Month: May 1956

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.

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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.”