April 29, 1956

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.

April 22, 1956

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.

 

 

 

April 15, 1956

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.

April 8, 1956

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.

April 1, 1956

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.