Month: July 1956

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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