for releases from specialized agencies. He cannot get it from the newspapers, which are apparently helpless and dependent on the hastily-written and superficial wire services. Despite avowals occasionally to the contrary, there is considerable evidence to indicate that ours is by-and-large pretty much a one-party press, and that is not good in a nation that prides itself upon a two-party system.

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Not long before he died, Albert Einstein, whose genius was largely responsible for unlocking the door into the atomic age, wrote these poignant sentences:

“Our world faces a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing the power to make great decisions for good or evil. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

It is doubtful if many informed, thoughtful men would disagree with this. We have gone far in accepting the material benefits, and damages, of science. We have taken halting steps toward thinking in realistic, scientific terms. Einstein saw, perhaps more clearly than any other person, that we are living in a perilous period of transition in which it is apparently too soon for world government and too late for anything else. And there are those who regard us, who plead for world government, as being subversive of our own national government. Association of a belief in world government with subversion is ridiculous. We who are citizens of Tennessee are also citizens of the United States, and we do not find the respective loyalties to each conflicting or confusing. There is no reason why one cannot be loyal to a world government ideal and at the same time be loyal to the United States. As a matter of fact, one could conceivably be a real reinforcement of the other.

 

Perhaps my comments last week regarding J. Edgar Hoover’s proposal that Sunday school be made compulsory were a little premature. Rather, they were made from reading part of his statement out of context, which was all that was available at the time. The full statement is now at hand. He says:

“Shall I make my child attend Sunday school? Yes. And with no further discussion about the matter. Startled? Why? How do you answer Junior when he comes to breakfast on Monday morning and announces that he is not going to school any more? You know. Junior goes. How do you answer when he comes in very besmudged and says, “I’m not going to take a bath?” Junior bathes. Why all this timidity then, in the realm of his spiritual guidance and growth? Going to let him wait and decide what church he’ll go to when he’s old enough? Quit your kidding! You don’t wait until he’s old enough to decide whether he wants to go to school or not… What shall we say when Junior announces he won’t go to Sunday school? Just be consistent. Tell him, “Junior, in our house we all go to church and Sunday school and that includes you.” Your firmness and example will furnish a bridge over which youthful rebellion may travel into rich and satisfying experience in personal religious living.”

I am glad to quote the whole statement, for the excerpt that I did quote gave the wrong impression – the impression that there should be compulsory Sunday school attendance laws.

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Paul Blanshard in his thought-provoking book, The Right To Read, has a paragraph that seems worth sharing with you. He says, “Many local district attorneys in recent years have taken upon themselves the role of extra-legal literary censors, and have issued blacklists, containing the titles of books and magazines never condemned by a court, to local dealers. Because of their economic position, local newsstand dealers rarely bother to challenge the suggestion of a prosecutor that a certain book is undesirable or objectionable or downright illegal. In almost all instances they withdraw it promptly without prosecution. What happens, then, to our right to read?

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From a report of the Carnegie Corporation of New York comes an explanation of one aspect in the current controversy over the quality of education the children in the schools are getting. This time, it is an explanation of why so many children dislike their arithmetic. Quoting from the Educational Testing Service of Princeton, New Jersey, the corporation says that while “All states required education sources for secondary mathematics teachers, a third of the states require no mathematics for certification of math teachers.” And “In the majority of instances, a prospective elementary school teacher can enter a teachers college without any credits in secondary school math. In most states a teacher can be certified to teach elementary school math without any work in math at the college level.” This being the case, the corporation concludes, it is no wonder that elementary teachers are for the most part ignorant of the mathematical basis of arithmetic.

Living in a cash economy as we do, when at every turn in an individual’s behavior, some sort of mathematical calculation is necessary, it is difficult to see how we can justify ignoring to prepare capable instructors for this very important branch of basic education. To continue to do so is permitting the blind to lead the blind, and we both know that in the biblical account both fell into the ditch together. We cannot afford such ditch falling. What about your child’s teacher?

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A reasoned and reasonable statement was recently directed by the ACLU to the Eastland Committee on Internal Security, urging that the committee not invade the protected areas of private political beliefs. Portions of the statement seem worth quoting. They say:

“The American Communist Party is not only a political agitational movement. It is also part of the Soviet conspiracy. Insofar as it is the first, its members have all the rights of members of other parties; to the extent that it is the second, its members may in some particulars be restricted by law…

“Investigation of real subversion is a matter of proper concern for Congress. But when an investigation enters the area of political beliefs and associations as such, an area in which Congress cannot legislate, the inquiry is improper.

“We recognize that it is extremely difficult to distinguish between conspiratorial activity and political association. Nevertheless, we respectively but vigorously urge that the subcommittee do everything possible to help preserve the principle of free association, by exercising special care in its questioning not to invade constitutionally protected areas of private political belief…”

And, I might add that respect for private political belief is as important in our system of things as is respect for private religious belief, for freedom is indivisible.

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The Right Rev. Horace W.B. Donegan, Protestant Episcopal bishop of New York, has announced his opposition to religious instruction in the public schools. “No one faith or denominational teaching can be chosen as the basis of instruction,” he said, “nor can even a general theistic belief he promulgated without the violation of the rights of teachers, children, and parents who have chosen an atheistic or secularist way – much as we might wish they had not.

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This program has frequently and somewhat regularly been concerned about the cause of education and the federal government’s responsibility in relation to it, for your reporter believes that better schools make better citizens, educationally, socially, morally, and spiritually. Consequently, he has perhaps harped on the theme more than you listeners appreciate. However, there is so much lack of information and even misinformation as to the Eisenhower proposals for federal aid, that in the interest of reducing this lack, he would like to outline briefly just what the president did propose in his special message to Congress.

1. Federal grants of $1.5 billion for five years to be matched by state funds to supplement local construction efforts in the neediest school districts;
2. $750 million over five years for federal purchase of local school construction bonds when school districts cannot sell them in private markets at reasonable interest rates;
3. A five-year program of advances to help provide reserves for bonds issued by state school financing agencies. These bonds to finance local construction of schools to be rented and eventually owned by the local school systems;
4. A five-year $20 million program of matching grants to states for planning to help communities and states overcome obstacles to their financing school construction.

In other words, the president proposes that the federal government spend not over about $2 billion in a situation that needs far more than that, and needs it right now. We can agree with the president’s recommendations for providing funds to states on the basis of need and in relation to pay, but the amount which he suggests is grossly inadequate for the job which needs to be done.

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Washington: A survey of the nation’s synagogues reveals that Judaism is enjoying the same religious revival as the Christian churches. The revival is particularly evident in suburban areas where hundreds of new synagogues have been built. Leading Jewish rabbis say the return movement to the ancient faith of Judaism parallels the booming growth of both Catholic and Protestant churches. America’s Jewish community is the largest in the world. It is estimated at about 5.5 million persons – the vast majority of them living in big cities. New York City alone accounts for about half of them.

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Indianapolis, Indiana: Seventh grade pupils in the public schools of Indianapolis are getting religious training in a unique way. As the Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Herman L. Shibler, puts it, “We aren’t teaching religion – we’re teaching about religion.” For example, the students have learned that Alexander Hamilton was an Episcopalian, that John Adams was a Congregationalist. And that crusty old Andrew Jackson, “Old Hickory,” knew how to pray. In the eighth grade, the students learn, for example, that the word “God” appears four times in the Declaration of Independence, and that Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish religious services are held regularly in the Pentagon. Sectarianism (so it says here) is strictly forbidden. Teachers are cautioned to avoid any subjective evaluation or criticism of any religion. In the forefront of the teaching is a quotation from General Omar Bradley: “This country has many men of science, too few men of God. It has grasped the mystery of the atom, but rejected the Sermon on the Mount.”

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Lourdes, France: More and more Americans are among the pilgrims at the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France. Authorities say some 6,000 Americans prayed at the shrine last year for restoration of health. The shrine is the site where the peasant girl is said to have seen a shining lady in white nearly 1,000 years ago. In 1950, Americans made up only a handful of the two million persons who visited the shrine. The rest were Europeans, but the number of Americans has increased steadily since.

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Iowa City: A leading clergyman says foreign students attending the University of Iowa have soured on democracy because of racial discrimination in Iowa City. Rev. John G. Craig, chairman of the Human Relations Committee of the Iowa City Ministers Association, says the problem had reached serious proportions. Monsignor John D. Conway, pastor of the St. Thomas Moore Catholic Church, says one Negro couple was refused housing in Iowa City.

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Bellevue, Nebraska: The Most Rev. Edward J. Calvin, founder of the Catholic St. Columban Missionary Society, died in Dalgan, Ireland, of leukemia contracted while he was a prisoner of the Chinese Reds in Manyang, China. Announcement of Father Calvin’s death was made by the society’s headquarters at Bellevue, Nebraska.

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Washington: The American Catholic Philosophical Association has announced it will hold its 30^th annual meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio, on April 3 and 4. The meeting will be held under the patronage of the Most Rev. Karl J. Alter, archbishop of Cincinnati, and of Catholic Universities and senior colleges and seminaries in the area.

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London: The British Broadcasting Corporation has apologized to the Protestant Alliance for referring to St. Peter as the first pope, during a radio quiz program. The Protestant Alliance contends it has never been proved that St. Peter was a pope, or a Roman Catholic, or that he ever lived in Rome.

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New York: The Church World Service has rushed 25 tons of relief materials to blizzard-stricken areas of Italy for distribution to victims of one of the most severe winters in Europe’s history. Rev. R. Norris Wilson, executive director of Church World Service, says additional supplies are being prepared in case they’re needed in other areas.

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The official newspaper of the New Orleans Roman Catholic Diocese has warned Louisiana Catholic lawmakers they face possible excommunication if their proposed segregation bills become law. The lawmakers want to keep private schools in Louisiana segregated. Most private schools in Louisiana are Catholic. They are slated soon to accept both white and Negro students. Archbishop Joseph Francis Rummel of New Orleans has approved the editorial that warned of possible excommunication. But the Catholic lawmakers are reported to go ahead anyway. Meanwhile, Louisiana’s incoming governor, Earl Long, has stated that undoubtedly the archbishop is right from a religious standpoint. But he thinks the prelate is perhaps a little too advanced. Long is a Baptist. (Though what that has to do with it, I do not know.)

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In Montgomery, Alabama, 23 Negro protestant ministers have been among 100 Negroes indicted on charges of boycotting the bus lines. The Negroes want desegregation in the transportation system. Alabama’s boycott law could mean sentences of six-month prison terms and $1,000 fines. The Negroes have held mass prayer meetings. At one of them, the Rev. Martin Luther King asked them to pray for guidance. The Montgomery situation and other segregation problems have drawn comment from many religious leaders and groups. In Pittsburgh, the North American Area Council of the World Presbyterian Alliance has warned that intolerable situations have developed in the fight against the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on racial segregation. In Greenwich, Connecticut, the Protestant Episcopal Church has laid down a set of principles aimed at helping rid it of racial barriers. The church’s national council has also declared “Any attitude or act in the house of God which sets brethren of different races apart form one another is sinful.” And it is difficult if not impossible to find any error in this.

First, a potpourri of religion in the week’s news as reported by the wires of Associated and United Press.

In Oxford, Mississippi the segregation issue has closed an annual religious event observed by many U.S. institutions of higher learning. The University of Mississippi has cancelled its “Religious Emphasis Week” after five ministers suggested the religious atmosphere of the program had been ruined. This followed a long dispute over the revoking of an invitation to a pro-integration speaker. This controversy began when the Rev. Alvin Kershaw of Oxford, Ohio, said he would donate part of his TV quiz show winnings to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Kershaw is the Episcopal minister at Ohio’s Miami University, and had been slated to address the Mississippi student religious program on the subject of “Religion and Drama.” However, the invitation was withdrawn when he said he would speak on segregation if the subject arose.

Following this, five out-of-state ministers cancelled their speaking engagements. This week, five other ministers from the university town suggested the event be called off and cancelled their own speaking engagements for Religious Emphasis Week. Instead of the planned program, the students will have 30 minutes of silent prayer and meditation on three days this coming week. It would seem that they well could meditate on the fact that the God to whom they are praying is the Father of us all. Wonder when Mississippi is going to join the Union anyway?

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Sunday school once a week cannot make a child a Christian according to Mrs. Marian M. Kelleran, a prominent religious educator. Mrs. Kelleran says not one child in 1,000 can find a meaningful faith in Sunday school unless the lessons he is taught are lived out at home in a family that upholds the same values. And to that this reporter can find nothing to add except to wish that this were true of all homes.

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Lowell, Massachusetts: Archbishop Richard J. Cushing, Roman Catholic prelate of Boston, has been awarded the “Man of the Year” award from the B’nai B’rith, a Jewish organization. The archbishop was cited for his lifetime of distinguished service to the cause of human brotherhood.

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Berlin: East German communists have threatened East German Protestant leaders with serious consequences if they do not drop their anti-communist campaign against atheism. A statement printed in the Communist Party newspaper accused church leaders of luring East German youths to West Berlin and distributing anti-communist propaganda.

Well, can you imagine communists anywhere not trying to distribute their own propaganda? And how can they expect a minister, Protestant or otherwise, not to campaign against atheism? If he were sympathetic to atheism he probably would not be a minister. But logic or reason has never been the forté of the communists.

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Miami Beach, Florida: the National Planning Committee of three joint Jewish organizations has opened its third annual mid-winter conference in Miami Beach. The organizations are the Jewish Theological Seminary, The United Synagogue, and the Rabbinical Assembly of America. The conference is sponsored by the University of Miami, The Historical Association of Southern Florida, and The American Jewish History Center.

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Cincinnati, Ohio: The United Student Christian Council has urged its 3,000 chapters on American college campuses to abolish segregation within their ranks. A resolution adopted by the Student Christian Council also urges college and university officials to abolish racial segregation in dormitories, restaurants, and theaters.

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An item from Boston emanating from FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover has a curious twist. It says: “Sunday school, like public school, should be compulsory for all children in the opinion of J. Edgar Hoover, FBI Chief.” Yes, that’s what it says.

In an interview with a Roman Catholic priest, printed in the Boston archdiocese publication, The Pilot, Hoover also urged reestablishment of religious exercises in the home. The article also quoted Hoover as saying the church must provide two-fisted forthright men who are not afraid to trample on toes when the honor of God or country is at stake. End of item.

Now this reporter shares with what he is sure is the vast majority of the American people – a profound respect for the way Mr. Hoover has administered the most important law enforcement agency in the world. But when it comes to making Sunday school compulsory, Mr. Hoover is strictly off the bean. He should refresh his knowledge of the First Amendment which prohibits government from establishing or aiding any religion. We can agree with him that all children should go to Sunday school, but as to requiring it, that is another matter. Perhaps the chief G-man was misquoted. Let us hope so.

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Vatican City: Pope Pius XII on Friday received in audience 170 American airmen who flew an armada of flying boxcars from Germany to Italy to bring aid to Italian towns isolated by severe snowstorms. The airmen were led by General Emmett B. Cassady, United States Air Attaché at the embassy in Rome. The pope spoke in English, praising the airmen for their courage and charitable work, and imparted a special apostolic blessing to them and their families.

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New York: Church World Service says American farmers last year contributed nearly $1 million in commodities and cash for overseas relief through the Christian Rural Overseas Program. R. Norris Wilson, executive director of Church World Service says the 1955 total for the crop program was $924,000, an increase of $108,000 over 1954.

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Hartford, Connecticut: An American priest will become bishop of a newly created Roman Catholic diocese on the French island of Madagascar. The Very Rev. Paul Girouard, who has been missionary on the island since 1928, will be consecrated bishop at St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Hartford, Connecticut, on March 7. He is a native of Hamilton, Rhode Island, and to refresh your geographic memory, I might add that Madagascar is located off the east coast of Africa.

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A stiff legislative fight may be in the offing between the Roman Catholic Church and some Louisiana segregation leaders. The church said recently that integration of white and colored persons in its schools may come by September. Now four state representatives have asked the Louisiana legislature to enact measures to prevent mixing races in private schools.

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A Negro bishop has been named the ninth member of an inter-Protestant church group to visit Russia in March. He is Bishop D. Ward Nichols of New York, presiding bishop of the First Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

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Restoration of the Ministry of the Laity to the church has been urged by a Protestant theological professor. He is the Rev. Dr. Reuel Howe of Alexandria, Virginia, and says the real ministry is carried on in the frontiers of where men live, work, love, and play. He describes the officiating minister as the pastor of pastors and the teacher of teachers. Dr. Howe’s remarks were made in Cincinnati this week at a preliminary session of the annual meeting of the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches.

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An interfaith group has cited three prominent persons of different religious backgrounds for distinguished work in human relations and brotherhood. The awards from the Northeastern Region of the National Conference of Christians and Jews have gone to Robert Cutler, former White House administrative assistant; Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts; and Dr. Harry Wolfson, professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy at Harvard. The week coming up is to be Brotherhood Week, under the auspices of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

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With this being a presidential election year, it is inevitable that the news will be more than ever filled with items of a political nature, even on such a program as this, for politics deals with government, and whatever government does is, or should be, the concern of everyone. A rather revealing glimpse of the habit of politicians to view with alarm when things go against them and point with pride when they have done something they think will be approved comes by way of a massive report by Sen. Bridges of New Hampshire, chairman of the Republican Senate Policy Committee. He views with alarm the fact that 41 labor unions spent considerable funds in the 1954 congressional elections.

In reply to his report, the CIO Political Action Committee has revealed some interesting comparisons. Assuming that the amount spent by the labor unions all went to Mr. Bridges’ enemies, which it probably did not, union expenditures were still less than $2 million, and they came from 18 million members. At the same time, approximately $1.5 million spent by Mr. Bridges’ supporters came from only some 738 contributors of $1,000 or more. In short, for every $1 contributed by a labor union member, each of the wealth contributors on the other side put up nearly $2,000. Ten members of the Rockefeller family alone donated a total of $66,000, while 14 members of the DuPont family put up $51,000. How about that, Senator Bridges? We little folks, the sovereign voters, want to know such things, but we want to know the truth on both sides. We’re getting pretty tired of the numbers racket, whether it be security firings or campaign contributions.

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And while on the subject of government, it seems appropriate to recall at this time something that happened a year ago when 17 freshman congressmen, recently elected from districts widely scattered across the country, got together for a two-hour plea for a revitalized foreign policy which would, in their words, “put some political, social, and economic flesh on the bare bones of our present military measures against communism.” These young congressmen were fresh from the people: They knew what the people back in their districts from both parties were thinking. They looked at their new colleagues, listened to them, and finally could stand it no longer. Finally, one, Charles Vanik of Ohio, revolted and made the following speech: “I have sat here day after day and patiently listened; I have listened for hour after hour to tedious eulogies of congressmen who were and no longer are. I spent, I believe, a portion of one day listening to a eulogy of the ground hog of Pennsylvania. Entire sessions of Congress have been consumed in mutual exchange of birthday greetings. We have spent more time debating the service of food and the quality of food in the Capitol cafeteria and restaurant than we did in total on the Formosa Resolution.”

One of their number told a reporter that their revolt and the resolution that followed would not have happened if these young congressmen had not felt that the people back home wanted something done, that they had misgivings and were confused about the conduct of our foreign policy. Edith Green, e.g., from Portland, Oregon, was sure that her constituents were more concerned over the dangerous drift in diplomacy than over any other issue.

These congressmen had seen Dulles piling up air mileage in lieu of diplomatic achievement. They had heard of the reckless promise to “unleash Chiang Kai-shek.” They had heard the blustering threats of massive retaliation; the new look in defense; or a bigger bang for the buck. These and many more, until they were tired of slogans. So they told the House some simple facts and insisted something be done about it. Well, nothing has been done about it yet. Some of these facts were:

1. That nuclear war is capable of destroying civilization, and this country can no longer ignore some of the tensions, quite apart from the centers of communist power in Moscow and Peking;
2. That military containment is not enough. It must be accompanied by efforts to unite a free Germany and to permit free governments in central and eastern Europe;
3. That it is about time we were backing the fight of under-developed peoples of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East for freedom from colonialism and feudalism;
4. That there must be economic aid on an international basis;
5. And that ours must be a position of non-involvement in great power rivalry.

It was a wonderful challenge, but nothing has been changed. The discouraging thing about it all is that nobody in high places seems to want to change the situation. What are your and my senators and representatives doing these days? It might be well for us to find out and let them know what we expect them to do, for politicians are afraid of nobody but the people, and if they know what we want, they will respond. They probably will not unless we do. That presents us with a continuing challenge.

Several weeks ago I reported on the conclusions of an Atlanta newspaperman who had made a study of the performance of faith healers in that area and arrived at the conviction that it was a hoax. This week’s news carries a similar item by the religious editor of the Miami Herald, one Adon Taft. He attended the tent meetings of the Rev. Jack Coe of Dallas, who was drawing a crowd of some 6,000 Miamians nightly. In the front page of his paper he showed there had been no real changes in the physical conditions of those he claimed to cure. In one instance he pointed out that a woman who had thrown away her crutches and walked without them had never ordinarily used them anyway. Three ministers in the city have offered to pay Coe $2,500 if his faith healing cures anyone who had been duly certified as ill and who, after his ministrations, is certified as cured. Thus far, Coe has not accepted the challenge.

And another alleged faith healer, Oral Roberts, is meeting with disappointment in Australia. After the newspapers and ministers there denounced him in Sydney, and after his meetings attracted only about 5,000 in a tent whose capacity is 14,000, he moved on to Melbourne. Reports do not indicate what success, if any, he is meeting with there.

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One of the things about which men of social consciousness will, or should, always have continuing concern is any segment of our people who labor under something of an inherent handicap because of circumstances beyond their control. In this connection I have in mind the farmers of this country. We are faced with a paradox of hardship for the farmer in an age when they are producing huge surpluses. Government, in the hands of both parties, has never been able to offer them anything other than an aspirin for their financial headache and much of what both have offered has been the same, regardless of what name it went by. The Democrats have generally stood for rigid parity support of 90 percent for basic crops; the present administration has fluctuated between a sliding scale policy of parity from 75 percent to 90 percent, and now it is the soil bank idea. And this week the Senate committee by a close vote decided to recommend again rigid 90 percent parity support. In the meantime, surpluses of all kinds are piling up at an alarming rate and the cost of warehouse facilities alone runs into some $20,000 per [?]. Moreover, 58¢ of the consumer’s food dollar is lost between the point of his purchase and the price the farmer gets for what he sells. Meanwhile, in vast areas of the world millions are starving or are on the verge of starving, while we store potatoes to them useless, or dump good food into rivers or otherwise destroy it.

Even the simplest of us can see that there is something basically wrong with a world where such things take place. And the United States has opposed setting up in the United Nations a special food agency to see what can be done about getting our surpluses distributed throughout starving areas to lessen our own problem and to save lives of people with not enough to eat. This food, if properly handled, doubtless would go far not only to save lives but to create good will for the West in those places where now we offer them only guns with which to arm in a possible conflict about which they know, and probably care, little. It is about time that men of both parties address themselves to the basic problem created by the situation I have just described to the end of alleviating our own domestic problem, aiding undernourished people throughout the world, and using what we have a surplus of to help us in our race for competitive existence with the non-democratic world. There is a large block of neutral nations in the Middle East and Africa. Perhaps our avoidance of war will depend upon how well we can woo the allegiance and support of these people to the cause of freedom. We certainly are not going to do it with the policy Mr. Dulles is pursuing with all the emphasis upon military assistance without very much if any attention to economic needs. Mr. Dulles apparently does not know any better, or is afraid to pursue any other course. But that course is one of expediency only.  It is not one of statesmanship; nor does it, in the long run, contribute to our own security, about which he seems so concerned.

Hence, our own domestic problem here, affecting some 15 percent of our working population, illustrates how much of a seamless web there is to all life on the planet today. Whatever we do or fail to do locally may well have world-wide ramifications, calling for attack upon almost all our problems from a world perspective.

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One of the essential elements in a two-party system in a democracy is that these parties take positions on fundamental issues that are sufficiently different that voters going into the polling booth will have a real choice between alternative policies. Looking at the picture of politics as as of now in the present Congress, it is difficult to see much difference between the two. And while there will be much breast-beating between now and adjournment – and election, if these first few weeks are any indication of the way things are going throughout the session, it would seem that next November we shall have a choice about like that between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Perhaps the most noticeable trend on the part of both parties is the mad scramble to get in the middle of the road (whatever that means). Apparently, both parties have convinced themselves this is not the time to be caught on either the left or right. Under the ever-militant leadership of Sen. Johnson of Texas, Senate Democrats were committed to a program of very mild do-goodism. And with some, perhaps considerable, prodding from Eisenhower lieutenants in the White House, Republicans are trying to toe the center line as closely as possible, even inching their way a little toward that horrible nightmare of four years ago, “the welfare state.”

The result of this is that on the very issues that should reveal real differences between the parties, the leadership of both seems to be in almost complete agreement. For example, in his State of the Union message calling for aid to schools, the president asked for $1.25 billion over a five-year period, while the Democratic measure that went through the House committee last year provided for $1.6 billion in four years.

Both sides are pledged to “do something” about housing, and Eisenhower has called for a goal of 35,000 units, which is a little below that asked by the Democrats but still higher than either hopes to get through Congress.

On highway construction, the administration has abandoned its vast bond sale, simply calling for a plan of adequate financing.

In the matter of tax reduction, neither side seems capable of making up its mind whether it wishes to champion a balanced budget or make a bid for votes in an election year by cutting taxes. The bets are pretty good that if any reduction comes about, it will be in places and at a time when both think it will do them the most good politically.

The farm problem, I have already dealt with today in another connection. On it, the parties are not very far apart, not enough to make any real distinction between them.

Curiously enough, it is foreign economic aid where the confusion is greatest. The president seems to have taken the position that foreign aid of an economic kind is necessary for “projects and programs which we approve and which require a period of years for planning and completion.” You will recall that foreign aid of an economic nature was originally a Democratic creation. At that time the Republicans howled. But it now looks as if the Republicans have stolen Democratic thunder on this issue, and it is the Democrats who are howling that this sort of thing cannot go on much longer.

If time permitted I could go on pointing out the anomalies of politics as she is being played by the two groups at the present time. Certainly the Democrats are going to have to convince the voters that there is enough difference between them and their opponents to justify ousting the incumbent of the White House and putting one of their party in, while the Republicans will have to be just as assiduous in convincing us that it is for the best to keep one of their number at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. You and I, the voters, are going to be caught in the crossfire of a welter of claims and counterclaims, charges and counter-charges that will require almost the wisdom of a Solomon to see through. It is a serious responsibility, and how well we separate the wheat from the chaff and discharge that responsibility will determine in large measure the well-being of us all.

This item is admittedly shoptalk as far as this reporter is concerned, but it seems justifiable to include mention of it on a program of this kind. A ferment is going on in the college world these days. Today there are between 2.5 and 3 million students going to college and university. The immediate future forebodes nothing but heavily increased enrollments, for the first of the war babies are now crowding the high schools and will be doing so to the colleges within a few years. Private colleges are having a struggle – even the oldest, largest, and strongest of them – to stay solvent, much less expand facilities and personnel to meet the increased student volume. Public colleges are in a sense in worse shape, because it is more difficult for them to turn away students who meet the (to most of us) few and minimum criteria for admission. Increased expenditures in all areas of state government make legislatures view with increasingly microscopic examination proposals for increased expenditures for higher educations.

Out of all this, the colleges are asking themselves, “What shall and can we do?” Unfortunately there is little if any consensus among them on many matters. Should they strive for quality of education, turning away those who do not meet higher standards? Should undergraduate work contain a considerable admixture of vocational training, or should it be for general academic excellence? And what about the students who have the ability but who do not have the money? Should scholarships be provided for them? If screening is done with a view to selecting only best? If so, how to screen fairly and be sure the wheat is separated from the tares? And in the heterogeneous college population of today, what about the gifted student? Are we training for mediocrity, since the majority of students are average, leaving the exceptional student to get some profit by it? During the past two or three decades many crocodile tears have been shed at all school levels about the slow learner, but this reporter has never heard any serious concern about the one who could be a fast learner. In fact an advanced student of his did some research on this subject in one of the better systems in this area a year or two ago and came out with the conclusion that that system was really doing nothing about such students. Can we afford to go on doing this?

Certainly I have no answer to these questions, though I have personal convictions about most of them. It would appear, however, that it is high time we began doing some concerted thinking and acting about such an important matter. Conferences alone will not settle the issues, but conferences, plus a continued effort to arrive at a consensus and then put the decisions into practice would do much to clear the confusion and uncertainty. Those of us who try to teach have a faith that man through education cannot only learn how to make a better living but also how to live a better life, than he would without an education. If this basic assumption is sound, then the nation that has an educational policy and program designed to give each of its citizens that education by which he can profit most is a nation that will be stronger mentally, and we hope, morally and physically.

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A 26-page pamphlet has just been issued by the American Institute of Management, a non-profit organization that evaluates efficiency of corporations or other agencies. This pamphlet is a summary report on the effectiveness of the Catholic Church, a study that required a year to do, with more than 200 research workers. Space and time do permit even a summary of this summary, but if you are interested in this unusual and unique venture, you will find an article on it in the current issue of Time magazine. With the sanction of the pope, the Institute examined the social function, the organizational structure, the growth of facilities, the fiscal policies, and other aspects of the church. The result: The church came out with an astonishingly good score of 88 percent. Do your church and mine need such and evaluation? In attempting to analyze the pros and cons of this question, I soon found myself developing an incipient split personality, so I stopped trying. What do you think about it?

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And speaking of what you think impels me at this time to do something that heretofore I have refrained from doing but which I have had an urge to do for some time: namely, ask for your comments and evaluation of this program. A considerable number of you do send me communications from time to time, but rarely on the program as a whole – usually on some particular aspect of a broadcast that you liked or did not like. I am as interested in getting one as the other, for only in so doing can I get an idea of your candid opinion, and that is what I should prefer having.

As your announcer informs you twice each Sunday, this program is sponsored by radio station WJHL. There is nothing to sell, except whatever may be of merit in the program itself. The only contribution this reporter makes is preparing the materials and doing the broadcast. Since this is well into the second year of the program, it is rather belated to express appreciation to the station for use of its facilities, but I wish to take this occasion to do so.

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Sometimes zealots for a particular cause, however sincere they may be, find themselves unintentionally and perhaps without knowing it, logically following the same course they are attacking in others. Last week I referred briefly to the Eastland Committee, especially to the chairman of that committee. Consider the following:

The Eastland Committee is attempting to punish that tiny portion of the press that does not approve of informers, and it seems to want a wholly one-party press. Russia and the communists have a one-party press. Therefore, Eastland and his committee are following the communist line and hence are subversive according to the very McCarthy philosophy of which they are the present instruments. And yet, it is communists and subversives that the committee seeks to ferret out. Pretty ridiculous, is it not?

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A mind-stretching quotation comes to me from Thomas Jefferson, which I should like to pass on to you, for, again, it is one of those things that remind us that while we have every right to belief in and loyalty to our religion, we have no right to force it on others or to disparage the religion of others. It goes like this, in describing how he developed the First Amendment:

“The Bill of Rights establishing religious freedom in the United States, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all latitude of reason and right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed: and a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the words, “Jesus Christ,” so that it should read “a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion.” The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindu, and the infidel of every denomination.” We have every right to disagree with any or every one of them; we have the right to suppress none.

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One of the anomalies of our way of so-called thinking seems to be that many people cannot conceive how one can defend the right of a person to be an atheist without he himself being one; one who speaks out in defense of radicals must himself be a radical; a person who has a good word to say for a political party must himself be a member of that party; and so it goes. Such an attitude fails to take into consideration both the kind of people we are here in this country and the social, religious, and political system we have developed throughout our history, and are still developing. America is a society made up of peoples from all over the earth, who came here at various times and for various purposes. Perhaps the most important simple purpose animating them was the desire to improve their condition. Hence, we must recognize that ours is a people consisting of Catholics and Protestants but also of every other kind of non-Christian faith. Some of our ancestors came early, while others came within the past few years, or even months. We are dark-skinned and light-skinned, and all shades in between. We came from totalitarian governments and from democratic ones. The leavening agent that runs through and cuts across all these national, racial, religious, and ethnic barriers is our constitutional system that guarantees to everyone of us the same rights before the law, even the right to seek actively to change that law, though there those in positions of special privilege whose position would be threatened by change. They insist that the status quo should be preserved intact, and that anyone who questions the perfection of the present is disloyal. If America ever reaches the point where dissent is suppressed, it will cease to be the kind of society that has made it great and strong.

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Church attendance hit an all time high in 1956. The National Council of Churches estimated that an average of 49.6 million persons attended church services in all denominations each week of the year. That is 49 percent of the nation’s adult population. The top Sunday of the entire year was Easter Sunday. A total of 60.4 million adults, nearly six out or every ten adult Americans, were in church that day. Women outnumbered men, but perhaps not by as much as you would think. For every 54 women who attended, there were 43 men.

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The Roman Catholic Church will build religious centers and a sports stadium in Rome as gifts for the 80^th birthday of Pope Pius XII on March 2. Clementa Cardinal Micara, the papal vicar of Rome, announced details of the program in a message appealing to Romans for funds. Among the buildings planned are a parish center, an educational institute for children of poor families, completion of the Pope Pius XII Oratory and Recreation Center near St. Peter’s Basilica, and a Shrine of Mary the Queen. The stadium will be built on church-owned ground on the Appian Way. It might be used in Rome’s 1960 Olympics.

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The United States Embassy in Madrid, Spain, has made a full report to Washington on the closing of the Spanish Protestant Seminary and School by Spanish authorities. The Seminary was established 75 years ago.

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In New York the legislative committee of the Protestant Council of New York City has restated its denunciation of gambling as a social evil, and pledged to oppose the legalization of bingo-playing for religious and charitable organizations. The attack on gambling is one of six points in a statement of principles for 1956 issued by the Protestant Council in its publication Protestant Church Life. Among others are opposition to racial discrimination, and a declaration that juvenile delinquency is the product of total environment of children in the home, the church, the school, and society in general.

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The Methodist Church Board of Social and Economic Relations has urged parishioners to show brotherliness and patience in adjusting to racial integration of the nation’s schools. The board adopted a resolution saying that the Supreme Court decision on school segregation has an influence beyond the schools, calling for far-reaching community-wide adjustments.

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Keith Funston, President of the New York Stock Exchange, insists there is a place for the Bible in business. Funston told the congregation at Trinity Church, New York, that the decisions men of finance must make are not always just dollar decisions. He said, “Many of our acts involve judgments as to what is right and wrong.” He added, “An increasingly great change in American business is consciousness of seeing the business world in terms of human beings.”

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An Easter educator says the average protestant minister has a 10-hour workday. Dr. Samuel Blizzard of Pennsylvania State University adds that a survey has shown the average minister uses 13 percent of his work as preacher or officiate at church services. Then he spends 23 percent at administration, 15 percent as counselor, 7 percent as community and parish organizer, and 3 percent as teacher. The remaining 39 percent of the average protestant minister’s time goes to his family. Dr. Blizzard, an associate professor of sociology at Penn State, adds the figures are based on questionnaires sent to 1,500 ministers of 22 denominations in all parts of the U.S. He told of the survey at a meeting this week of the Ministers Week Program at the Chicago Theological Seminary.

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A special convention of a Lutheran Synod had unfrocked two ministers and declared a third innocent in heresy cases. The English Evangelical Lutheran Synod of the Northwest has voted out of the ministry the Rev. George Crist, Jr. and the Rev. Victor K. Wrigley. They had been found guilty by special committees last summer. The Rev. John Gerberding was acquitted. All had been charged with doctrinal deviation on such matters as the virgin birth of Christ and his resurrection. The 31-year-old Crist, former pastor at Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Durham, Wisconsin, is now a student at the University of Iowa. Wrigley, 36 years old, has continued as pastor at Gethsemane Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin, at the request of his congregation. But the Rev. Mr. Gerberding, age 33, resigned his pastorate at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, in Menominee Falls, Wisconsin. He is now working on a weekly newspaper at Lancaster, Wisconsin. He is still eligible to receive a call.

 

 

The military, with your money and mine, is reaching into our high schools with their propaganda following a pilot project in Michigan. In all of this none of the sordid and destructive aspects of war are mentioned. The object of military training is not to teach a trade, to see the world, or to guarantee a pension to survivors of war, but to kill and maim human beings and to destroy property. If high school students are to be sold on the idea of a military career, they should be told this side of the story as well as the brighter side. For most of our history as a nation, we have been spared perpetuation of a military clique, such as has been the curse of Germany and other nations. Despite the troubled world situation today, and our real need for defensive strength, there is no apparent reason why such methods as used in Michigan should be resorted to to recruit cannon fodder. We cannot help but wonder why there is not as much time, energy, money, thought, and effort spent on ways and means of reaching a durable peace as there is on anticipating nothing but war and making little effort toward doing anything about it except getting ready. To accept war as inevitable is to admit defeat of peace at the outset. And Mr. Dulles boasts that he prevented our getting us into war by bringing us to the brink of war. Does that make sense to you? No, and it did not to me either.

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Comments on this program indicating a certain amount of skepticism about the religiosity of public officials who seem to wear religion on their sleeve so that all may be sure and see it have at times evoked from you listeners reactions of resentment. However, they were honest comments and were in no way intended to disparage the good and sincere intentions of anyone. But it did seem a little bit too obvious when General Eisenhower rather ostentatiously affiliated with the Presbyterian Church just on the eve of launching himself into the fight for the presidential nomination in 1952. Now, according to reports by Time magazine, would-be presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson is going Eisenhower one better. It says that he is going to be a member of both the Presbyterian and the Unitarian denominations. The same reliable and conservative magazine goes on to say that two Unitarian and two Presbyterian pastors state that in this “There is no inconsistency.” Well, I should judge not lest I be judged, but when I read that, I could not help but wonder why he did not join the Methodists. They have more votes than Presbyterians and Unitarians combined. The ways of politics and politicos are indeed passing strange.

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A quotable quote comes to us by way of a Supreme Court decision in the state of Illinois. It says this regarding state and church: “The ‘establishment of religion’ clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the federal government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion.”

It would be well for congressmen contemplating allotting funds to church schools in federal aid to education bills to keep this quotation in mind. Of course it is highly unlikely that such bills have much chance of passage at this session of Congress, though several will be introduced for the purpose of the record.

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The subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee headed by Sen. Eastland of Mississippi, successor to the late much-publicized witch-hunter McCarran, is fine combing American newspapers for evidence of subversion – which is something of a paranoid delusion, for newspapers in this country are notably reactionary. Many of us who have tried to follow the devious windings of this subcommittee and its chairman are convinced that he is acting in defiance of the First Amendment and Supreme Court decision. Also it is a clear usurpation of judicial functions by the legislative branch. It seems a case of a mountain laboring and bringing forth a few mice.

On the other hand, Eastland is the same person who told a Mississippi audience not long ago, in referring to the court decision on segregation, that “You don’t have to obey a ruling of that kind by that court.” And he is the same man who met in Memphis Christmas week and helped organize the so-called Federation for Constitutional Government, an organization dedicated to defying the Court’s decree. Veritably, one is moved, in looking at his Mississippi and Memphis actions as contrasted with his New York ones, to cry “Watchman, what of the night?” Most of us would deem defiance of law and order about as subversive as one can get.

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When we refer to the Bible, we mean that Bible which we regard as sacred writings. It might be well for us occasionally to take a broader view and keep within our realization the fact that there are many bibles of many peoples. The Jewish-Christian view is that our Bible is a revelation from a transcendent deity dictated to some favored men and containing an outline of a plan which, if believed, will insure after death eternal bliss in another world, and, if rejected, will make sure after death of a fate too terrible to describe. But then, even the Christians have many, not one only, salvation schemes. In other words, there is no universally accepted Bible in Christendom. We have the bibles of the Roman Catholic Church, of our Protestant denominations, of the Armenian Church, of the Coptic Church, and of the Syrian Church – all Christian ones. Then there are a lot of bibles of people who are non-Christian. What makes a bible? Obviously all people decide that for themselves, and while we have every right to be dedicated to believing in the superiority of our own, it would be narrow and inconsistent of us to refuse other people the right to believe in the superiority of their own.

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Out in Utah a personal and domestic tragedy is taking place. And it makes no differences as to what our personal beliefs and preferences are in the matter, it is a tragedy for the people concerned. You will recall that a year or so ago a a raid was made on the settlement of Short Creek, Arizona, a Mormon settlement where polygamy was being practiced by members of the so-called fundamentalist sect branch of the church. It was found that plural wives were the rule there and a considerable number of persons were taken into custody. Across the Utah-Arizona line is the other portion of the settlement. There live Mrs. Vera Black and her eight children. She is one of the three wives of Leonard Black, a member of this element of the church. Recently the welfare department of the state of Utah visited the place and urged the mother to sign an agreement that would commit her: 1.to give up polygamy as a practice; 2. to rear the children in the belief that polygamy is wrong. The state is not doing this from entirely altruistic motives; it is trying to avoid lengthy and expensive court action in taking the children away from her. However, the mother would not be persuaded. She insisted that ours is a nation of equal right of all religion before the law; that polygamy is a fundamental part of her religious belief; that to sign the pledge asked for by the state would run counter to her conscience; and that requiring her to sign a pledge or oath such as this would be done only if all mothers who had honorably, as they see it, were required to sign a similar oath.

The state on its part, in view of her refusal, took the children, aged four to 19, to foster homes.

Thus we run squarely into an apparently irreconcilable conflict between church and state. There is little use in asking or arguing the point; the courts have spoken. Yet, one with a social consciousness cannot help but feel deeply the tragedy that is going on the hearts of the mother and children thus so abruptly torn apart. Probably what Vera Black was practicing openly is practiced secretly by many people in the state. Back in 1890 the then head of the church, one Wilford Woodruff, advised the members of his church to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the laws of the land. This meant, in effect, to give up polygamy, and it was made one of the conditions upon which Utah would be admitted to the Union.

The fundamentalists, however, renounce Woodruff as an apostate from what is to them the true faith. They say, in effect, “We believe that polygamy is a divine institution,” that without it, man is not fulfilling his full religious duty. So there you have it. What is to be done under such circumstances? Veritably, it would require one with wisdom more than a Solomon to resolve the conflict.

We who subscribe to the monogamous view may easily bask in the complacency of self-righteousness by saying that basically, their tenets are wrong to begin with. We may wonder how or why any intelligent person can subscribe to such beliefs. We may look down upon them as a being of a lower order of intelligence or morals. But the fact remains that a mother and her children are separated by the laws and powers of the state because of what is apparently deep religious convictions. That is a fact that no amount of rationalization can remove. That is the human tragedy of an unfortunate situation.

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Washington: Catholics and Protestants are holding prayers for unity in the long divided family of Christendom. Both major branches of Christianity started the prayers January 18 and they will continue until January 25. But the services are certain to point up the great gap which still exists between Protestantism and Catholicism. The Catholics are emphasizing at their services their unswerving adherence to the principle that unity can be achieved only by (what they call) the return of Protestants to the Church of Rome. The Protestants also would have to accept the pope’s authority as “Vicar of Christ on Earth.” Protestants are pointing to this Catholic stand as the biggest obstacle in the path of eventual Christian unity.

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The Methodist Church’s General Board of Education has recommended the establishment of two additional seminaries. The commission, meeting in Cincinnati, proposed that one of the schools be located in Ohio; the other in the Kansas/Missouri/Nebraska area. Final action on the recommendation will come at the quadrennial sessions of the Methodist General Conference at Minneapolis in April.

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Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania: Leading Methodist officials say the shift of Americans from rural to urban and suburban areas presents “almost insurmountable problems” to the churches of both city and country. The comments were made at the meeting of the Board of Missions of the Church this week. Dr. Robert McKibben said more than 50 percent of our population now lives in communities of 10,000 or over. A century ago, the percentage was only 10 percent. The meeting also heard from the Rev. Tracey Jones, Jr, a former missionary in China. He said there are what he called “feeble indications” of a growing interest in Chinese Christians to reestablish contacts with Christians beyond the Bamboo Curtain. The Board of Missions of the church reports a record income for the fiscal year 1954-55 of $23,396,000.

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New York: The role of the layman in the Protestant Church will be the theme of a conference for parish ministers to be held in New York next week. Seventy-five ministers from 11 states, and representing the major Protestant denominations, are enrolled for the Fifth Annual Alumni Mid-Winter Ministers Conference at Union Theological Seminary. Date for the conference is January 23 – 25.

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Vatican sources say the Catholic Church this year may proclaim as a saint a North American Indian girl who died 300 years ago. The Indian girl, Catherine Tekakwitha, or “Lily of the Mohawks,” was born in 1656 near Albany, New York. She was the daughter of a pagan Mohawk Indian and a Christian Algonquin woman, and she lived a dedicated life after the smallpox epidemic which marked her face for life and wiped out her family. She died at the age of 24, at the St. Francis Xavier Mission near Montreal. The Mohawk tribe venerated her as a saint, and her grave became a pilgrimage center.

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Philadelphia: A new vote on a proposal to permit women to be ordained in the Presbyterian Church is under way in the U.S. and early tally shows 58 for and 14 against the proposal, which has been twice defeated by the ministry, in 1930 and 1947. The office of the church’s General Assembly in Philadelphia says a majority of 257 presbyteries is required to amend the church constitution to permit the ordination of women. The proposal was recommended at an annual assembly meeting in Los Angeles last year.

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The Roman Catholic Church in Spain has begun a drive for wage improvement among the nation’s poverty-stricken workers and peasants. The church’s great influence in Spain is expected to mean strong pressure on General Alissimo Francisco Franco’s government. The regime is holding wages at a level of a general raise granted one year ago. Spanish employers are not required to boost wages unless the government orders them to do so. Church informants say the Metropolitan Committee of all Spanish archbishops agreed on the move in early December. The Vatican is said to have approved. The poorer Spaniards have been squeezed by the spectacular price rises in the last three months.

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A long-time U.S. Japanese Shinto priest says he has answered the voice of his conscience in deciding to become a Christian. Rikimatsu Hideshima says he and his wife will be baptized today in the Japanese Congregational Church in Seattle, Washington. Hideshima has been a Shinto priest for 29 years. The 59-year-old convert adds he first became interested in Christianity while in a World War II relocation center.

At times certain colleagues of mine have indulged in good-natured ribbing (at least, I hope it is good-natured) because persistently I have expressed concern over the ways that certain Southern states and private groups in those states are going about trying to ignore or violate the clear pronouncement of the Supreme Court with respect to desegregation. I should like to take a little more time on this program to explore the matter in detail, with particular reference to the citizens’ council movement.

In May 1954, the court made its decision. In June of that year the Citizens’ Council of Mississippi was formed to combat that decision. Since then the movement has spread throughout the segregated South. Unlike members of the Ku Klux Klan, members of these councils are predominately respectable business and professional people, leaders in their white communities. They disclaim any notion of violence or inflicting suffering on anyone. But the principles of the councils (whatever their name) is much the same as those of the Klan. Let us look at some concrete, individual, results.

Last August 6, Jasper Mims and 52 other Negroes in the city of Yazoo signed a petition for admission of their children to a formerly all-white school. Ten days later the Yazoo City Herald devoted its back page to a list of the signers of that petition, together with each name, address, and telephone number set forth in 14-point type. Ostensibly all this was done as a “public service.” These were not cotton-patch Negroes; in fact they were the core of the town’s middle class. In six months, Mims, who had had an income of $150 a week, was broken. Nathan Stewart, the town’s most successful grocer among the Negroes, found, after publication of his name, that no wholesaler would supply him for cash. The Delta National Bank notified him to come and draw out his money. He is now bankrupt and living in the state of Illinois. Two other grocers who signed the petition suffered the same fate. One Lillian Young signed the petition, and the lumber company fired her husband. A few days later she went into the local A&P store and the clerk refused to sell to her. Hoover Harvey, a plumber, was installing bathroom fixtures in the home of a white man, but when his name was printed, he was told to get his name off the list if he wanted to continue his work. He did, but was fired from the job. He is now in Detroit.

In the same city, there were a year ago 235 Negro voters. The council printed a list of their names, and now there are just 15 who dare try exercise their right to vote. In this case it was the chief of police who was assigned to dissuade them. No, the councils do not go in for violence. That is what sheriffs and chiefs of police are for. These are just a few of the many examples all over the South where such councils are active.

Since the people who form these councils are of dominant influence in their respective communities, it is somewhat natural that politicians of all kinds have been, and are, catering to them. No one can possibly predict how many delegates will be sent to the Democratic convention next summer because of their influence. The discouraging fact is that both the hopefuls who seem ahead in the race for the nomination have preferred to ignore what is happening. Not long ago one Adlai Stevenson was the guest of Herman Talmadge for a weekend. What went on between these two politicos is not all known, but shortly afterward, Talmadge predicted with seeming pleasure that Stevenson would be nominated. Such an announcement by a communist fellow traveler would have brought the heavens down on Stevenson’s head. It appears that the only reaction to Talmadge’s position by any other Democratic contender is one of envy. Incidentally also, Stevenson improvised into his prepared speech in Chicago last November 19 the idea that integration is no longer a political issue since it has been decided by the Supreme Court.

The other hopeful, Averell Harriman, when asked about his reaction to the acquittal of those charged with murdering Emmett Till, the young Negro boy from Chicago, in Mississippi, took refuge in the non-answer by saying that since New York has not solved its own racial problems it was a no position to preach to anyone else. Shortly afterward, Mr. Harriman went to Alabama where he addressed a farm porch audience of planters and businessmen (some of whom were members of the councils) and preached to the Russians about social decency. He did not mention civil rights.

To what does all this add up with regard to political morality, to say nothing of common decency? In 1924, the Democrats weaseled their way out of a forthright stand on the Klan issue, and lost adherents as a result. If there is a time of judgment for all of us, it must be said then that the American liberal, at a time when he should have called out to Jasper Mims and all the others with his heart, could only say, “Of course, but…” We have stumbled our way down from ”Of course, Hiroshima, but …” to “Of course, Jasper Mims, but…” and with every “but,” the liberal who has done so has lost stature. There are doubtless many realistic political reasons why the Democratic Party should avert its eyes from Jasper Mims and welcome to its councils Fielding Wright, a Mississippi planter. But no amount of gaudy gilt and crimson can make a banner raised by cowards anything but a coward’s banner. This country has survived four years of the Republicans, or almost that much, and could perhaps survive four years more. For Jasper Mims, it will be all the same; and, if it is the same for him, the least of us, it is the same for all of us, for liberty is indivisible. If there is no liberty for the least of us, there is none ultimately for the greatest. It was the Master himself who said that “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” There may be excuses and forgiveness for people like Bill Simmons, Sen. Eastland, and Herman Talmadge, because they are what they are. The tragedy is not so much them, but the fact that men who think themselves worthy of being president of the United States pant after, if not their good will, at least their neutrality, and are willing to ignore stark injustice to get it. There may be forgiveness for these individuals in their community; there can be none for the Democratic Party if it ignores what is happening. A common decency cries out against such blindness to the human issues at stake.

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During the past few years, liberals have been accused of being negative; of being against, rather than for, something. We have been told it is better to build rather than tear down. Yet, sometimes it is easier to define what we do not mean than what we do, what we do not believe in than what we subscribe to believing. Some critics of negativism have gone so far as to think that liberalism has no content of its own, but is merely a form criticism of what it sees. Partly as a reaction and partly because it has a good sound, we have been told to “think positive thoughts” (a la Norman Vincent Peale, e.g.) There are those who seemingly object to criticizing anything for fear of being negative. Such people are not even with Cal Coolidge’s preacher, “agin sin.” This sort of thing has become something of a fad.

Yet, actually, it is impossible for anyone with any convictions at all not to be against some things and opposed to some people. For example, most of us, at least us teachers, believe in free public education, teaching the plain truth to all children. Good. That is positive enough. Yet, when we express that conviction and try to put it into practice, we sometimes immediately find ourselves in opposition to a number of persons and organizations who do not want free, unbiased education. There are people who look upon the school as propaganda media, and we are opposed to them. Call that destructive, critical, negative, or whatever you will. There are many things and persons we are against simply because there are persons and things we are for. And the two groups of persons are opposed to each other. We cannot be positive toward both groups and have any consistency. The human mind works by making comparisons and contrasts. Any religion which rises above mere sentimentality will be against some things as well as for others. So, many of us who like to think of ourselves as liberals plead guilty in advance to being against those who oppose the goals for which we are working.

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Paul Crouch, traitor to friends, violator of confidences, breaker of oaths, false witness, and wrecker of reputations, yet protected by government immunity is dead. He lived unworthily and died detested by all patriots plus those who in high places used him to cast him aside. Blessed is the man who is not employed by the council of the wicked nor testifies in the way of sinners.

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New York: The Methodist Church says it is releasing to television stations a series of 13 religious films. The films were produced in Hollywood at a cost of $250,000. At a news conference in New York, Donald Harvey Tippett, president of the church’s radio and film commission, describes the series as “probably the most elaborately produced TV series ever undertaken by a religious organization.”

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Quito, Ecuador: The Ecuadorean government has warned missionaries not to try to penetrate the country of its savage Indian tribes. The government says the murder of five American missionaries who landed their small plane on a sandbar in the [Ohl Gahn] river this week was to be expected. The Indians of the fierce Huaorani tribe are intractable and the Ecuadorean government does not have the money to attempt pacification of the Auca country. The missionary party was led by Edward McCully, Jr. of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.

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Yuba City, California: Officials of the Mormon Church said the church’s welfare program was a success in the recent west coast flood disaster. The president of the Gridley, California, stake of the church says that emergency supplies requested were unloaded at Gridley within 24 hours by an appeal to church headquarters at Salt Lake City. The president of the Sacramento, California, stake says more than 1,200 members put in at least 10,000 hours of volunteer work.

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St. Louis: The president of Boston University has been elected president of the National Association of Schools and Colleges of the Methodist Church. Dr. Harold Case was named president at the group’s annual meeting in St. Louis, to succeed Dr. Nelson Horn, president of Baker University.

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The Laymen’s Leadership Institute, at Louisville, Kentucky, had been told religion is a full-time job, especially for the layman. The comment is from a Texas food store chain executive, Howard Butt, Jr. At 28 years of age, he is an internationally known lay leader. He says every layman is responsible for the propagation of the gospel.

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The end may be near for a long controversy about the rectorship of a Brooklyn, New York, Episcopal church. Seven years ago, the regular rector, the Rev. Dr. John Howard Melish, was removed by the bishop of Long Island because of the alleged left-wing activities of his son and assistant minister.

Bishop James P. De Wolfe then refused approval to the vestry’s installation of the son as rector. But the vestry declined to name anyone else to the pulpit of Holy Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church. It kept the younger Mr. Melish as acting rector. Now the vestrymen have nominated a new rector. The Rev. Dr. Irving S. Pollard is expected to get the bishop’s approval and then be formally elected by the vestry. Dr. Pollard is on the staff of St. Bartholomew’s Church in Manhattan.

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One of the most eminent Protestant theologians in the U.S. sees today’s younger generation as characterized by its search for a faith. That’s the view of the Rev. Dr. Henry Van Dusen, president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He also told about 400 women at a seminary lecture series that it is religion, not morals, with which the younger generation is preoccupied. He thinks the current younger generation lives far closer to the deep, aboriginal springs of life than its parents or grandparents. He also notes current youth has never known a moment of the golden days before the epoch of the World Wars or the hopeful and confident days between the Wars. Yet he sees it as, among other things, gay, carefree, relaxed, and good humored. But he further believes today’s youth is characterized by listlessness. He says they suffer from lack of worlds to conquer.

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Again this year the Minnesota Jewish Council is cooperating with the University of Minnesota Agricultural Extension Service in a statewide radio speaking contest for 4-H Club members. In this 14^th year of the competition, the 4-H’ers will have the topic of “What can I do today to make the world better tomorrow?” The Jewish Council is providing some $1,500 in awards for county, district, and state winners.

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A U.S.-born Roman Catholic priest with a sudden fame has been honored by his church and state. He is the Rev. Canon J. Francis Tucker, a native of Wilmington, Delaware, and now chaplain to Prince Rainer III of Monaco. He was guest at a dinner in Wilmington on the 50^th anniversary of his religious profession. Father Tucker is the first U.S. member of the order, which is devoted to the secondary education of boys and mission fields. He also founded and was for 25 years pastor of St. Anthony Church in Wilmington. Now he is pastor of St. Charles Parish and canon of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, both in Monte Carlo.

 

It is to observe the obvious that the people of the United States do not like the government of Russia, nor does Russia like the government of the United States. So, the government here spends a lot of the taxpayers’ money to say that to the people of Russia. A handful of discredited people in this country are saying that they do not like our form of government here. These are the communists. These are the so-called menace. Perhaps there are some 25,000 of them out of a population of over 160 million.

Moreover, some people in public life do not seem to have much confidence in the common sense and patriotism of the masses and these people are genuinely frightened. Others seek to win public office, sell periodicals, or gain publicity, by making the menace seem greater than it really is.

The result is that to protest the United States against the menace, many people in power nationally or otherwise adopt the same repressive measures that they condemn in Russia. It is a queer way to preserve American liberties by abolishing them. Not only our national government, but many states have enacted statutes that have reduced liberty in the name of liberty.

Perhaps in no other state has this gone so far as in California, mention of which was made here a week ago. For example, a special loyalty oath is required from all who receive compensation from the state. Teacher tenure is undermined. Any teacher who has ever belonged to an organization that the administration does no like can be summarily dismissed without administrative recourse. Public education is thus regulated by police power which has access to school rooms. Teachers are in some cases forbidden to teach current controversial problems or even to permit the writing of essays on them. (And, I might ask parenthetically, whether an issue is really an issue unless it is controversial?) A seven-man commission called Anti-Communist Civil Defense Commission makes legal “guilt by association” and sets up a list of organizations to which it is illegal to belong or to have ever belonged. In that state, communists must register and the Communist Party is outlawed. Wire-tapping on court order is made legal. Employers are given permission to fire anyone the employer thinks is disloyal, and there is no recourse. From all businesses, professions, or vocations requiring license from the state, a special loyalty oath is required. A separate bill requires lawyers to take a loyalty oath or be disbarred. If a lawyer defends a person declared to be a communist, the lawyer is liable for perjury.

Not only this, but the enemies of freedom found a way to bring churches to heel. Churches are to be taxed unless their officials take a loyalty oath for all their constituents. In this case, the official takes an oath, not only for himself but for others. Otherwise, the churches are liable to pay taxes to the state.

Here and there in the state are islands of sanity in this sea of hysteria. Members of some churches are protesting the disloyal activities of the legislators. Some churches have refused to stop all persons at the door and examine them for loyalty, or to censor peoples’ thoughts. These churches have appealed to American principles through the courts, but that costs money. One church, for example, is paying some $7,000 a year under protest rather than sign the odious oath.

All of this, of course, brings up the fundamental question of whether we can protect democracy against totalitarianism by using totalitarian methods. Of what value is a loyalty oath anyway? We Americans who are not best by such hysteria as that animating California legislators would insist that the only loyalty we know is to our Constitution and to laws validly enacted under it. In a democracy, the state can ask for no more; the people can refuse to give no less. Loyalty oaths mean nothing to communists who proceed upon the theory that any means justify the ends they seek, which is world revolution. It would appear to be about time that we returned, in California and elsewhere, to the basic tenets of Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers. Democracy rests basically upon the premise that the common man in the street can be relied upon to govern himself wisely if given access to the truth. And he needs no special safeguards or prompting from the state to make him do it. Also, another of our constitutional principles is separation of church and state, a principle which California legislators seem conveniently, but unfortunately to have forgotten. You may wonder why so much time is devoted to this topic is some a matter of direct and immediate concern largely to people some 3,000 miles away. Well, it was a little man from Independence, Missouri, who some few years ago stated a fundamental truth: that we are slowly coming to recognize that a threat to freedom of men anywhere is a threat to freedom of men everywhere. That little man was Harry S. Truman, a controversial figure, admittedly, but who, when he said that, was speaking in the best Jeffersonian tradition, for it was Jefferson who remarked that “I have sworn eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the minds of men.” If it can happen in California, it can happen in Tennessee; the thing we must be concerned about is to see to that it does not happen here. It was a Californian, Chief Justice Earl Warren, who recently said that this generation will pass on to the next “a better Bill of Rights or a worse one, tarnished by neglect or burnished by growing use.” Each of us has a part to play in seeing that it is burnished rather than tarnished.

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The Syracuse Federation of Teachers in New York has made a survey to find out from teachers what factors are important in promoting teacher morale. A random sample of 1,000 teachers was chosen in the geographic area, and from the replies some 44 factors were reported. Time will not permit enumeration of them all here, but I am going to take time to pass on to you those factors mentioned by 50 percent or more of the teachers. First, with 77 percent was the complaint that maximum salaries are not reached until about half of one’s teaching career is passed; 75 percent emphasized that salaries of experienced teachers have not increased in proportion to increases in beginning salaries for teachers; 68 percent said that there was no accumulation of days of fully paid sick leave; the same number listed loss of salary and medical expenses suffered by teachers injured on the job; 65 percent objected to the fact that teacher salaries are lower in general than those of other professions requiring similar training; 64 percent pointed out that Syracuse teachers were receiving salaries lower than those paid in many villages and districts in the state; 64 percent mentioned the lack of official action to inform the public of oversized and doubled classes, relatively low salaries of teachers, and the high ability of Syracuse to finance education; 60 percent said there was not sufficient recognition of long and satisfactory service in the determination of salaries; 59 percent were actually aware that teachers retire on allowances below minimum subsistence levels; and an equal percentage, 59 percent, felt keenly the lack of provision for absence due to personal emergencies other than personal of family illness.

Well, you non-teachers out there may or may not agree that these complaints of teachers are justified. Those of us who have spent all or most of our working lives in the school room are all too acutely aware of these and many other factors that keep our morale down. Teacher morale is important, not so much because of the teacher himself, but for the simple fact that a teacher who feels secure, both in the present and the foreseeable future, is worth far more to your children that is one who is worried by debts he cannot pay, retirement without adequate subsistence, and all the other factors that in this world of ours today make the difference between security and insecurity. America’s children have a right to instruction by teachers who feel a minimum of worry because of financial circumstances. Such instruction is likely to be far more thorough, meaningful, interesting, and enthusiastic. So, this matter of teacher morale is more important than simply the personal welfare of the teachers; it is important for the educational welfare of the students.

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From the reactions I get, it seems that every so often it is pertinent to state again something of the point of view of this program. It certainly is intended to be non-sectarian. It assumes that one can have a preference for his own religion without at the same time incurring a prejudice against a religion other that his own. It views religion not only from the narrow confines of ritual and dogma that make up the special perspective of a single creed or denomination; but also from the viewpoint that things often thought of as secular by many people have direct or indirect religious import. For example, it is no accident that crime rates go up as quality of housing goes down; that morality in public life, among public officials, is as much of concern to the man concerned with religion as is a particular form of baptism. It recognizes that religion is an area of life that cannot be delimited, that it is something pervading and permeating every area of the life of the individual and of the society of which he is a part. It refuses to look at religion as something locked up between the lids of a book to be brought out one day of the week and securely tucked away the other six days.

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First, a round up of the week’s religious news as reported by United and Associated Press Radio.

London: Queen Elizabeth has approved the appointment of the Right Rev. Arthur Michael Ramsey as archbishop of York and co-primate of the Church of England. He is the cleric who stood at the queen’s side during her coronation two years ago to help support her in her heavy robes. The 52-year-old bishop succeeds the late Dr. Cyril Garbett who died last Saturday at the age of 80. Dr. Ramsey is now second only to the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Geoffrey Fisher, in ecclesiastical rank.

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Milan, Italy: Terrorists have bombed Milan’s Arch-Episcopal Palace in a apparent attempt to kill or intimidate Italy’s two leading anti-communist cardinals. Italian newspapers hint that the bombing was the work of the Reds.

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Again Milan: A Milan magazine says Pope Pius XII has been studying the Russian language. The magazine says the pontiff is making the study in order to understand the psychology of the Russian people. However, Vatican sources discount the report.

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Some Protestant church stewardship leaders meeting in Chicago agree it is both wrong and lazy to mail pledge cards to get church contributions. The Rev. Arthur O. Rinden, of New York City, adds personal contributions are preferable to the pledge card mailings. Mr. Rinden, who presided over the final session of the two-day conference this week, states churches should ask members to give not as they gave last year but that they should contribute as “God had blessed you.” The Chicago meeting of 61 representatives of 21 denominations had raising church budgets as its theme. The conference was sponsored by the National Council of Churches, U.S.A.

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Church youth and church education have been the subjects of three denominational meetings this week. The Rev. Ronald V. Wells of NYC has told the Baptist General Council the church should start a $5.75 million educational drive. That would be to support Baptist schools, colleges, and other educational activities.

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Also in Chicago, the young Methodists have begun Operation Fellowship. The Rev. Harold W. Ewing of Nashville says the plan is to lure the drug store, pool room, and country club crowd to church. He adds Operation Fellowship will use home parties, hot rod clubs, and community recreation to decentralize Methodist youth work outside of church buildings.

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In Cincinnati, the United Lutheran Church has announced a new long-range program for coordinating parish education. The Rev. Dr. S. White Rhune of Philadelphia tells of a complete, coordinated curriculum running through all of the church’s schools. He says little relation exists at the present time among the programs of Sunday schools, vacation, and weekday church schools and confirmation classes.

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At Merom, Indiana, key laymen of the Congregational Christian and Evangelical and Reformed churches from 11 Midwest states held a get-acquainted conference yesterday and today. The two Protestant denominations plan to unite next year. Lay leaders in six other regions will hold similar conferences during the next few months.

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Naples: A Roman Catholic priest has announced he will set up a home for gangsters deported from the United States who cannot find work in Italy. The gangsters have found it difficult to get honest work in Italy. The plan has the support of Charles Luciano, former New York vice overlord, who runs a prosperous medical equipment store in Naples.

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Pittsburgh: The nation’s two largest Presbyterian church groups may merge. A plan to unite the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and the United Presbyterian Church of North America was formulated at a gathering of church leaders in Pittsburgh. The new church with some three million members, would be called the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. If the committees, general assemblies, and presbyteries of both present churches adopt the plan, the two churches will unite in a combined assembly in Pittsburgh in May, 1958.

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The Roman Catholic archbishop of New York has been received in private audience by Pope Pius XII. The prelate, Francis Cardinal Spellman, is en route home to the U.S. after his annual Christmas-time visit with U.S. troops in the Far East. Cardinal Spellman will visit U.S. servicemen and women in Italy and Germany on his way back.

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Another evidence has come of better ties between the Vatican and Argentina. The pope bestowed his good wishes on Argentinians in an audience with an Argentine embassy official this week. Now provisional President Aramburu has expressed his thanks to the pontiff for the blessing.

 

First, a potpourri of religion in the week’s news as reported by the AP and UP news agencies.

Vatican sources say Pope Pius XII is willing to serve as moral mediator between East and West in hopes of preventing an atomic war. These sources say the pope will make no formal offer, but that he’s ready to do what he can to solve outstanding differences in atomic control, if asked to do so.

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New York: A department of the Episcopal Diocese of New York has adopted a resolution deploring “the present reign of terror in the state of Mississippi.” The Department of Christian Social Relations says four persons were killed and another wounded in the past year. It says, “To permit such crimes to go unpunished is to invite lawlessness throughout the South.” It quotes Mississippi Senator Eastland as saying of the Supreme Court desegregation ruling “You are not required to obey a court which passes out such a ruling.” The statement says “This is subversion just as real, and, because it comes from a United States senator, far more dangerous than any perpetrated by the Communist Party.

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Hong Kong: Francis Cardinal Spellman arrived in Hong Kong yesterday in his fifth annual Christmas tour of American bases in the Far East. He will go to Vietnam Monday. During the week, the Cardinal has visited Formosa, Okinawa, the Yokosuka naval base, and Camp McGill, Japan, headquarters of the United States Third Marine Division.

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Chicago: The Methodist Church has conducted a poll among 1,700 of its 9 million members to learn their convictions on various subjects. The poll shows most are opposed to drinking, but 50 percent see no harm in bingo.

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Philadelphia: The Rev. Joseph Fichter of Loyola University in New Orleans has received the Annual Award of the American Catholic Sociological Society. He was honored for writing Social Relationships in the Catholic Parish, which the society considered the year’s best book in the field.

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Cleveland: One thousand delegates to the Fifth United Synagogue Youth Organization wound up their meeting this past week. They elected 17-year-old Arthur Pestcoe of Trenton, New Jersey, their president for the coming year.

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Athens, Ohio: Three thousand college students from 75 nations are holding a six-day ecumenical conference on the Christian World Mission. It is the seventh such meeting, which is held every four years by the Student Volunteer Movement, a unit of the National Council of Churches. About half the delegates are from the United States and the rest are from abroad.

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Rio de Janeiro: Father Pius Barth, Franciscan provincial for the Middle West, has announced increased U.S. Catholic missionary work in the Brazilian jungle state of Para. Barth says church authorities in Brazil are in general agreement with his plan to send an unspecified number of teachers and medical missionaries to join the 26 American Franciscans now stationed there.

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London: (And this is an item that should give us pause.) Soviet Premier Bulganin says possession of hydrogen bombs by both East and West is not a 100 percent deterrent against future wars. He also declared another summit conference “can be fruitful” (for whom, Russia again?). Replying yesterday to questions put to him by Charles E. Shutt, head of the Washington bureau of Telenews agency, Bulganin said, “It is wrong to assert that inasmuch as East and West possess hydrogen weapons, the possibility of a thermonuclear was is automatically excluded.” His interview was broadcast by the Moscow radio. Asked about the prospects for peace in 1956, Bulganin said in the interview, “International cooperation and trust are a fully attainable aim in our time.” (He didn’t say how…)

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A religious newscaster has a list of what he terms the ten biggest religious stories of 1955. Richard Sutcliffe, associate director of the press, radio, and television department of the United Lutheran Church in America, lists them as follows, though not necessarily in their order of importance:

1. The illness and recovery of the pope;

2. Red China’s release of Christian missionaries;

3. Billy Graham’s sweep of Western Europe;

4. Dictator Peron’s failure to choke Argentine Roman Catholics;

5. Princess Margaret’s stand for the indissolubility of Christian marriage;

6. The heresy trials of the Northwest Synod of the United Lutheran Church;

7. The collapse of the proposed merger by three U.S. Presbyterian bodies;

8. Indecision of church leadership after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on racial segregation;

9. The running debate on the relative truth or fiction of what had been termed the greatest U.S. religious renaissance;

10. The visits of U.S. churchmen in Russia.

He explains his choices on the basis of their interest and significance to churchman of all faiths and creeds. Sutcliffe goes on to point out a melancholy possibility that border clashes in the Holy Land between Arabs and Jews are on his list for 1956 religious news. He anticipates also that Washington will produce some big news of interest to the churches, such as congressional activity about federal aid to public and parochial schools and legislation attempting to relax immigration restrictions.

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Chicago: This city was the scene the past week of one of the rarest yet oldest ceremonies – an outdoor wedding in the strict Jewish Orthodox tradition. It was performed in Hebrew. Under the “Dome of Heaven” Rabbi Mordecai Goldzweig of Chicago and Miss Helen Saftler of New York City were married. The seven traditional blessings were given by seven rabbis. Another rabbi, the bridegroom’s father, officiated. Members of the two families held a small canopy over the couple, to show that from then on a single roof would cover the loved ones. Bride and groom, in the ceremony in Chicago’s near north side, each took two sips from a small goblet of wine. That signified that henceforth they should share not only each other’s joys but also their sorrows. The groom took one sip from another glass. Then he broke it, to signify that marriage cannot exist in perfect happiness so long as there is sorrow in the world.

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This week saw in Memphis what has been termed final plans for unity of anti-integration forces, an attempt to weld together the various pro-segregation forces of the South into one big political force. Curiously enough, it calls itself the “Federation for Constitutional Government.” The meeting itself consisted of some 45 representatives from 12 southern states. Approved during the session was the proposed strategy of Virginia which will be presented to the legislature this month. This strategy would aim at a constitutional amendment through securing ratification from three-fourths of the states to prohibit the states from operating racially separate public facilities. The apparent theory behind this move is that if the requisite number of states fails to ratify, the court decision on segregation is void. To the layman who has some interest and less information on the matter, it seems a bit weird as to constitutional procedure and interpretation, but that is what the news report says.

At any rate, the Federation For Constitutional Government elected an executive committee and empowered it to organize a campaign for its objective. Senator Eastland of Mississippi said that all attending the meeting, which was closed to the public, were sworn to secrecy.

Another dispatch quotes a member of the federal Department of Justice as saying that in his opinion states who hope to get around the decision by abolishing public school and subsidizing private ones would be violating the law, and that the courts, he was sure, would so hold. So, it would appear that in the next few months, certainly sometime during this year, the issue in question may be resolved one way or another.

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Something of a contradictory twist occurred when The New York Times, that confesses to being “America’s greatest newspaper,” notified its employees recently that any one of them who supported American liberties by invoking the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination would be fired.

The contradiction comes in the fact that it is the newspaper itself that puts up an aggressive defense as to its own rights to a free press under the First Amendment, but it denies its own employees to invoke the Fifth Amendment to defend their own liberty. How mixed up can you get? As an aside, it might be observed that there is a union of employees called Newspaper Guild, but there is no evidence as yet that it has taken any action in behalf of its members. Thus it seems to be only another of those odious company unions.

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And this brings to mind a parable that I came across recently that went like this:

Once upon a time there was a pastor who thought the object of religion was to protect and promote the happiness of the people both today and for the generations to come. So he studied all proposals he could that had to do with human welfare. Of course that involved the study of legislative proposals and politics. But many of his good people wished he wouldn’t preach politics. So he moved on and another pastor was called who was deaf, blind, and dumb to politics. The people liked that. They called it being spiritual. And from this reporter: No comment.

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Instead of comment of my own, I should like to insert at this point a quotation taken from Paul Blanshard’s The Right to Read. He says, “Probably the present American taboo against what is called ‘religious controversy’ is as bad for religion as it is for atheism. It means that the great concepts of religion are rarely discussed frankly in public by serious, independent thinkers. Religious literature suffers from too much tenderness; it lacks vitality and vigor. It is wrapped in the sterilized cotton wool of hypocritical respect.” Well, that is what he said. I merely pass it on as a thought worthy of reflection.

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A California teacher writes, “I attended political rallies. I listened to Fourth of July orators. I was attentive to the speakers at school assemblies. Later I read some newspaper editorials. All claimed that it was my patriotic duty to take an interest in politics and be sure to cast a careful vote each election. Now that I am a teacher I find myself out of a job because I did all this and taught my pupils they should do the same. Politics are controversial. In these days the controversial is called subversive.” Well, having lived several years in that state and kept up somewhat with developments in it since leaving, I can attest that in portions of it, that teacher’s comments could well be a realistic description of what can and sometimes does happen. In Los Angeles, for example, the Dilworth Act gave the Board of Education the right to inquire into the private opinions and beliefs of public school teachers in Los Angeles schools and to fire without recourse those whose opinions the board did not like. And we still send missionaries to other countries. It is a rather queer way to keep communists from destroying our free institutions by destroying them ourselves.

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And to end this first-of-the-year broadcast, I should like to quote a paragraph from Dr. Harold Scott, pastor of the First Unitarian Society of Salt Lake City, a man highly respected in this country and elsewhere. You may or may not agree with his point of view, but it does do something to shock us, perhaps out of our smug complacency. He says, “One trouble with orthodox Christianity is that it pretends to explain too much. It pretends to explain the origin of matter, the beginnings of man, his nature, interest, duty, and the state of the dead. This is all woven into a fantastic salvation scheme involving gods good and bad, angels fallen and unfallen…. So far as modest but inquiring science is able to see, these easy answers simply are not true. The immature personality demands simple, complete, and absolute answers. Truth is relative and live and all phenomena are complex. Our answers must be tentative, incomplete, and subject to revision.”