Month: June 1956

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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