Year: 1957

The shortage of clergymen has caused much concern among a number of church denominations. Even more alarming is that the shortage is likely to become more acute with passing years. The president of Catholic St. Michael’s College in Vermont, the Rev. Francis Moriarty, had this comment on the situation recently: “In the age-old diocese of Sens, France, there are 520 parishes and only 220 priests. In our own North Carolina, two of our priests have to cover 2,000 square miles. This is a problem to which we must address ourselves.”

Two Protestant denominations are doing just that. The Lutheran Church of Finland has cut one year from the period of study required for ordination in its aim to fill 80 pastoral vacancies, most of them in sparsely settled areas. Theology students at the University of Helsinki will be eligible for degrees after four-and-a-half years of study. The present term of study is five-and-a-half years.

An experimental program also has been inaugurated by the Christian Church, or Disciples of Christ. This program is aimed at recruiting more ministerial students. In California, two pilot guidance and recruitment conferences recently saw 155 high school students undergo tests for psychological fitness after they had expressed interest in church careers. Those making high scores on the tests will be given church guidance in planning their scholastic careers. At the time they become college juniors they will be expected definitely to decide whether they wish to make church service their careers. The director of the Christian Church’s United Christian Missionary Society, the Rev. Jay Calhoun, emphasizes that the present complement of 3,400 full-time ministers must be increased to at least 4,500 by 1975. That is necessary, he says, if the present proportion of ministers to church members is to be maintained.

_______

Charlotte, North Carolina: A South Carolina attorney has told a Methodist Church fact-finding panel that Southern Methodists will not integrate their schools or churches. Hugh S. Sims, of Orangeburg, South Carolina, said, “Very frankly it doesn’t make any difference what the Supreme Court or the Methodist Church does. The attitude is not going to change.” Some others, however, disagreed. The Rev. Jack Crum, of Raleigh, North Carolina, said, “Segregation is wrong. I am opposed to segregation in our church. As a Christian, I can no longer sit in silence as my church denies the power of Christ’s love within its bounds.”

_______

Indianapolis, Indiana: A Denver minister warned members attending the American Urban Convocation that the sins of segregation are weakening in the churches of America. The Rev. Wendell Liggins said, “Communism feeds upon inconsistencies and hesitancies and confuses our youth.” The racial problem in the United States, he said, is the foremost issue in the world today.

_______

Cleveland, Ohio: A prominent church leader of New York City has urged that large American foundations join the government in sponsored student exchanges between American and Russian higher educational institutions. The Rev. Dr. Ray Gibbons recently returned from a tour of Western Europe and Russia, and said, “There is genuine desire among the common people of Russia for peace with America.”

_______

Vatican City: The Roman Catholic Church has decreed that young men must fulfill their military obligations before they take permanent religious vows. The Sacred Congregation of the Religious, in a decree published in the official Vatican news bulletin, said the measure was adopted because military service often affects a young man’s mind about monastic life.

_______

Again Indianapolis, Indiana: A Baptist leader says three press associations, four radio and three television networks dominate much of American thinking. The Rev. Paul O. Madsen, of New York, addressing the Baptist Urban Convocation, said the press associations and networks have taken over the role of shaping the mind, morals, and thinking of the nation. This, he said, once was the function of ministers.

_______

Vatican City: Pope Pius will go to Rome from his summer villa at Castel Gandolfo next week to attend the annual Requiem Mass held in memory of the cardinals who have died during the past 12 months. Those to be commemorated are Jules Saliège, of Toulouse, France, and Pedro Segura y Saenz, of Spain.

_______

St. Louis: 30 Protestant denominations having a total of 37.5 million members discussed a wide range of subjects this week in the General Assembly of the National Council of Churches. Of the many significant resolutions approved at this supreme policy-setting conclave, one stood out. In the light of the new age of rockets, nuclear weapons, and satellites, the General Assembly called for greater effort to achieve worldwide disarmament. It pointed out, quite rightly, that the present arms race can lead to nothing but a war which conceivably could destroy civilization. In the words of the assembly, “Efforts must be redoubled to realize the final goal of worldwide disarmament in the framework of the United Nations.” Well, few would disagree with the desirability of disarmament, but whether it will ever be possible under the U.N. as presently constituted, there is certainly no consensus.

In other actions, the assembly adopted resolutions:

1. Calling for more help to refugees.
2. Urging increased world trade.
3. Terming a menace to our liberties recent attempts by some local and state governments to suppress certain voluntary associations by forcing them to name members – a blow dealt to some chapters of the NAACP.
4. Protesting that Negro delegates to the assembly have been refused service by some St. Louis restaurants and taxicabs. Then promptly took action not to hold another such meeting anywhere that delegates will not be treated with the same courtesy regardless of their race.
5. Voting to admit four new denominations to the council. One of them is the Polish National Catholic Church in America, the first nominally Catholic church to join. They bring the total of 34 Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic denominations to 38 million members.
6. Sending a telegram to the AFL-CIO Convention in Atlantic City commending it for working to oust corrupt and racketeering elements.
7. Suggesting a Senate committee conduct a full inquiry into malpractices of management.
8. Renouncing racial segregation as contrary to the teachings of Jesus and the gospel of love, and appealed to local churches and citizens to do more to end it in schools and elsewhere.

_______

On the matter of church integration, the Rev. Dr. Liston Pope, Dean of Yale Divinity School, said the churches are making slow but steady progress toward ending segregation. Dr. Pope informed the assembly that about 10 percent of America’s congregations are now integrated, five times the percentage in 1947. This would indicate that about 30,000 churches are now integrated. Contrasting reports were heard by the assembly on this point. A Presbyterian layman and president of the Virginia Council of Churches, Francis Pickens Miller of Charlottesville, said race relations in his home state and other Deep South states are steadily deteriorating.

_______

My report and comments two weeks ago evoked considerable discussion and apparent disagreement among some of you listeners. That is good, and is exactly what I had hoped, for I was dealing with the question of revelations, the firm belief held by Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Mohammedans, and others, that their bibles were the result of revelation, and that in each group there are some who insist that their bible only is right. This would be fine if all revelations were the same, so it seems hardly reliable to depend upon revelation as a basis for religious insight.

It would, indeed, be convenient if we could get such revelations from some other world, so we could know on what horse to bet, what job to take, in what to invest our money, what girl to marry, and so on. Unfortunately, there is no such easy way. It would be wonderfully convenient for those too lazy or too pleasure-loving to think and study if they suddenly could find themselves in possession of such truths. But I have not yet met such a person. I have met a number of deceivers, but what they claimed as revelation was not knowledge at all but mostly imaginative nonsense. It would appear that you have to study, work, and think in order to be wise in any field, and religion is no exception. There is no miraculous substitute for honest endeavors and hard work in the field of learning, as the educationists are being told by about everybody in these Sputnik days.

Scientists tell us all knowledge, that is, all awareness, comes to us through the sense as sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and the like. There is no such thing as non-sensory experience, or revelation. There are no ways of discovering or apprehending truth unique to the field of religion. Religious knowledge is not acquired in any other way than is knowledge of any other field. Progress can and will be made in religion only to the extent that it is given the same kind of critical thinking that is applied to other areas. It is no good to think scientifically in terms of cause and effect all during the week, then on Sunday, park your brains in the vestibule, along with your hat and coat, and enter an atmosphere where all sorts of impossible things happen.

Through all history, people, some sincere and some not sincere, have believed they received special revelation. They have claimed visions, dreams, trances, illuminations, and many of them insist that such experiences came from God. But it is equally true that drug addicts, alcoholics, and the mentally ill have such experiences also, and it is likely that the revelations of the latter have about as much foundation as those of the former. They are worth nothing because they bring us no important knowledge.

This reporter has yet to learn of any great truth benefiting mankind that was arrived at in a non-human way. Great truths are the result of careful experiment and patient observation. The great laws of the universe to which we must make adjustment were not revealed. They were discovered. The great marvels of human achievement did not come by revelation, but they were built on discovery. Few of us doubt that God is in and through it all. He is both law and author of law. Man, by use of the intelligence that God has given him, may progressively discover these laws and make adjustment to them. If he does not, he will perish. All of this is intended to indicate that there is no shortcut to heaven, no cheap and easy salvation schemes, but to study religion, society, and self, that we make the largest possible contribution to human enterprise. This may not be – it is definitely not – orthodox; it may not accord with the fine-spun theology. But it does offer a working hypothesis that will enable one, building on it to make progress, whether it is in the field of more mundane everyday affairs or in the loftier realm of man’s experience that we call religion.

_______

Newspapers are dreary reading these days – mainly about bigger and better ways of killing people. Friends talk about this competition in devilish instruments of destruction much the same way they did about the last World Series. Education is urged not to make people better, but to produce scientists who can contribute to carnage. The advisers of an amiable but befuddled president have launched a great campaign to get the American people to give the government an ever-increasing part of their subsistence for what may literally destroy them. I am old enough that I can remember when it was not only respectable to work for peace but it was thought to be a religious obligation to do so.

_______

Christmas is only 17 days from now. I wonder if those responsible for doing so have ever thought of giving the citizens of Washington County a Christmas present by bringing to justice those responsible for the April 30 dynamite slaying in the Sulphur Springs community. They will have had a long time in which to perform this duty.

A somewhat curious thumbnail profile was reported this week of a captain of industry in New Jersey who always wept during Mother’s Day services. Yet he voted against … suffrage for women; was opposed to limitation of hours for women in industry and state supervision of working conditions in his facility, the minimum wage law, accident and unemployment insurance, and maternity and retirement compensation. He was doubtful of coeducation. He openly branded as “communism” any effort to remove the legal disabilities of women. He was opposed to conception control, urging prayer in its stead. Yet he meant to be a good Christian and was sure he was “saved.” In the face of all this, one well could be excused for asking, “Just what is religion, anyway?”

_______

A somewhat cynical comment comes from a minister who observes that most Protestant ministers have two theologies: one they learned in theological school, and another that laymen permit them to preach. If this is in any sense true, it is a sad commentary on us laymen. For if they learned truth in theological school, it means we do not want to hear it. On the other hand, if what they learned is not truth, it may be just as well that they do not preach their learning.

_______

One of the great commandments is that “Thou shall not bear false witness.” All of us can remember, but it is likely that few are proud of, the days not so long ago when inquisitions were the order of the day; trial by headline took the place of jury and courtroom; accusations, distorted and unsupported by evidence, took the place of the grand jury and the witness stand. The late juvenile senator from Wisconsin was a master at this sort of thing, and he and his supporters, largely the lunatic fringe, whipped this nation into a hysteria from which it will take a long time to recover. Even then, the pages of our history of that time will not be ones to which we will point with pride or about which Fourth of July speakers will orate. Comes now a book which this reporter has not read, but which he intends to do, entitled “False Witness,” which, according to Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, one of the abler members of the United States Senate, is at long last the “shining truth about the false accusers, the half-truth artists, the professional fabricators, the prevaricators for pay”; a book which “cuts through the dark and ugly clouds of doubt” the purveyors of false testimony “have so evilly blown up.”

_______

It would appear that some, perhaps most, people seem to need to feel superior to others, not because of their own intrinsic or developed merits, but superior period. A little digging throws some interesting light on this. For whenever there is talk of brotherhood or the equality of men, there is almost invariably an opposition voice which cries out that brotherhood is a fallacy and we often hear it said that if providence had intended men to be equal, it would have made them that way. Even a brief review of history would seem to indicate that the fallacy is in the argument of those who claim superiority. A writer in the International Journal of Religious Education points out that Cicero warned his followers not to obtain slaves from Britain. He said, “They are stupid and dull, an inferior people.” In the 14th century, a moor wrote of the Germans, “They are tall of stature and light of skin. But I have heard it rumored that they do not take baths, and are altogether a hopeless strain.” In this country, when the Ohio Territory applied for statehood, a member of the United States Congress said, “They are so rude and unlettered they will never make good citizens.” The truth is, of course, that the British developed an empire which has stood longer than any other in recorded history. They, along with the Germans, have been outstanding in science, philosophy, music, and art. And Ohio, the territory of the “rude and unlettered,” has given the nation seven presidents. History is filled with many similar instances. Concluding, the journal writer asks, “Who are we to draw sharp lines between groups … to shut ourselves out from fuller fellowship when the world’s new trend must not be toward brotherhood, whether we like it or not.”

_______

Some of you have apparently been disturbed over the statement on this program some weeks ago to the effect that both the Hebrews and the Mormons claim to have had their bibles handed to them by the deity and that there was about as much evidence for one as the other. It is good that people become disturbed, for only then are they likely to become curious, to think, and to search for answers. Anyway, the statement was the truth and I have no inclination to retract.

Let us be honest with ourselves and look at some facts. The history of religions reveals that there have been a great many religions that claim to have been founded by a message from a god or gods to man. While these religions have some points in common, they do not agree on the messages. It is queer that God revealed so many different religions. The religions of Arabia, China, Greece, India, and Japan, e.g., do not agree with that of the West. Yet in each there have been those who claimed their religion was the only true one because it was delivered to man directly from deity. These same religions do not agree as to the name and nature of deity, on whether there is a life after death, or what happens in that life, or how to avoid punishment and reap reward. Nor is there any agreement as to the climate in those places, or their location, or the occupation of the inhabitants. All these many religions claim to be the result of faith delivered to the saints. The orthodox faithful are urged to accept this on faith. Indeed, it is held by some that there is merit in accepting in faith what is hard to believe simply it is hard to believe. Does this make sense?

It is about time that we come to realize that experts in the field of religion have just about abandoned the idea of revelation. Students of comparative religions explain that belief in revelation came about because early man had so many needs and the normal ways he had of getting information were so limited that the crafty were tempted to claim revelation. The people demanded revelation and the priests delivered. One might define so-called revelation as “non-human communication of truth,” or what passes for truth. The modern science of religion says there are not two kinds of truth – revealed truth and the ordinary kind. Truth is truth. Some forms of this so-called revelation have been (1) significant occurrence (as in the racket called astrology); (2) casting of lots (much employed by the ancients); (3) examination of the intestines of slain animals; (4) oracles or communication through eccentric or deformed persons, or the head of a church who is believed by the faithful to be the source of all earthly truth; (5) dreams; (6) ecstasy, or a trance in which a person is believed to be invaded by some spirit; and (7) sacred literature.

As a people come to know more, these superstitions tend to disappear. Yet, in the United States, after a century of public school education, many people believe in non-human communication of truth; in short, in revealed truth. Of course that is an easier method of arriving at a decision than the difficult but surer one of testing every idea, religious or not, by the only reliable way of arriving at truth, i.e., the scientific process. It is easy to believe that God dictated the contents of the Bible to human beings. The only trouble with that is that Buddhists, Mohammedans, Hindus, and a lot of others believe that of their respective bibles. And each believes, just as devoutly as the others, that his is the only true revelation. Very confusing, isn’t it? And where does all this leave us? About where we came in, I suppose. But keep on thinking. Such has never known to prove fatal to anyone.

_______

I still wonder what Frankie and Johnnie are doing these days. They still have shown no signs of catching bomb riggers whose fiendish device blew a man into eternity.

_______

The nation’s largest religious organization, the National Council of Churches, opens its week-long annual general assembly today at St. Louis. Some 2,000 delegates will undertake the job of planning the future of 75 programs the nation’s churches conduct through the council. Since its inception, the council has become a very versatile institution. Its records of achievement include all sorts of public and pious works and illustrates that church business today is big business. The council and its working subsidiaries extend into scores of activities far beyond the pew and pulpit, including radio and television broadcasting, teaching illiterates to read, running health clinics, training marriage counselors, finding homes for refugees, prodding politicians, printing books, analyzing community problems, etc. The council stresses that it is not a church, though it includes 30 denominations. The common denominator for the council is a belief in the divinity of Christ. There, creedal identity ends, the council leaving to the churches concerned the wide range of ideas about baptism, communion, and other tenets.

_______

A group of Lutheran laymen reports continued success in its annual drive to keep Christ in Christmas. The campaign is aimed at inspiring an ever-widening appreciation by business houses and community groups of the real purpose and spirit of Christmas. Especially active in the campaign are two New York City laymen, Julius Nickleburg of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, and Henry Jaburg of the United Lutheran Church in America. Some suggestions of their effort include attending church services and urging others to do the same; recommending the use of nativity billboards, window displays, and articles in religious and secular publications; and the encouraging of outdoor singing of Christmas carols.

Is it not rather ironic, to put it timidly, that there should need to be an effort to keep Christ in Christmas? How much farther are we going toward making Christmas just an annual holiday on which we exchange merchandise, and calculate how much to get whom on the basis of how much whom is going to give me?

_______

The 17th biennial convention of the National Federation of Temple Brotherhoods opened this week in Pittsburg, and will continue through today. The federation is the layman’s branch of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the parent body of 550 Reform temples in the USA and Canada. It has a membership of more than a million.

_______

New York: The Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds has awarded two Jewish organizations in the 1957 William J. Shroder Memorial Awards. Winners are the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland and the Jewish Hospital Association of Cincinnati. The awards will be presented at the 26th General Assembly of the council at New Orleans next weekend. The awards are given in recognition of superior initiative and achievement in the advancement of social welfare.

_______

South Bend, Indiana: The University of Notre Dame is lending a helping hand to Ottumwa Heights College in Iowa whose only building was destroyed by a fire a month ago. Hundreds of books, plus equipment and supplies are being shipped from Notre Dame to Ottumwa Heights College, which is run by the Sisters of the Holy Humility of Mary, a Roman Catholic order. Many Notre Dame professors sent books from their private libraries.

_______

London: Radio Moscow has broadcast an appeal for peace by leaders of the Roman Catholic Church of Latvia. According to the broadcast, the bishop of Riga urged all nations to raise their voices against war and emphasized that atomic and all other energy should not be used to destroy people but should be used for the good of humanity. Latvia was taken over by Russia and incorporated as part of the Soviet Union. Everybody agrees with this in principle, but precious little is done about it in practice. What about convincing the USSR to do this? And this does not imply there are no warmongers in this country.

 

 

Throughout U.S. history, major religious bodies have been in conflict over various aspects of American life. But at last, Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish leaders are talking over these problems around the same conference table. Previously, however, the general pattern has been for the different groups to remain in their own domains from which they hurled their arguments, and frequent brickbats on touchy subjects. Now the three faiths are tackling an assortment of issues under a new project involving a broad study of religion, its activities, and relationships to freedom and democratic government.

Among the issues are use of public funds for parochial schools, rights and effects of religious pressure groups in such matters as censoring what they deem to be undesirable literature and entertainment, and dissemination of contraceptive information. Prominent clergymen of the three faiths are also studying causes and results of sectarian bloc voting and the part [?] plays in religion.

So far as is known, this is thought to be the first time such full scale, joint discussions have been held. The editor of The Boston Pilot, a Roman Catholic weekly, says to his knowledge this has never been done before. The Right Rev. Francis Lally adds that he has never heard of such an effort on this level. A top Protestant theologian, the Rev. Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr of Union Theological Seminary, said mutual talks on limited phases of the various subjects have been held but that substantive issues have not been discussed.

The Fund for the Republic, Inc., one of the Ford foundations, is sponsoring and financing the project, which will require about a year to conclude. It includes the commissioning of special research from qualified individuals and institutions. The chief coordinators of the project are Dr. Niebuhr and the Rev. John Courtney Murray, a leading Catholic scholar, of Woodstock College, Maryland. Among the key consultants are Rabbi Dr. Robert Gordis of Jewish Theological Seminary, Dr. F. Ernest Johnson of the National Council of Churches, and Mark de Wolfe Howe of Harvard Law School. Non-religious representatives are also included.

Coincidental with the opening of this unusual interfaith study, a Jewish scholar, Dr. Will Herberg, commented that the Catholic Church was right in principle, in calling for public support of parochial schools. He expanded his position as follows: “Parochial schools are, in fact, public institutions though they are not governmentally-sponsored. They have full public recognition as educational agencies. Their credits, diplomas, and certificates have exactly the same validity as those of public schools.”

Jewish groups, generally, have in the past been opposed to government benefits to parochial schools. Catholics, however, have advocated that their schools should share in such benefits as transportation, health services, textbooks, and school lunches, but not direct support. It is highly likely that Congress will be eager to depart from its long tradition of being reluctant to appropriate money for private education. Furthermore, it might be pertinent to suggest that if Dr. Herberg is correct in his view that private schools are really public, those states in the South that have threatened to turn their public school systems over to private agencies to escape integration are going to have to re-think their procedures and come up with something else. But even should Congress relax its stand on public money for private schools, the courts have in recent years been especially sedulous in drawing the line even more clearly to keep church and state separate. Even the so-called “moral guidance” programs which in some cases have become mere cloaks for religious teachings, have come under judicial ban in a few cases. And released time for religious instruction is definitely not legal, though some over-zealous people, especially here in the Bible Belt, are going on with such stuff, despite its illegality.

Of course, the ridiculous, and sometimes uncomfortable, position they take is that if anyone opposes teaching of religion in the schools, as does this reporter, he is thereby opposed to religion, which this reporter definitely is not. This is about as sensible as saying that because one does not want to wear his shoes in bed he does not wear them anywhere else either.

_______

The unity or teamwork they derive from prayer and living Christian lives is credited by Coach Bud Wilkinson and his Oklahoma Sooner football team for this aggregation’s great string of victories. (It might be though sacrilege by some to wonder in passing why the coach does not then give up training rules and devote all his time and that of the team to prayer and doing good. deeds.) Anyway, before yesterday’s game they said a prayer, uttered another at half-time, and a third when the game was over. A leader in this movement to bring prayer sessions to college football has been Guard Bill Krisher a 216-point Hercules who is candidate for All-America Guard. Says Krisher, “We never pray for victory. We let that take care of itself. We do pray that both teams can play their best.” Krisher believes praying gives the team unity and says the players feel better when they pray. That praying and Christianity are considered important is indicated by the fact that when a new athlete reports to Sooner coaches, he is first asked whether he knows the locality of his denomination’s church. During a game, Krisher is a hard-hitting lineman. He says he puts forth even more effort when opposing a player who resorts to the use of foul language. There is no place in football for profanity, he notes, because it does not make the player any better and accomplishes nothing.

Well, there is more of the same stuff, but it is still the same stuff. No psychologist would be likely to dispute the therapeutic effect of a frame of mind which causes one to believe he is fighting in a righteous cause, but the whole idea sounds like the line continually put forth by the Graham-Peale-Sheen axis, much of which is charlatanism simple, if not so pure. Moreover, such an attitude and practice sort of puts God squarely in the middle in an earthly contest. Remember how the gods came down from Olympus and aided each side in the Trojan War? Unfortunately the Sooners and their opponents, presumably, have but one God and it would require a schizophrenic one to aid both sides at the same time. How silly can we get in the name of religion?

_______

And while on the subject of Graham, a not altogether pleasant one, I will admit, The Atlantic Monthly for July had an article by R. E. Robertson on “When Billy Graham Saved Scotland” that was a literary masterpiece. The September issue of the same magazine has a defense of Billy Graham by David H.C. Read that is not a masterpiece. Mr. Read, like all defenders of Graham, uses considerable space asserting Billy’s sincerity. I wonder why Graham’s friends feel that is necessary. You’d think that his sincerity might be taken for granted and not be imputed to him as righteousness. Moreover, the alleged fact that Graham has a pleasant personality does not appear to be relevant. The defense rests upon the undisputed fact that Billy attracts crowds and makes converts. If he, at the same time, and in the process, teaches a shallow gospel, making full use of the myths and superstitions of an outgrown theology, but gets people to accept the same, is it good or evil he is doing? Can you imagine a group of astronomers, e.g., allowing meetings for an astrologer and justifying the movement by attendance figures? Are not the clergymen backing Graham a cynical lot? Their attitude seems to be, “Of course it’s not true, but he increases church attendance and church income and we hope he does some good.” I am not unaware that this current comment may be looked upon as heresy (by the superstitious at least), but I believe it stands the test of logic and at the same time is a reasonable conclusion from the evidence splurged across the newspapers and through the air about this truly remarkable figure.

_______

A quotation that is worthy of quoting again came to me this week. It is from a statement by the Rev. Harold Schmidt in Van Nuys, California. He says that “Little has been done to help the man in the street to understand the new world he lives in, to help him see how utterly different it is from yesterday’s worlds; even how different he is in personality from any of his ancestors; to help him see how costly it is in life and wealth to himself and his children to pack around in his head images of worlds that have died. Little has been done to give him a fuller, more accurate image of the world that is and can be. The liberal should not be surprised when so many people fail to respond to his thinking or his leadership. They do not share with the liberal the new worldview from which our new social thinking stems. Hence they keep a grandfather thought of God as a part of the furniture of [their] mind.”

_______

To supplement Dr. Schmidt’s rather penetrating analysis of the unnecessary and no longer useful furniture we hold onto in our minds comes to my mind the fact that among many people, and this includes some ministers, we still hear a lot of nonsense about the so-called conflict between science and religion. With our normal acceptance of religion, this imputes an evil quality to science. Perhaps in the minds of many, this evil quality has been emphasized by the identification of science and materialism.

But let us remind ourselves that religion is the best that man knows about God, while science is the best of man’s knowledge about things in God’s world. The assumption that scientists find no place for God is simply not true. On the contrary, the more objective a scientist is, the more likely he is to fall back on a “first cause” which is in effect, a creator. Furthermore, many, perhaps most, scientists attend church, serve as Sunday school superintendents, lay ministers, deacons, or other active workers in their denominational groups.

The scientist starts with the assumption that knowledge about God’s universe is good. It should aid in the understanding of God and his ways. It is said of the great biologist Louis Agassiz that he would say to his class at the beginning of an experiment, “Gentlemen, we are about to ask God a question.” It can and should be – probably is – in a somewhat similar spirit of reverence and humility that scientists do their work today.

Perhaps still another reason the uninformed or ill-informed assume there is a conflict between science and religion is that discoveries that scientists make inevitably change the previously prevailing concept of God. This is not denial of religious insight, but rather an amplification of it. Men sought to know about God and his way from earliest times. It is natural that they should impute to him wondrous creative powers in terms of their current conceptions. “In the beginning God created the heavens and earth” is a beautiful and universal concept. Thus it was that Ussher attempted to date the Old Testament using recorded chronologies and genealogies, placing the date of creation at 4004 B.C. In later years many discoveries in the areas of geology, anthropology, and chemistry showed that there must have been many, many omissions in these records. This in no wise diminishes man’s concept of the creative power of God, but it does change his ideas of how and when God created. The truth is that religion can have a great future in the acceptance of the expanding concept of God that science makes possible. It is the duty of science to make these explorations in the spirit of asking God a question.

_______

It has been about 200 days now, more than six months, since the life of a Washington Countian was snuffed out by an automobile starter rigged with a homemade bomb – time enough for the forces of law and order here to find a guilty party or parties, or call in more expert aid to do so. A trial, called by the local newspaper, “A Farce, A Fiasco” was held. This week the Knoxville News Sentinel carried an item with a Johnson City dateline saying that investigators Peterson and Shoun were reentering the case unless a special investigator for the National Board of Fire Underwriters, who has done much talking but presented little information, produces concrete results. No published evidence has appeared indicating any activity on the part of the local sheriff and attorney general in trying to apprehend the guilty. Has it become safer from the standpoint of punishment, for one to kill a man than to steal his automobile? There is not only a legal but also a moral obligation for the two chief law enforcement officials to produce results or to procure someone who will.

This coming week will see thousands of Protestant churches throughout the nation holding special Thanksgiving services, the occasion being used to launch the 1957-58 Share Our Surplus food program. This is the project through which the Church World Service hopes to gain 300 million pounds of food from our national surplus stocks for free distribution to the world’s needy people. Three major observances will be held simultaneously this afternoon in Washington, D.C., Manhattan, Kansas, and San Francisco. Millions of Protestant Americans of all denominations will, during the course of the week, have the opportunity to express their gratitude for the abundance with which this nation is blessed. The Share Our Surplus, also called S.O.S., was inaugurated in 1954. By the end of 1958 about 8 billion pounds of U.S. government surpluses will have been distributed free to hungry people in many nations. The S.O.S. appeal to the people of American Protestant churches of the 35 denominations is for funds to cover overseas distribution, administration, and other handling expenses.

_______

It’s a crazy world in which we live. The nations get together and spend months in a so-called disarmament conference, when actually none of them wants to disarm. In this country we spend $60 billion annually trying to find more terrible ways to kill people, and we do this because mankind has not solved the problem of learning to live without war. Nobody apparently wants to find it; they had rather go on trying to patch up an old system that never has produced, and will produce nothing but war. That $60 billion alone would do much to buy housing, education, medical services, etc., for people who need such things far more than they need guns or to be killed. But I suppose vested interests would call the last under that vague and meaningfulness thing “socialized medicine.” Then here at home we take money from all the taxpayers to provide subsidy to farmers to grow more than is distributed. Then we go back and bombard those same taxpayers to give money to distribute to the world’s needy that which they have already partially paid for. At the same time we put on a so-called “United Fund” drive to help the needy here at home. I could go on, but how mixed up can we get?

_______

This past week saw the dedication in New York of the nation’s first Protestant Interchurch Center. The 19-story building, costing nearly $20 million, is scheduled to be ready for occupancy by the end of 1959. Its tenants will be 19 denominational and church-related agencies. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., whose generosity in the interests of civic and religious projects is well known, made the block-square site on Riverside Drive overlooking the Hudson River available on a 99-year lease, rent-free basis. In the dedication address, Dr. Clarence Cranford, the American Baptist Convention president, said, “To this site, the eyes of millions will turn with new hope because of this practical demonstration of unity.”

_______

In the neighboring state of North Carolina, a conflict between youth and the older generation, between modernists and fundamentalists, exploded on the campus of Wake Forest College at Winston-Salem, and, to a lesser degree, at Meredith College for Women in Raleigh. In 1937, the overall governing convention board imposed a ban on dancing at the colleges. In recent years the trustees of the two colleges took action to permit such activity. But pressure, apparently mostly from rural pastors, was soon brought to bear. Parishioners sending in donations to the church from the congregations of these ministers were adding a note that none of the money was to be used for the two colleges because dancing was permitted. The trustees now reversed themselves and imposed the ban again. A poll of the parents of the students showed that 80-90 percent favored campus dances under the auspices of the college. The trustees now changed their minds and permitted dancing. But this week the convention board was adamant – no more college dances.

This action touched off the fireworks, literally and figuratively. Mass protests were staged by the student. The president was hanged in effigy. Students walked out of the assembly program, and shouts of derision were heard, not only about the board and the president, but also about Baptists in general. A reported jitterbug dance – though it was probably more of a rock and roll affair – was held on the campus and a larger one in a square downtown, to the music of radios. That is about where the matter stands as of now.

It would be very easy to condemn the backwoods ministers for their mossback ideas; or the youngsters for their alleged waywardness, if that is what it is. The former are doubtless sincere in believing that dancing is immoral, and none of us parents would teach or advocate anything that would undermine the morals of our children. They hold to the idea that God and religion are fixed, unchanging concepts, and any deviation from what they learned as they grew up is a sin. They are not only unwilling; perhaps they are unable, to reconcile their life-long held ideas to something else.

The college students are normal youngsters of another generation. They look out upon the world with 1957 eyes, and, like their fathers, are fashioning their own pattern of values. That pattern is, quite naturally, not identical with the one of their elders. It is unfortunate, perhaps, that this conflict exists, but it has existed throughout history.

What the elders fail to grasp, or to admit, is that society is ever an ongoing concern. And while some of us might not like the direction it is going, society is bigger than we are, and there is little we can do. Certainly, to try to stop change would be about as effective as King Canute ordering the tide to roll back. It may be true that God does not change; but man’s conception of God changes, and few of us would go back in social matters to the rigid rules and regulation laid down in Leviticus, however appropriate those rules were for the Hebrews at the time. If we did, we would all stop brushing our teeth, for nothing is said there about this practice or about seeing your dentist regularly.

_______

A controversy which has been brewing for several months at the Haverford Quaker College has been settled by the turning down of Defense Department money for science projects on the ground that the philosophy of the department is inconsistent with the peace principles of the Quakers, and, in the words of the college statement, there “is increasing military control of research funds” which the college sees as a threat to free academic inquiry in America.

This all started when last autumn, three members of the science faculty at the college indicated their desire and intention to seek research grants from the Defense Department. One, a chemist, applied to continue study of unstable molecular fragments; and members of physics and mathematic departments wanted to secure funds for pure research. The debate that followed deeply stirred the campus. Haverford is proud of its pacifist tradition, which has been a mark of the Quakers for 300 years. And many feared that if the college became dependent on military funds, it would no longer be free to criticize and oppose war and war-like actions by the government.

_______

From the mess that has been permitted to develop around integration efforts in some places comes occasionally evidences that moderate, straight-thinking elements are merging. In a city election for membership on the governing board in Little Rock, Arkansas, some days ago, six out of seven candidates who stood for law and order instead of mob rule won out over opponents who were segregation die-hards. This does not mean that those six wanted integration; it probably means that they represent those of the population who prefer rule of law with integration rather than violence without it.

_______

Comes also additional evidence now from white students meeting for the sixth annual Youth Institute on Human Relations at Asheville, North Carolina. Stirred by disorders attending integration at Little Rock, Charlotte, North Carolina, and elsewhere, student delegates appeal to President Eisenhower to call or sponsor a national conference of high school youth as a counter measure to violence. In their statement they emphasize that they “are concerned with youth’s responsibility of making our schools a living example of democracy and brotherhood.” They go on to state “how saddened and disappointed we were when a few young people of our age group participated in acts of violence in their schools at the beginning of this school year, thus damaging intergroup relations within our community and unwittingly giving aid and comfort to America’s enemies….” Their recommendations went on to state that it is the belief of the delegates that the overwhelming majority of American youth judge each other on individual merits rather than on distinctions of religion, creed, race, or color, and believe that the law of the land should be obeyed without reservation. The students urged also that each school form a committee on friendly relations to promote intergroup harmony and understanding.

It is more than likely that most of us who are concerned with human betterment, without regard to prejudice, are convinced that if prejudiced parents would refrain from trying to project these prejudices into the lives of their children and let the young folks settle this integration hassle among themselves with a minimum of interference, it would all work out much better. After all, these young people are going to live out their lives in a world far different from that in which their parents grew up, and it is apparent that in that world, such prejudices are a luxury that cannot be afforded. The parents may not admit this, but it is also likely that if they did realize the importance of this truth, they would hesitate to perpetuate a prejudice that will be a handicap to children’s well being in the world that is emerging.

_______

In Nashville this week, the Tennessee Council of Churches came out for racial integration of the state’s public schools. It adopted a resolution urging that the state’s school system be brought into harmony with the Supreme Court decision of May 1954. Specifically, among other things, it stated, “In terms of Christian perspective it is our desire that we may be of service to the state and local agencies in working within law and order toward the fulfillment of requirements of the … decision.” The council represents 13 Protestant denominations with over 600,000 members in Tennessee. School and other people might take note of this number, for it provides a nucleus at least for developing a civic attitude among the public generally that will permit integration to come about without going to the disgraceful extremes that characterized Clinton, Tennessee, and Little Rock, Arkansas.

_______

And out in Los Angeles, the Rev. Nelson Higgins, a Negro who was appointed pastor of a white Methodist church, as reported here some months ago, has managed to galvanize the community into increased religious activity. From membership of only 43 at the time he took over, most of whom left because of the race of the pastor, it now has an average attendance of around 200 at Sunday school, and a corresponding increase in attendance at the church service. About 40 percent of those attending are white, while the rest are of various non-white racial groups.

_______

Ladies and gentlemen: I am reluctant to permit this last item to become something like the lone beat of the piano note in a rock and roll number, but there is still no evidence that the sheriff and attorney general are trying to find those who murdered Everett Jenkins. WHY?

The Bible continues to be the world’s all-time bestseller. Recently disclosed figures put total world circulation of the Bible, Old and New Testaments, and portions of the scriptures at just under 27 million at the start of 1957. That’s nearly 1 million more than for 1955 and almost 3.25 million more than 1954. At the close of 1956, at least one whole book of the Bible had been published in 109 languages, including many now obsolete. However, during the past 25 years some portion of the Bible has been circulated in between 600 and 700 languages.

Figures furnished by the American Bible Society and other agencies show the top five nations in the sale of complete Bibles are the United States, Germany, England and Wales, South Africa, and Brazil. The Rev. Dr. Frank Price, who directs the missionary research library maintained by the National Council of Churches, points out that the Bible continues to be published, circulated, and studied in Communist China, where seven Bible houses are maintained in major cities. Dr. Price notes that since 1949, more than 171,000 complete Bibles and 170,000 New Testaments, and more than 3 million portions of the Bible have been distributed in Red China, in addition to 43 editions printed from old plates already in the country.

These are not merely cold statistics, Dr. Price declares, but living and inspirational facts which show the Bible to be a truly universal book in a world that still possesses a babel of tongues.

_______

Professor Walter Freytag of Hamburg University in Germany says his recent three-week tour of Communist China impressed him because the people seemed to have a new spirit of self-respect. Dr. Freytag, who is professor of missions at the Hamburg University, made the trip at the invitation of the Chinese churches.

In Shanghai he reported seeing 50-100 percent of church members in six separate churches on one Sunday. He also disclosed that some splendid churches had been built recently and many others had been enlarged or restored. Dr. Freytag said, however, that fundamental criticism of the political system in Red China was noticeably absent. Anyone who becomes a Christian, he declared, automatically cuts himself off from the Communist Party and joins a minority which is respectfully tolerated at best.

_______

The role of the religious counselor was the subject of a recent survey by Wellesley College in Massachusetts among social workers and both Protestant and Catholic clergymen. At a later date a similar study will be made among Jewish, as well as other, clergymen.

The survey by two sociologists showed Protestant ministers to be unanimously agreed that the counselor’s role is expressive of their parishioners’ wishes. They felt that a church member turns to the pastor because he represents the concern of the religious community. Also that parishioners expect their minister to understand fully and appreciate their inner feelings and spiritual needs. (Perhaps this is expecting the impossible.)

Catholic priests interviewed said generally that the pastor’s role as counselor derived from the priest’s intimate relationship with God. They felt that it was their duty to remind the parishioner of religious duties and to explain particular religious points involved in his problem. When these objectives have been accomplished, they said it was the priest’s duty to refer the church member to the proper church agency for further help.

The study disclosed the social workers were not inclined to give the pastoral counselor a place on the team. They criticized clergymen for overestimating their own resources and capacities. However, the social workers conceded there is a role for the minister or priest in psychiatric cases having a religious compulsion of some sort, or where a clergyman might persuade a religious person to enter a hospital or other institution.

_______

It looks as if the Whitley County, Kentucky, grand jury has joined neighboring Knox County [Tennessee] book burners. That grand jury criticized circulation of a book written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and asked for further investigation as to why the Corbin Public Library was circulating it. In the words of the jury’s final report, the book entitled “The Big Sky” by A. B. Guthrie, Great Falls, Montana, contained indecent language. The Kentucky case, however, is more to be accepted than that of the Knoxville Board of Censors. In the latter case, it is a group of laymen set up to determine what the public shall be permitted to read; in the Kentucky case, it may be that the case is headed for judicial hearing, where the volume in question will be examined in the light of statues governing obscenity. That is how it should be, but newspaper reports indicate that the librarian, Mrs. Edward Cummins, is also tried by public opinion in the community before legal proceedings are through. Understandably, when questioned about the matter she had no comment. A book, as well as a person, has a right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty. And the librarian should suffer no condemnation in making the book available to the public. That is prejudging according to ignorant prejudices.

_______

An item that did not receive much attention in newspaper coverage was a late summer meeting in Nova Scotia by 20 renowned scientists from many different countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Their purpose in meeting was “to assess the perils of humanity which have arisen as a result of the development of weapons of mass destruction.” At the end of their meeting they issued a statement which is, or should be, of great importance not only to those interested in science, but to the layman as well. Recent satellite developments by Russia underscore the importance of their report.

The scientists spent part of their time reviewing the hazards of radioactive fallout; but wisely, they did not stop with this. They went on to emphasize that nuclear war, and not merely fallout, is the true danger. “We are all convinced,” they said, “that mankind must abolish war or suffer catastrophe; that the dilemma of opposing power groups and the arms race must be broken down.” Beyond this, they raised the question: What is the responsibility of scientists in the face of the dangers which confront humanity? Their answer is a complex, and an incomplete one. They say that scientists can help prevent war “by contributing … to public enlightenment on the destructive and constructive uses of science and by contributing … in the formation of national policies…” What they do not say is just how they shall contribute to the formation of such policies. Men of science, it would seem, are now well aware that the fruits of their labor are of paramount importance for the future of mankind; indeed, the uses to which such fruits are put well may determine whether mankind has a future. They point out that war would leave no country untouched; that arms limitation is not enough; that so-called small wars are now the greatest peril, for they would almost inevitably invite participation by the great powers and bring on a general holocaust; and they go on to enumerate what, in their judgment is the political responsibility of scientists.

This responsibility involves, they say, more activity on the part of scientists in influencing political leaders; stressing ways and means scientific and technical progress can be used constructively; that science must be completely free from dogma; and so on.

Well, it would seem that scientists have begun to worry about the potential dangers of what they have created, and this is well. The discouraging feature of the picture is two-fold: Few scientists have or seem to have much influence over the politicians, and politicians insist upon worn dogmas that have little realism in today’s all too realistic world. It is trite to point out again here that 170 years ago 13 struggling, weak little states solved the problem of lack of strength by developing a federal union which, despite its imperfections, has through the years made us into the people we are. Politicians don’t like even to mention such a possibility in the international field, but it is difficult to see how there is any other solution to survival of freedom in a world that is overshadowed by the power of an atheistic, ruthless, dictatorship.

_______

Alabama Polytechnic Institute, Auburn, Alabama, recently fired a professor because he advised obedience to the Supreme Court desegregation of schools. It is, indeed, passing strange that the trustees of a state institution of higher learning should be subversive of law and order. It is not only strange; it is both immoral and treason to their trust. The interference of a board of trustees with the matter of faculty personnel is, of course, outrageous in any college or university, and presents a practical problem. But it can be met courageously, and has been so met in many institutions as at Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and elsewhere. Theological seminars have had to battle against brainwashing. If the administration and faculty stand firmly for freedom of thought and expression, they can win. If freedom is denied at Alabama Polytechnic Institute, it becomes just another hillbilly institution. It is not a question of segregation or no segregation; it’s whether it can be discussed or whether the subject is taboo. When primitive taboos hit a university it is no longer a university and no longer entitled to respect.

In the Sweezy case, Justice Frankfurter said, “In a university, knowledge is its own end, not merely a means to an end. A university,” he goes on, “ceases to be true to its own nature if it becomes the tool of church or state or any sectional interest. A university is characterized by the spirit of free inquiry, its ideal being the ideal of Socrates (who said) ‘to follow the argument where it leads.’ This implies the right to examine, question, modify, or reject traditional ideas and beliefs.”

_______

Had you ever realized that the question, “Are you a communist?” is an emotional response to ideas of which the question is ignorant?

_______

So far, there is no published evidence to indicate whether Sheriff Deakins and Attorney General [Frank] Hawkins are still trying to bring to justice the person or persons responsible for the murder of Everett Jenkins. Until they do, the record of Washington Country looks pretty bad.

 

Plans for a study were outlined in New York this week by the Rev. Marvin Halverson, an executive of the National Council of Churches. It will attempt to determine the what’s and the why’s of popular arts in contemporary American religious life. For example, they will try to ascertain why people wait in seemingly endless lines to see motion pictures such as “The Ten Commandments” and “A Man Called Peter.” They will also try to find out why songs like “Somebody Up There Likes Me” and “I Believe” make the top 10 on the nation’s juke boxes. In short, they will try to learn whether religion is box-office, and if so, why. The study will include opera, radio, and television. A tangent of the survey will be the effort to see to what extent our 29th century popular arts are genuine American art forms and what makes them popular. As the Rev. Mr. Halverson observed: “People usually think of the Negro spiritual as our only real folk art with religious inspiration. It is important to know what the religious values of people are today, and if the current popular songs debase them.”

_______

Contributions to churches in the United States have passed the $2 billion mark for the first time in history. The total reported by 52 Protestant and Eastern Orthodox church bodies was $2,041,908,161. Better than 81 percent was for local congregational expenses. Contributions for benevolent purposes, including overseas relief and foreign and home missions amounted to nearly $387 million, or about 19 percent.

_______

It is always gratifying to discover that your point of view is shared by others. Last Sunday I commented upon the fact that the U.S. Bureau of the Census is considering including in its questions for the 1960 census some dealing with religious beliefs and affiliations. This week the Associated Press carried an item of some length, the gist of which is as follows: “On the grounds that it would violate the principle of separation of church and state, the General Council of the American Baptist Church has announced its opposition to including any kind of religious question in the 1960 census. The council’s attitude was announced by a spokesman who said the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, with headquarters in Washington, reported the government was thinking about including this question: “What is your religion?” The General Council is the governing body of the American Baptist Church between conventions. It represents 1.5 million members in 6,000 churches in 36 states.

_______

At the age of 67, Neill Robertson of Parkman, in northern Maine, has written finis to nearly a half century as a railroad telegrapher to become a country parson. Robertson became a station agent telegrapher for the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad when he was 25. As a sideline he filled in frequently for ministers unexpectedly called from their pulpits. He memorized sermons that could be delivered anywhere, anytime, and was always ready to help. Twice he was offered pastorates but turned them down because of his wife and seven children and because he felt that his grammar school education was insufficient. But he resolved that upon retirement he would try to find a church unable to afford a full-time pastor. Last June, Robertson found his spot: the United Baptist Church in Parkman. Only 32 persons were in that church the first Sunday. Now there are 72 parishioners. A modest man, Robertson says he has only one strong point as a preacher. He puts it simply: “I am done in 20 minutes. It makes no difference what I may have prepared; when that 20 minutes is up, I’m done.”

_______

As suggested here more than once, religion is native, natural, intrinsic, unavoidable, a primary part of man. And Christianity is only one of the many interpretations of that phenomenon. From the standpoint of sociology, the persistence of super-naturalism as an explanation of this natural phenomenon of religion is striking. Perhaps it is a commentary on the lack of integration of knowledge, but it could be due to the lack of a carryover in education. To illustrate, a careful ands competent teacher who lectures on the evolution of the beetle on the days of the week, goes to church on Sunday. He parks his brains with his umbrella and enters into a new and strange supernatural world where all sorts of wonders happens: axes float on water, the dead come to life, men become gods and vice versa. The man in the laboratory or the classroom demands step-by-step evidence, but in the field of religion he is likely to transform into a sentimentalist.

Not only did the early Christian religion claim more and better miracles than were previously available, but Christians condemned non-Christian miracles. In fact, some of the writers achieved more consistency, but at the same time more bigotry, by condemning all mystery religions but their own. According to the book of Acts, the disciples in Samaria put a professional miracle worker named Simon wholly out of business. Paul was so angry at the miracles of a magician named Elymas that he struck the poor devil blind. The whole history of heresy has in it a great deal of jealousy in respect to who had supernatural power. Catholics have discounted and denounced Protestant miracles and Protestants have made fun of the great miracle healing resorts of the Catholics. Even the state has forbidden the handling of poison snakes and has taken children from homes where miracles were relied upon instead of biotics.

In much the same manner, Christians have denied that there was any revelation except Christian revelation, and if you look at all the different sects you see the Christians cannot agree on what it was that God said. Revelation by definition is the importation of knowledge to a human or humans by supernatural means. But we are not consistent about this. We accept easily that a supernatural power delivered stone tablets to Moses, but we refuse to believe that golden plates were delivered to Joe Smith, who founded the Mormon Church. There is about as much evidence for one as the other, if we are honest with ourselves and look at the evidence and draw our conclusions from it.

Not only have Christians denied other than Christian miracles, and on occasion condemned to death witches and people possessed of a devil and dealers in magical power, but they have turned upon their neighbors and slaughtered fellow humans who claimed a revelation other than the Christian revelation. Thus Catholics have tortured, burned, and hanged Protestants and heretical Catholics. Protestants have amply repaid the compliment to their Catholic colleagues.

The ancients explained phenomena in terms of super-naturalism because they had no other explanations. The tragedy is that today, after the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and the tremendous advances in all fields of knowledge, on Sunday people, otherwise normal, accept super-naturalism as a respectable and satisfying interpretation of religion. The ancients had no telescope on Mt. Palomar through which they could read secrets of many worlds. They had no compound microscope by which they could lay bare the mysteries of nature’s vital processes. The only way the ancients had of establishing truth was to have it supernaturally guaranteed.

And thus it is that even where wild super-naturalism has been greatly modified or rejected by scholarship, the masses today as they always have, love, enjoy, defend, and will pay for the preaching of super-naturalism as a worthy interpretation of religion. Yet, in actuality, sociologically, if not theologically, religion is man’s response to the totality of his environment. Theologies are merely interpretations of something that is native and natural. To take this point of view is in no sense to tear down or disparage religion, for it is intrinsic and unavoidable, indestructible. But we should examine interpretations of it. To show the error of an interpretation of religion is not attacking religion; it is protecting it. It is not meritorious or spiritual, or even pious, to believe something that is in an ancient book, or because a lot of people have believed it, or to hold, as Tertullian did before he backslid, that it is true because it is unbelievable. For many, a technique of religion is to believe something that is difficult to believe. Perhaps the most backward of our social institutions today is the church itself. It could do much for the happiness of the race, for righteousness, brotherhood and love, if it would abandon much of its pretense of super-naturalism and demand the same kind of careful investigation and evidence that is demanded in other areas. We have the known conclusions of all the fields that known scholarship has revealed. The function of the church should be to take these conclusions, weigh them, and build a philosophy of religion that is valid, historically proportionate, and emotionally satisfying. Such a synthesis of knowledge in the light of moral values would, or could, make an unlimited contribution to the happiness of mankind. Such an interpretation of religion would always be subject to revision, open to change, as our methods of achieving truth improve and as the sum total of truth increases.

_______

There came to my attention this week a list of books, some of them exceptionally good, but which are banned by the Catholic Church. It would appear that that church is in favor of lots of children but is not in favor of sex. Wonder if they do not subscribe to the recently popular song that went something like this: “Love and marriage, like a horse and carriage, go together; you can’t have one without the other.”

_______

From a pastor comes this bit of wisdom that seems worth passing on to you. He says, “I am tired of hearing that old chestnut, ‘you cannot legislate morality.’ It is usually used as an alibi for not rectifying an evil condition…. Of course, we do not legislate morality. Who said we did? But immorality can be outlawed and punished.”

_______

One reassuring note in the news this week is that, though we do not have a Sputnik, the Defense Department announces that we have stockpiled enough H-Bombs to blow up the earth three times. One can be pardoned for wondering why three times. After a third were used, there would be nothing to use the other two thirds on.

_______

It is reported that the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, Auburn, Alabama, fired a professor because he advised obedience to the Supreme Court in the matter of desegregation of schools. It seems that the trustees of a state institution of higher learning should not be subversive of law and order. Simply because tensions and emotions run high is no reason for an academic institution to suppress an honest minority opinion. The interference of the board of trustees with the matter of faculty personnel was, of course, outrageous, and would be in any college or university. What is the school trying to do, educate or brainwash? That is a technique of dictatorships.

_______

In the Johnson City Press Chronicle for November 1, appeared under the heading “A Farce, A Fiasco,” the following editorial, in part: “Of the Jenkins murder trial, perhaps the least said the better. It was a farce, a fiasco. It will not be written into the records that way, but that is what it was. The jury returned the proper verdict: acquittal. On the basis of the evidence, any other verdict would have been simply a travesty. The state simply had no case…. Why such a state of affairs? Go back to the beginning. Recall the jealousies, the bickering, the intrigues among rival investigating officers. Remember the false starts and strange finishes…. Can there be any wonder that nothing meaty and substantial came out of such a welter of confusion?”

There is more, but this much is sufficient. The simple fact is that Everett Jenkins was murdered six months ago. The people of Washington County have a right to look to their elected sheriff and attorney general to bring the perpetrators of this murder to justice. They have not done so. There is wonderment in the minds of many as to whether they have exhausted the resources of their offices in trying to do so. Until something more tangible is produced, that wonderment will continue. What about it, gentlemen?

 

Today is seeing thousands of churches across the nation marking the 440th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. The song of the day will be “A Mighty Fortress is our God,” the great hymn of the 16th century reformer, Martin Luther. It must be noted, however, that the revolt touched off against the Roman Catholic Church of that day is no longer the central theme of the observance. The lasting principles, though, are still in action. One of New York City’s leading Episcopal clergymen, the Rev. Dr. James Pike, says the word “Protestant” would be a negative and not a particularly honorable term if the occasion were considered merely the recollection of a time way back in history when Protestants broke with Rome. Dr. Pike adds that a truly Protestant church is not one that can look back to a Reformation, but rather one that recognized its need of reformation today. And, this reporter might add, few thinking people will be likely to disagree with that.

_______

Not the least of the many festivities in many places scheduled today is one which is not officially a part of the Protestant observance. This is the second annual NATO Naval Chaplain’s Conference being held in the United States. It includes chaplains of Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, and Orthodox faiths. Serving in Eastern pulpits as guest preachers will be 40 Navy chaplains from 14 countries having membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

_______

A church world service committee was told recently that critical repercussions are likely unless there is strong support for the United Nations relief efforts among Arab refugees. An internationally renowned churchman, Dr. Tracy Strong, said the whole Middle East situation could worsen dangerously unless the United Nations’ Relief and Works Agency is permitted to continue its food and distribution program among the more than 900,000 Arab refugees. Dr. Strong pointed out that the United States has pledged 70 percent of the money for a projected $23 million U.N. fund for Arab relief. Britain has pledged 20 percent and the other nations 10 percent. But Dr. Strong noted that a lag in payments by other nations might hold up the entire program since Congress has made U.S. payments contingent upon those of the other countries.

_______

Conviction was expressed this past week that a new kind of missionary is needed to fulfill the requirements of a new era in missionary work. The first Indian to be consecrated bishop of an Evangelical Lutheran Church in India, Dr. Rajah Manikam, made the pronouncement upon his installation as this year’s Harry Emerson Fosdick Visiting Professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He declared that the French and Russian revolutions are pale in comparison with the changes going on today in Asia and Africa. Never before, he said, have so many millions of people taken part in such a rapid and radical social upheaval. He called it a revolution of the masses, who are demanding political independence, economic justice, social equality, and religious motivation of life. Practically extinct, he declared, is the missionary of a previous generation who was a superintendent, a director, or a boss. He said the day has now dawned for the missionary who is a friend, a philosopher, and guide of a young church. This new type of missionary, he added, must be a man who is willing to get behind the cart and push it along rather than pull it from the front.

_______

One of the curious things about the mystics and revelators is that they claim to receive information from God that is superior to ordinary knowledge. They claim that this information is ineffable and indescribable. Then they write many books and make many speeches describing the indescribable. Does this make sense?

———

One point seems to have been overlooked in the prolonged discussion of the Little Rock debacle. Was it proper for the president to go over the head of the federal court and [?] with a governor who was violating a court order?

———

Some of you have taken issue with the opposition expressed on this program to censorship by self-appointed or officially appointed board of censors made up of lay people who pass upon whether literature offered for sale is obscene. This reporter has never advocated obscenity. On the contrary, he has opposed it, but has insisted that determination of what is and is not obscene was a matter for the courts to determine, and not for a bunch of neighborhood Madam Grundys who probably know little of what it means other than their own prejudiced definition. Comes now a report that the Rev. Irving R. Murray, chairman of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the ACLU, took issue recently with the widespread notion that so-called obscene literature fosters juvenile delinquency. He pointed to a study completed not long ago by the Colorado legislature showing that literature, decent or indecent, is without effect on juvenile delinquents, practically none of whom read anything. He went on to call upon the legislature to reject bills dealing with alleged obscene literature and to leave it to the home, school, and church to nurture wholesome taste and moral attitudes in the young.

———

Already the United States Bureau of the Census is preparing for its decennial enumeration of the population as required by the Constitution. Reports indicate that this time the bureau is planning to include a number of questions inquiring into the religious affiliations of the people. Now the nature of this reporter’s work is such that he feels keenly the need for accurate and complete data on this subject, data that does not exist anywhere. But he feels even more keenly that it is no business of government to inquire into the religious beliefs of the people. He personally, were it not for the potential evils that easily could result from such questioning, have no objection to replying to such questions. But the First Amendment makes it clear that religion is none of government’s business. As the law now stands, refusal to answer any question of a census taker is punishable by fine or imprisonment, but even if the law were changed to make response voluntary, there would still remain a violation of civil liberties. Even a factual inquiry, when made by a government official, might for some persons under some circumstances be an infringement upon freedom of religion. Again, the mere assembling of information about religious beliefs would aid some or all religious bodies and thus breach the constitutional wall of separation of church and state, for that Constitution clearly states that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” If, then, you believe in this separation, it might be well for you to let the Bureau of the Census, Washington, D.C., know about it. Also, write your congressman and let him know, for bureaus are peculiarly sensitive to congressional attitudes.

_______

And while on the subject of government, separation of church and state, etc., it is pertinent to point out that a Navy court martial last month convicted a young Seventh Day Adventist in Hawaii of “willful disobedience” for refusing to stand watch on Saturdays, his denomination’s Sabbath. The sailor maintains, quite logically, that his constitutional right of freedom of religion was violated.

_____

One of the essential elements of religion, any religion, it would seem, is to make practice coincide with precept insofar as possible. American business insists upon its belief in free enterprise (a term, incidentally, that never has been, is not, and never will be accurate or realistic). Nevertheless, business asserts its belief in democracy and free competition. Yet it has no faith in either. Sponsors turn pale when a bobbysoxer registers dislike of a program, and business trembles at the notion that any idea should appear on screen or be heard on the air that is in competition with any other idea. Only this week, for example, a sponsor is reported to have dropped a noted performer who has as a guest star another equally famous name. The trouble was that this guest appeared on another network for a sponsor who also sold watches. Out of this lack of faith in competition and in the practice of democracy, what does the public get on the air and screen? Mostly stupid soap operas, loud noise (miscalled “music”), inane continuity, neutral themes, and still more neutral plots and characters, whose time is severely limited by the lengthening commercials that try to impress upon the public the idea that this product is the newest, best, and only worthwhile product of its kind. How can those whose sole entertainment is to watch and listen to such piffle as an escape from reality improve themselves if they think of nothing but such bosh? On the contrary, how can they go on looking and listening if they do think? For then the discrepancy between practice and precept will become so apparent they probably will lose interest. Is not a matter of morality involved here?

_______

As emphasized here form time to time, any ideas expressed are put forth for consideration, not necessarily in the expectation, or even the desire, that all of you will agree with them. Indeed, if you did agree with all of them, I would consider the program a failure. What brought this all on is the comment by one of you that the Bible says “Judge not that ye be not judged,” and goes on to suggest that in one of my broadcasts I had indulged in judgment. That is a fine and welcome comment. It shows at least that you were listening and thinking.

My only reply is that the Bible is a large anthology. It contains many curious things, some wise and some foolish. Survival and progress of the race depends on judgment. In writing to me you passed judgment. He who is devoid of judgment is unable to maintain himself in a society and must be institutionalized. I am, like many students, intolerant of error. One can be tolerant of people and yet combat their ideas. I would defend the right to Billy Graham, for example, to preach his doctrines. Yet to me his message is ludicrously over-simplified and I would insist that we do not live in the kind of world he describes. Tolerance does not mean lack of disagreement. It doesn’t mean a “don’t care” attitude. It doesn’t mean everyone is right. It certainly doesn’t mean seeming to agree when you don’t. It doesn’t mean being a hypocrite. Tolerance means willingness to examine honestly evidence from all sources, looking hopefully for new truth. It does not mean embracing propositions that have small or no evidence to support them. In this process, judgment must constantly be exercised if one is to reach even tentatively intelligent conclusions.

_______

Today marks the beginning of the fourth year of this program. The temptation was great to fill the time today with reminiscences of the high points of the past three years. However, instead, I should like to use this last minute to express my appreciation to the owners and employees of radio station WJHL who have made their facilities and assistance available to me for the program. They have never told me what to say or what not to say. At times, I am sure that some of my materials have not coincided with their own beliefs, but it is testimony to their belief in democracy and free competition of ideas that they have permitted me to go on saying those things. I appreciate this liberal attitude deeply. Also, I wish to thank you who have listened to the programs and hope that you have not felt that it was listening time wasted. If the program has made you think, examine your own tenets and practices with a view of improving upon them, this reporter’s time will have been well spent, for that is what he most hoped for.

 

One of the difficult aspects of our approach to religion, and one that hinders progress in it, is the element of flavor of sanctity which we attach to the magic name “religion.” A person whom most of you know, and whom I call “great” in his religious thinking and approach, Dr. William Rigell, pastor emeritus of Central Baptist Church here, and now professor at State College, once put it this way to me: “When you students enter classrooms, your minds are open to conviction; you are willing to examine and accept evidence, and draw your conclusions.” “But,” he said, “when you enter the church, your minds are already made up, and what most of you wish is for the preacher to say only things that will square with your preconceived opinions.”

It is this unwillingness, perhaps the cultivated inability, to approach religious matters on a thought rather than an emotional basis that has been largely responsible for lack of progress in the field over the centuries. The simple fact is that Orthodox Christianity has operated in different forms for over 19 centuries. It has failed to convert the inhabitants of this world to a peaceful happy life on this earth and has no evidence that it has affected the state of the dead. It has spent more time talking about … an abstract, intricately developed theology that provides an excellent exercise in theological semantics. But all this does not appear to have had much relevance to reality; that is, the reality of the known nature of man and his environment.

Dr. George B. Stoddard, in a statement that reached me this week, points out what he calls five fallacies in religion:

1. That there is a mysterious world beyond the physical;
2. That simply to appease a god is a desirable human state, and to praise him is a sign of virtue;
3. That a god of vengeance represents the highest point in human aspiration;
4. That the supernatural, the superstitious, the magical are permanent in human affairs;
5. That piety is the only basis for ethical behavior.

Well, whether you agree or disagree with his labeled fallacies, they strike at the root of gullible swallowing, but not digesting, anything placed before you and labeled good, or religious. It will be noted that these fallacies are directly counter to the scientific approach in the study of human affairs, and it is through the scientific method that concrete results have come about in our understanding of man, his environment, and the end product of their interaction with each other. Some people who sincerely believe their religion attack science as being godless, and allege a conflict between science and religion. What they really mean is between science and the confirmed prejudices they hold about a particular religion. The blunt fact is that in human affairs, if religious ideas and beliefs cannot withstand the critical and empirical test of science, then they will have to suffer. The scientific method is simply a way of discovering truth, and truth should be the basis of all religion. A great religious figure said many years ago that “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Perhaps to find that truth, we need still another commandment, at least need to keep such in mind. It might read something like this: “Doubt all things, search all things, analyze all things. Yea, accept nothing contrary to evidence because people in high places say it is so, or because you read it in an imposing and ancient or even new, volume.” The other approach is like that told about the old Tennessean who said that if there was anything wrong with the Methodist Church and Democratic Party he did not wish to learn about it until he was dead. He was already dead spiritually, but did not know it. If only through knowing the truth we can find freedom, and if freedom is desirable, why not seek truth, regardless of where it leads or what false little gods we have erected it destroys? I know this is not orthodox, but it was not intended to be.

It was a pagan – if that is the appropriate term by which to designate non-Christians– who said that “Man’s inhumanity to man has made countless millions mourn,” and it is hardly likely that many of you would challenge the accuracy of that statement. A great Galilean spent his life being human toward men. Furthermore, if you are attending adult classes now in your church (Protestant) school, you know the theme of the current lessons is “Religion Applied to Society.” For this reporter, and he presumes to speak for nobody else, that is the only justification for the existence of a religion in today’s world. Anyway, it may well do us some good now and then to take a brief inventory to see how we are doing in this matter of application.

_______

A heartening note came from Mississippi’s Governor Coleman, even, who recently said, in arguing for a new VA hospital, that “To deny medical facilities for veterans to preserve segregation … is just a little unrealistic.”

But out in Oklahoma the legislature recently enacted what it called an emergency law creating a state literature commission to censor all kinds of publications. Despite the alleged emergency the state attorney general has attacked the law as unworkable and invalid; the commission is having trouble getting financed; and no complaints have been registered yet regarding publications distributed in the state.

Up in Connecticut the State Civil Rights Commission complained to Governor Ribicoff that it is virtually impossible for a Negro to rent in a white neighborhood. At the same time, Alabama State Senator George Little recently charged that some white plantation owners were holding Negroes in virtual peonage through manipulation of welfare funds.

And the Pentagon has revealed that security clearance procedures have been applied to a review of an 1879 book by a Confederate general dealing with the Civil War – we might page George Orwell on that one.

And it is heartening to note that just this last summer the last of six Salem witches was cleared when Governor Furcolo signed a resolution absolving them – only 265 years after they were hanged.

And Texas, being what it is, probably deserves a position of prominence on this last item. The school board of Houston has eliminated from its grammar school curriculum virtually all courses dealing with history and geography – other than Texan. I guess that will learn those blankety-blank Yankees that they can’t hoodwink Houston children by other-world ideas and nonsense.

_______

The American Jewish Congress has just published a pamphlet entitled Assault Upon Freedom of Association: A Study of the Southern Attack on the NAACP. It is well worth reading, whatever the complexion of your ideas on the organization is.

_______

Finally, for most of us, it is only human to be human, and this reporter trusts that he is no exception. It was [Alexander] Pope who said that to err is human; to forgive, divine. If that is true, this reporter has been more than human more than once, but he always regrets his errors. Anyway, the human breaks through in that, like all of you, he cannot help but have a special feeling and regard for the small group related to him or close to him, or those he wishes were close to him. The point of all this is that a person very important to him is observing her birthday anniversary next Wednesday. It will not be the kind of observance I would wish for her, but I am not selfish enough to neglect to wish that it be the kind that she wishes for herself. So, to that special person, may I use this medium of conveying to her sincere wishes not only for a happy observance of that day, but of all the days to come?

 

Religious leaders are gravely concerned over the spreading use of tranquilizing pills. The director of the Academy of Religion and Mental Health, the Rev. George Anderson, calls the problem a new aspect of the age-old subject of morals and medicine. What seems most disturbing to ministers is this question: Are people employing drugs to dull conscience and shun realities, to avoid what he calls the God-ordained crucibles that forge character and spiritual strength? The Rev. Dr. John Thomas, who heads the American Baptist Council on Christian Social Progress, stated emphatically, “You can’t overcome the tests and problems of life by trying to find a way out of them through drugs.” Clergymen concede that under careful medical controls, tranquilizing pills can be helpful in the treatment of cases involving serious emotional illness or exaggerated anxieties. But they point to the increasing volume of sales of the so-called “peace” pills throughout the nation. Churchmen fear the pills are often used to deaden sensitivities and stifle responses necessary for inner growth. Another commentary on the situation is that by the Rev. Charles McManus of New York’s Roman Catholic Chancery Office. He says that when rashly used, the pills could become a means for a person to suppress feelings that, in his words, “have a providential purpose in his life.” Father McManus adds, “It is something less than following Christ when we try to duck all anxiety. He promised a cross to all. But there will always be those who shrink from it.”

Says Rabbi Dr. Robert Gordis of New York’s Jewish Theological Seminary, “Whenever these tranquilizers are used to the excessive point of blunting man’s conscience or awareness, it runs contrary to religious teachings.” And the only comment that this reporter has is that when the divines have rushed in, he fears to make any tread of his own.

_______

Although details are yet to be announced, the U.S. Post Office Department soon will issue a special commemorative stamp honoring religious freedom in America. Postmaster General Summerfield discloses that the 3-cent stamp will be sold first at the Flushing, Long Island, New York, post office December 27. It will mark the 300th anniversary of the signing of the Remonstrance, a protest by Flushing citizens against a law imposed by Governor Peter Stuyvesant. The Stuyvesant edict was regarded by those early Flushingites as violating the principles of religious freedom.

_______

And over in the neighboring city of Elizabethton this week, the Watauga Baptist Association deplored the wearing of shorts by both men and women on the streets of cities in Upper East Tennessee. The resolution finally adopted declared that “We believe this practice to be below the moral standards of teachings of the Bible and Christianity.” Well, without casting any suspicion or doubt as to the sincerity of those resoluting on the matter, if they are going to be literal about this thing, let’s employ historians to prescribe as accurate as possible replica models of the costumes worn by Hebrews during Biblical times and then all of us proceed to tog ourselves accordingly. On such matters as this, it is very difficult for this reporter to decide whether immorality is in the object or in the minds of those viewing that object. All of us, theoretically at least, are, like Cal Coolidge’s preacher, against sin, but we just don’t agree on what it is. Anyway, winter is acomin on and we will be more concerned in the months ahead with the long rather than the short of it in wearing apparel.

_______

The problem of racial integration was one of many discussed this week by the Oklahoma Synod of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. At its meeting in Oklahoma City, the synod asked each church in its jurisdiction to report on progress toward eventual elimination of racial lines within the church. Also approved was a resolution urging support of President Eisenhower’s action in the continuing Little Rock school integration controversy. The resolution, however, deplored what it called “the necessity” for calling out federal troops. Worthwhile to note is that both resolutions were drawn up by William Einsfield [Enfield?] of Bentonville, Arkansas, a laymen and attorney. Little Rock and Western Arkansas are part of the Oklahoma Synod.

_______

And on the subject of Little Rock, integration, and religious attitudes and practices, an event occurred yesterday in that city and more or less throughout the state that indicates how illogical we approach the relationship between our own shortcomings and religious belief, if there is any such relationship. Anyway, yesterday 85 churches and synagogues in Little Rock held services to pray for the end of integration troubles at Central High School. At these services, Negroes and whites, Protestants, Catholics, and Jews implored the deity to do something about the mess things are in there.

However, 24 Baptist churches, segregationist-minded, held their meetings separate and asked for divine approval of a plan to keep segregation. The Rev. M.L. Moser, Jr., of the Berean Baptist Church of North Little Rock, conducted the meeting and intoned a prayer that included, “We pray that our national leaders might follow constitutional law and remove federal troops, rather than follow political expediency … We thank thee … especially for Gov. Orval Faubus. We feel that he has been raised up for just this hour…” There is more, but these will suffice to indicate the general trend of this group.

Other church groups prayed for “forgiveness for having left undone the things we ought to have done; the support and preservation of law and order; the support of our leaders, community, state, and nation; the casting out of rancor and prejudice in favor of understanding and compassion…” Again, this will suffice.

But let us look at what we have in what is to some of us a ridiculous performance. It is not much different, if any, from the Greek and Roman concept that the gods actually step down and interfere in the affairs of man. Read Homer’s Iliad about the Trojan War for an example.

Moreover, here we have segregationists and those who would uphold law and order praying to God for him to step in and settle matters. But their supplications are conflicting, and it is impossible to see how the deity could answer yes or no to both requests. And one can observe without sacrilegious thoughts that to do so would require an advanced case of schizophrenia. Far be it from this reporter to arrogate to himself any assumed right to suggest what the divine thinks of such things. We not only put God in the middle, but we also use Him and our supplications to Him as something of an escape from facing the realities of a problem that only we can solve. And this is certainly said without any disparagement intended toward either the virtue of praying of the efficacy of prayer.

Abraham Lincoln dealt with the same dilemma when, during the Civil War, and in his second inaugural address, he said of the North and South, “Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other.” And here I paraphrase to suit the present occasion, “It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in denying to their fellow men a right that is theirs by nature’s God and by the laws of the land.” But, Lincoln goes on, “The prayers of both could be answered …” but “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

But of course the Little Rock performance is in complete accord with the Graham-Peale-Sheen philosophy, if it can be so dignified, and they are making millions on such stuff.

______

Last Sunday I devoted a portion of the program to introducing the fact that a state-wide educational survey is about to be completed, that during the months ahead Tennesseans are going to be required to make fundamental decisions regarding education in the state, and that these decisions are important, not only for secular education, but also for the perpetuation of our ways of freedom, including that of religion. Today, I should like to pursue that a little further, insofar as time will permit.

Crowded classrooms, increasing enrollments, insufficient staff of qualified teachers, inadequate income to support education – there are the basic ingredients of the problem. And over it all is the fact that Tennessee is passing out of the agrarian society stage into one that is increasingly urban and industrial, and this fact calls for not only enriched, but much more highly diversified types of educational training. Already we have heard that “vocational schools” are the answer; consolidation is the answer; merit ratings for teachers (a vicious proposal to which I shall give attention later) [is the answer]. And countless other panaceas have been or will be proposed as the answer. Disconcertingly little is being said about some basic, fundamental considerations. All the above are merely twaddling with educational problems, not the real problems of education.

The simple fact is that business, and by that I mean employers of all kinds, is reaching out more and more for people with broad training, people deeply infused with the ideas that can come only from a sound liberal education program, and with ideas that arise out of association with great minds. By this I do not mean only learning for learning’s sake (though I know of nothing intrinsically wrong about that) but education to attain the mind to think, to reason, to explore, and above all to continue to educate itself so that there will be created a well of knowledge from which to draw not only inspiration but the technique of performance and production.

It must be kept in mind that the years of youth allotted to man are short, and that they should be filled with wholesome and lasting experiences – and these can be provided only by capable teachers devoted to the task of real education.

A liberal education is not the mere ghostly shadow of things that some persons imagine it to be; it is real and substantial. No matter how glorified the science may be or how practical the technology, it needs an arterial connection with basic education if it is to live. As I mentioned last time, engineers, scientists, and other technicians in this age should have a grasp of the humanities grounded in the liberal arts as well as the techniques of their profession.

We are misguided if we think of one curriculum as being suitable to prepare men to be leaders, and of another to be suitable for specialists in techniques who are to be the servants of the policy makers. Yet, some will clamor for a public service sort of institution, poking into the whole range of practical activity, carrying out industrial research, turning out materialistic technicians, testing guided missiles and missing the guidance of intellectual development. To such people an education is a sort of union card (and I belong to a union). The fact is that the course of our technological development has been such that increasingly grave social responsibilities are falling upon the shoulders of men who are only technically trained. There is more than considerable reason in education today to discourage specialization which is designed only to enable the student to take his place in a given industry with a minimum of delay. The necessary factual information, in most cases, can be picked up on the job. What is wanted, certainly above the high school level, is training in basic principles. There is no reason why the specialist should not also be an informed and cultivated citizen.

Higher education will suffer an irreparable loss if it ceases to educate the mind of man and not merely his fingers for handling gadgets and his eye for reading charts and his mental capacity for interpreting blueprints and slide rules. It is sad, not only for the man, but it is tragic for society when the technically trained man comes along in his vocation to the point where he is called upon to make plans, to direct the work of men, and to put into words the visions he sees of improvements and advancements in his craft – only to discover that he has neither the background nor the faculty to do so. He cannot relate the past to the present; he cannot draw the most in effort and interest of men; he cannot express in a constructive and telling way the great thoughts that are, or should be, in him.

Our colleges and universities are, for the most part, free institutions in that they affirm the worth and dignity of the individual, which is the fundamental concept of true democracy. A university or college is not, or should not be, a class nursery, but the resort of young men and women of all races, classes, and creeds who seek what these institutions have to offer. To the traditions of all the peoples of the ancient world, reaching back to Greek and Romans, we have added the cultural heritage of Western Europe and many others. These rich experiences in the arts, and talents and science, have become part of the resources of our institutions of higher learning. These institutions are not planned on the outskirts of life, but are or should be pursuing broad and important objectives in everyday affairs. Higher education is part of our general culture, producing well-educated people who in the words of the director of extension of the University of Montreal, “whatever may be their language, race, or religion, will be excellent citizens.”

America – and this includes Tennessee – and for the time being at least, Arkansas – has the resources with which to build an educational system that will in turn develop a greater civilization than we have had in the past. Such an education should provide for development of individual excellence, physically, mentally, and morally. It should cause these individuals to wish to develop a society of equals; to perpetuate and improve such a government of and for free men; to seek the development and maintenance of an economy of security and plenty; to promote a civilization of beauty (billboard advocates take notice); and it should make them capable of and desiring to develop an enduring civilization in a world community.

Time has forced me here to deal in what seem to be basic generalities, underlying the development of any program of education suited today’s world. However, if these things be sound, think upon them, for you are going to have to make some important decisions on the subject soon.

 

Christians around the world gathered at the communion table today for the 18th annual observance of World Communion Sunday. Since its founding 21 years ago by a small group of ministers as an effort to meet spiritual needs during the Depression, the event has grown into a worldwide observance in more than 50 countries. The observance began at sunup in the Fiji Islands and New Zealand – which are closest to the international date line, then continued westward around the world. Services will be held at sundown in Alaska and the Aleutians. Sponsoring the event is the National Council of Churches. The council’s director of the Department of Evangelisms, the Rev. H.E. McConnell, refers to the occasion as one of the high points of the Protestant church calendar. He calls World Communion Sunday a day of re-dedication which, in his words, “brings Christians together in the realest sense as they partake of the cup and break the bread together in God’s name.”

_______

From now through November is also another important period for the nation’s Protestant churches. Known as Harvest Festival Time, the period will be marked by special services in many denominations, just as they were in Biblical times.

Many churches have continued to celebrate the occasion of Harvest Time, which stems from the primitive folk festivals combined with the Hebrew tradition and the Christian observance. Typical of the expressions of joy marking the harvest’s end were pageantry, sports, singing, feasting, and the general good fellowship between the farm owners and their workers.

In some communities the emphasis has shifted to Thanksgiving Day in late autumn and the remembrance of national blessings, with little mention of the bounties of the harvest. Just as the Pilgrims did on the shores of New England, many parishes now hold an all-day service of Thanksgiving for the Harvest Festival. Often participating are various agricultural groups, such as 4-H clubs, Future Farmers of America, the Farm Bureau Federation, National Grange, and the Farmer’s Union.

_______

Significant developments back-dropping the Little Rock school integration case this week were statements by the executive committee of United Church Women and the integrated Greater Little Rock Ministerial Association. The Church Women sent a telegram to President Eisenhower commending him for his action in Little Rock. The message called the president’s action consistent with the statement of the National Council of Churches on the occasion of the Supreme Court decision on integration of public schools. It also stated that it was imperative that the governors recognized President Eisenhower’s responsibility for upholding the Constitution of the U.S. in maintenance of law and order throughout the nation. The United Church Women represents approximately 10 million women in the nation’s Protestant and Eastern Orthodox churches. Of its 2,200 state and local council affiliates, 12 state councils and 425 local councils are in the 12 Southern states. The other significant development was the statement by the Rev. Dunbar Ogden, Jr., president of the Greater Little Rock Ministerial Association. He declared: “We all share responsibility for what is happening at Little Rock.” The clergymen called on Little Rock citizens to pray for peaceful integration. Ministers of several denominations throughout the Arkansas capital immediately responded with sermons underlining the Christian’s obligation to the spirit of law, order, and justice.

_______

Starting at sunset next Wednesday, the Jewish holiday of Sukkos will be celebrated in synagogues and homes the world over. For traditionalist Jews, Sukkos lasts for nine days; eight for reform Jews. Sukkos is history’s first thanksgiving festival and its origin dates back to biblical times. In the Hebrew language, Sukkos means “huts.” It recalls the gratitude felt for giving protection when they had lived in fragile homes during their long journey through the desert. The president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath, has this to say upon the significance of Sukkos for modern times: “We need constant reminders today that no individual is self-dependent. We are indebted to Almighty God for the countless favors we enjoy daily…”

_______

This program has stressed so often that our freedoms are indivisible that the reaction of some of you, as revealed in your correspondence, is that the reporter has gone far afield from religion. And yet, he reiterates that it is true that if we are denied even one of our freedoms, all are endangered. This topic is stressed currently by an editorial appearing in the local press Thursday of this week under the caption, “Church and Press Rise and Fall Together,” and the occasion for reminder is that this is National Newspaper Week, and today is specifically “Religion and the Press Day.” For once, this reporter finds himself in complete accord with the editor, his good friend Mr. Kelley. The editor says, in part:

“In a very real sense, the press and the pulpit are partners. It may seem at times that the two are far apart, but in a deeper sense they are not.

“You have heard it said that churches and newspapers rise and fall together. In every land bent under a tyrant’s yoke, two things stand out: (1) a controlled press and (2) an intimidated church. You may put it down for a truism that there cannot long be a free church in a nation which has a slave press. By the same token, a free press will not endure alongside an imprisoned church.

“The two thus are dependent on each other and complementary to each other. The press maintains freedom of the mind, and the church preserves freedom of the spirit. Take one away and the other is sorely distressed
“Perhaps it is significant that the first article of the Bill of Rights recognizes this church-press partnership by providing specifically that Congress shall make no law (1) respecting the establishment of religion and (2) abridging freedom of press of speech…

“As newspapers of this nation observe their “week” and dedicate themselves to the cherished task of keeping the people informed, they salute the churches of the land for their transcendent responsibility of keeping people faithful to their religious beliefs….”

And anything that this reporter might add to that simple but profoundly important statement would, indeed, be superfluous.

_______

In this connection it is sobering to reflect that doubtlessly sincere, but equally doubtlessly misguided, people in our midst do not really believe in a free press. In the week’s news comes further information about the City Board of Review of Knoxville, to which august body this reporter has not infrequently paid his disrespects. This time the whipping boy (or, more accurately whipping girl) is the current issue of Life Story, which according to the arbiters of literary good taste in our neighboring county, is banned for girls because, according to reports, it contains a number of stories about “hard luck” girls. Numerous other magazines came under the censorship of the book burners. November issues of Sir, Bedside Reader, and Caper, as well as the October issues of Playboy, Tan, Night and Day, and Vol. 1 of Men’s Digest. Apparently members of the board had a good time debating among themselves what is and is not obscenity. Ho hum! I have not read or looked at any of these magazines, nor can I afford to buy them, but this publicity about them does arouse my interest, and probably that of everybody who read the item. Much, perhaps most, of the stuff appearing in such magazines is, to this reporter, merely trash. But it is probably equally true that those who like such magazines would give his reading material the same label. Publications that violate obscenity laws are a matter for consideration and decision by the courts, not by self-appointed or even locally appointed do-gooders who think that they and they only know what people have sense enough to be permitted to read. It is likely that most of us Americans resent the idea that we cannot be trusted to determine our reading menu for ourselves without the help of Madam Grundys, however well-meaning such people may be.

_______

The next comes under the heading of how mixed up can you get department: The subversives in Hungary are trying to overthrow communism and establish capitalism. Subversives in the U.S. are trying to overthrow capitalism and establish communism. In both cases the governments are scared silly. And in Cyprus: Greece says it is Greek; Turkey says it is Turkish; Britain says it is British. What the people of Cyprus say definitely does not count.

_______

Without attempting to classify this next, I pass it on to you for what it is worth, if anything, which is highly doubtful. The National Association of Evangelicals, a fundamentalist group, sometimes referred to by the caustics as “Ignorance Inc.”, endorses the Walter-McCarran Act. Its release admits, “Only the National Association of Evangelicals has consistently supported the national origins system.” Some of the members of this thriving religious organization believe the Earth is flat and that virgins have babies.

_______

Well, we Americans are a peculiar people. Americans fought World Wars I and II because they were shocked and outraged at the absurdity of any other people claiming to be superior to Americans in anything. Today our quarrelsome State Department gets its greatest support from resentment that any other people can produce bigger and more devilish instruments of death than can Americans.

_______

Anyway, the pessimist has a great advantage over the optimist. He doesn’t kid himself. He does not pretend a pimple is a dimple. He is prepared for trouble. So he receives unexpected blessings. The optimist is never prepared for reverses. He is condemned to an endless round of disappointments. The stoics are the happy people. So it would seem that the answer is to be a happy, cheerful pessimist, for if anything pleasant happens, you will be surprised.

_______

Since the days of our New England forefathers when education was designed to be the best safeguard against snares from the devil, Americans of religious belief, and many who were not religious, looked upon education as an important ingredient not only of a religious society but also for a democratic one. During the next several months, Tennesseans are going to be called upon to make decisions with respect to education in the state that will have far-flung implications, not only for today but also for the future. The legislative council is about to complete a rather searching survey of state education and its findings will soon be available. Already the state commissioner has warned against our jumping to conclusions that trade schools are the panacea for our educational ills. I should like to take what few minutes remain of today’s time to comment briefly upon this subject, reserving for next Sunday more extended comment.

Far too many people regard liberal education as a ghostly shadow of things. Instead, it is real and substantial, for no matter how glorified our science and how practical our technology, both need an arterial connection with basic education if they are to live. A liberal education is practical because, if for no other reason, it provides experience in formulating judgments about concrete contemporary problems. While it probably will not do a complete job of preparing young men or women for life, it does initiate the sort of personal growth that leads to maturity. It encourages wisdom, judgment and perspective, three qualities badly needed in facing the daily decisions of life. It is all-important, according to Dr. James R. Killian, president of M.I.T., that engineers, scientists, and other technically trained men in this atomic age have a solid grasp of the humanities, being well-grounded in the liberal arts as well as the techniques of their profession. For no matter how clever a scientist may be, he still must live with them, work with them, and participate in the responsibilities for the human qualities of life, by providing the student with knowledge of himself and others, of the physical and biological world, and of his own and other cultures. It gives him an historical view of man’s achievements and of his religious and philosophical heritage. It helps keep him in balance.

The story is told that the middle-aged Tennessean said that when he went to school they learned him to figure but not to read, and now when he went down the road and saw the signs he could tell “how fur but not whar to.” Technological education can teach one “how fur.” But is it not about time that we learned not only” how fur” but “whar we are a goin?” More of this next time.

 

At the top of “Religion in the News” this week is the beginning of the Jewish New Year, observance of which began at sundown last Wednesday and continues for 10 days. This season of penitence and prayer began with Rosh Hashanah, and will end with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The Jews received a special message from President Eisenhower, in which the chief executive said, in part, “It is fitting for all to give thanks for the past 12 months and to look to the future with confidence born of the mercy of God … The blessings of life and the freedoms all of us enjoy in this land today are based in no small measure on the Ten Commandments which have been handed down to us by the religious teachers of the Jewish faith. These commandments … provide endless opportunities for fruitful service, and they are a stronghold of moral purpose for men everywhere. In this season, as our citizens of the Jewish faith bow their heads in prayer and lift their eyes in hope, we offer them the best wishes of our hearts.” And that, this reporter might add, is a wish in which most of us join the president of the United States.

Incidentally, it might be pointed out, Touro Synagogue, built in 1763, and now a national monument, is America’s oldest Jewish house of worship and is located in Newport, Rhode Island, near where the chief executive is vacationing.

_______

At a recent meeting of the National Home Demonstration Council at Ohio State University, a rabbi declared that “Responsibility is the price of opportunity.” Rabbi Jerome D. Folkman of Columbus, Ohio, also told the women gathered from all over the United States that irresponsible individuals are dangerous in such a society as ours. He added that some persons would solve the problems thus created by restricting the opportunities of many. But, Rabbi Folkman states this is not the American way. He sees our way of life as one that teaches responsibility. And that, he declared, is why education is so essential to us. He asserted that full education requires the cooperation of home, church, and school, and not through force, but through a mutual recognition of their common responsibility.

_______

The U.S. lost one of its nationally known pastors and religious leaders this week. Dr. A. Powell Davies, minister of All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, D.C., died unexpectedly of a heart attack Thursday. Dr. Davies, a native of Britain, was a Methodist minister there and in the US until 1933, when he became a Unitarian. He was an outspoken liberal, and often based his sermons on current news. He had been chairman of the Emergency Conference on Civilian Control of Atomic Energy and president of Food for Freedom.

_______

Some of you listeners have taken me to task for the persistence and consistency with which I have presented items and comment supporting separation of church and state. A few have seemed emotional about the matter, asserting that ours is a nation founded upon Christianity. Well, in the first place, few arguments are settled by emotion; even religious problems. And in the second place, even a casual familiarity with the basic framework and trends of American history refutes the claim that ours is a nation founded on any particular religion, though, admittedly, more of us affiliate with some one of the Christian faith than we do with non-Christian ones.

But as for the assertion that historically, our nation was grounded in the Christian religion, let us look at a few facts. In 1787 in Philadelphia, when someone suggested that the Constitutional Convention be opened with prayer each day, Alexander Hamilton, somewhat facetiously perhaps, emphasized that the convention was there to handle problems relating to the United States, and he felt that this could be handled by the delegates without the intervention of any foreign power. Apparently, this was the consensus of the convention, for there were no daily invocations to the Hebrew God or to any other.

George Washington, who was also at the convention, remarked on June 10, 1797, in connection with the treaty of peace and friendship with Tripoli, that “The government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion.”

James Madison, called the “Father of the Constitution,” and the fourth president of the U.S., said in his tract entitled “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” in 1787, that “Religious establishments … have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny … upholding the throne of political tyranny. In no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people.” And, I might add, this was a battle to keep the church from dominating the schools, and yet there are among us some sincere but simple souls who would have religion taught in the schools.

Jefferson was more bitter and less diplomatic in 1794 regarding his hope for the revolutionary armies of France, when he said that he hoped they would “kindle the wrath of the people of Europe and bring … kings, nobles, and priests to the scaffolds which they have been so long deluging with human blood.”

There are others, but time does not permit their inclusion. It is about time that we stopped using religion, of the Christian or any other variety, as an element of nationalism and a part of national policy.

_______

In this connection, it is pertinent to call your attention to an article appearing in The Christian Century of September 11, by one Virgil M. Rogers, teacher, high school principal, and city superintendent of public schools in Colorado, Illinois, and Michigan, before going to Syracuse University as the dean of the school of education. Calling his article, “Are Public Schools Godless?”, Mr. Rogers said, “The American concept of separation of church and state is, I believe, the supreme protector of all our individual freedoms.” Again, “The public schools are not ‘Protestant schools’. They are the schools provided by government for all the children of all the people by virtue of common citizenship in the USA. As such they and they alone are to be financed from the public treasury. They must of course be secular. There is nothing sinister and unclean about that word … It is not to say godless, anti-religious, in league with evil, but merely secular, like the courts or the presidency.”

_______

Two major items in the news for some time contain moral and ethical elements, and some of us believe they have heavy religious overtones as well. I refer to the perhaps forthcoming election of a Teamsters Union president next week, and the “Faubulous” situation in Arkansas. In both situations, much remains to be desired.

For months now the Senate committee investigating corruption in labor unions has uncovered item after item that leaves a foul smell on the administration of the out-going president, one Dave Beck. The odor is not much more delightful regarding his would-be successor, James Hoffa. The revelations have become so serious that the AFL–CIO Council has given the Teamsters so many days to clean house or get out. Now it appears there is evidence to rig the Florida convention and elect Hoffa by handpicked delegates, delegates that do not represent the wishes of the rank and file of the membership. Whatever the outcome of the convention and further investigation by the Senate committee, the Teamsters, or any other union, will enjoy the confidence and support of the public only so long as it operates honestly, respects and practices the democratic process, and is in control of officials who feel keenly their responsibility not only to the majority of the membership, but also to the American public as well. Labor unions are a necessary concomitant to our industrial growth and development. There is no more room for skullduggery in a labor union than there is in the National Association of Manufacturers. Unfortunately, over the years, there has been evidence of far too much in both, but the two wrongs do not make a right. This reporter feels the importance of this matter keenly, for he has long been a member of the American Federation of Teachers, an AFL affiliate. But he has no defense to make of this or any other organization that permits itself to get into a position where such suspicions and evidences exist.

As for the Arkansas situation, many of us who have followed it carefully from the first have been amazed at the continued succession of blunders. Not only that, but distortions, misrepresentations, etc. It is deplorable that federal troops were sent into Little Rock. But given the condition of things last Monday, the fact that the matter had been allowed to drift as it had, perhaps the federal action was about the last resort. There are two disturbing questions that have not been satisfactorily answered about the whole affair. One is, why did fabled Faubus order the National Guard to surround the high school and prevent the law from being enforced? He talks sanctimoniously about his regard for the constitution of the state of Arkansas and that of the United States. Yet, when he took the oath of governor, he not only swore that he would uphold the state constitution, but also the federal one as well. He violated that oath when he used force to prevent the enforcement of provisions of the federal Constitution he was sworn to uphold. There can be no excuse, no defense for that. Segregation or integration has nothing to do with this central question. The local federal court had made its decision and the matter was then on appeal to the Circuit Court of Appeals. Until the higher court ruled otherwise, the edict of the local judge was the law, and that law Faubus was sworn to uphold. Instead, he used all the force at his command to defy the law, and this defiance was a green light to all the rabble-rousers and hoodlums to do as they please. And they did that last Monday.

The next question that remains unanswered is: What went on between Faubus and Eisenhower in their conference about the Little Rock situation? Some of us hoped we’d find out right after the conference, but both governor and president said nothing that meant anything. From both, the essence of their statements was that a great deal of “constructive” discussion went on. This is diplomatic double-talk that quite often means nothing important happened.

Again, we hope that the president, in his address to the nation this week, would let us know. It appeared that he was going to do so by saying that he would trace the sequence of events that led to the sending of troops, but he stopped short of saying anything about his conference with the governor. We cannot help but wonder if things would not have gone differently if the president, at the Ike – Orval conference, had said something like this: “Governor, the courts have approved the plan of integration in Little Rock and have said it is to go into effect immediately. You may not like that, and I may not. But until or unless this decision is overruled, it is the law of the land and will be enforced. It is in the American tradition that law enforcement should be done at the local level. But if that fails, and if the state enforcement machinery does not enforce the law, then the federal troops will. Make no mistake about that.” Maybe this was said, but the president has not said so.

It is true that many, perhaps most, of the citizens of Arkansas, and of Little Rock, prefer segregation. If that is true, if enough Americans agree with them, then there is a legal, a constitutional way, to change things through a constitutional amendment. But unless law and order are upheld, our whole structure of government collapses and anarchy results. And the ethical and moral aspects of the whole problem is simply that we the citizens have a right for elected officials, governor and/or president, to respect their oaths to uphold the law. Somebody failed to do so in this case. Of Faubus we can be sure he did; of Eisenhower, we wait for him to let us know what happened.

Name-calling, evasions, and assertions – all have been resorted to by assorted individuals of various political hues and persuasions. But neither the misrepresentations of Sen. Russell Johnson of South Carolina, Talmadge of Georgia, and other of like ilk can remove the fact that American citizens of the colored race were being denied their rights to go to school at Central High School. And perhaps it is more than a token of the difference between the value of things in our democracy that we are willing to invoke the aid and majesty of the federal government to protect the rights of nine colored students, for a great man a long time ago said that “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me.”

Three Massachusetts women are happy about their non-paying teaching jobs in Rock Hill, South Carolina. They are donating their services for one year at St. Ann’s parochial school. Two are recent graduates of Regis College, in Weston, Massachusetts – Miss Marie Lynch and Miss Maureen Burgin. The third is a retired Boston teacher, Miss Mary Magner. Miss Lynch, from Newton Center, explains that 17 members of her graduating class volunteered to donate one year to some Roman Catholic school that could not afford to pay teachers. Others went to such places as Texas, Virginia, New Mexico, and Jamaica. Miss Lynch explains the Catholic lay apostolate teaching program began among Catholic students about seven years ago. Miss Burgin, who is from Somerville, Massachusetts, says four other girls in her education class offered their services for one year. The retired teacher, Miss Magner, stated she still could have taught in Boston. But, she says, she wanted to give this year while she still has time.

_______

The Champlin, Minnesota, Methodist Church, a white congregation, has called a Negro minister as its pastor. Church authorities believe that the Rev. Dr. Charles Sexton is the first of his race to hold such a position in the upper Midwest. Dr. Sexton was pastor of the Minneapolis Negro Methodist Church that merged by invitation with a white congregation, also in Minneapolis, last December.

_______

A world Baptist leader has told Southern Baptist men that Christ should be an active partner in the business life of Christians. The statement is from the Rev. Dr. Theodore Adams, president of the Baptist World Alliance and pastor of the First Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia. The 6,000 delegates to the Oklahoma City meeting represent Southern Baptist men’s groups in 40 states.

_______

A Methodist clergyman from Charleston, South Carolina, has been elected national chaplain of the American Legion. The Rev. Feltham James was chosen unanimously at the Legion’s Atlantic City, New Jersey, convention this week.

_______

Youthful rabbis are being sent out from New York’s Yeshiva University to suburban areas and they usually have to build their congregations from scratch. A prime example of the new program is Rabbi Jack Sable, 29 years old, and a former Air Force chaplain. In Riverdale, a New York City suburb, he began three years ago with a slip of paper with some names. Soon he had the Riverdale Jewish Center operating – a post office box at first, but quickly an 18-family group and a Hebrew school in an apartment. Then a basement was converted into a sanctuary for Sabbath services. Rabbi Sable became fundraiser as well as chief organizer and holder of other titles. And today, the Riverdale Jewish Community will hold its first services in its new $500,000 synagogue and social center. Rabbi Sable and director Victor Geller of the Yeshiva University Community Services Division say such experiences point to an Orthodox resurgence in American Judaism.

_______

And while on the subject of Judaism it is pertinent to observe that next Wednesday the High Holy Days of the Jewish faith will begin at sunset. These days have been called the most holy in the Jewish calendar and a time for spiritual inventory. The 10-day period that follows extends from Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. At both services rabbis will stress the theme of penitence and the possibilities of moral regeneration. Typical of the prayers that will be offered is the following, taken from the Union Prayer Book: “O Lord, hasten the day when all evil shall be destroyed and wickedness shall be no more. Quicken us to work with the righteous of all nations and creeds, to bring about thy kingdom upon earth, so that hatred among men shall cease, that the walls of prejudice and pride, separating peoples, shall crumble and fall, and war be destroyed forever.” It would be difficult to find a prayer, in Christendom or elsewhere that surpasses this in merit.

_______

It was reported this week that archaeologists have uncovered the biblical Pool of Gibeon and that the spring of ancient Israel is flowing again after 25 centuries. This was announced by the University of Pennsylvania Museum. This discovery confirms the biblical tradition that the men of Gibeon, now called el-Job, were literally “drawers of water.” The archaeologists also uncovered a mass of evidence indicating that wine-making was a flourishing industry before Gibeon and its environs were laid waste by King Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BC. The Bible refers to Gibeon as the place where the sun stood still and stones rained down from the sky as Joshua routed the invading Amorites.

_______

For some time recently considerable discussion pro and con has developed regarding the deletion of certain racial and ethnic materials from songs, especially those of Stephen Foster. Those supporting such deletion say that such words as “darkies,” “Massa,” and the like, are resented by colored people because they remind the world that we, the whites, once held them in slavery. Last Monday the issue was focused locally by editorial in the Johnson City Daily Informer, under the title “Pious New York Has Started Burning Books.” Particular attention was given in the editorial to removal of Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” from the public school book list because in that book the author has his characters use such words as “nigger.”

Today, the same newspaper runs, on the editorial page, a lengthy letter from a reader who resents this deletion, apparently mostly because, according to her, it is done at the instigation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. It is a well-written letter. You are urged to read it.

Now this reporter takes second place to no one in his desire to protect, scrupulously, the rights of all people, regardless of their race, color, or other artificial insignificant differences. However, he too has shared the concern over the emasculation of literature in the name of minority rights. The Jews have complained about Shylock and parts of the “Merchant of Venice” have been changed. They objected to Fagin in Dickens’ “Oliver Twist,” and parts of that great novel were deleted or changed. Catholics objected to the moving picture “Martin Luther,” and in some cities censors moved in and prevented it showing. Now it is the songs of Stephen Collins Foster and the novels of Mark Twain that are to be distorted in the name of civil liberties. Where is it all to end? These novels, songs, plays, are now a part of history. If there was or is any derogatory aspects about slavery (and there was) the onus rests upon the white man, not the Negro. So why should any thinking Negro object? If what Martin Luther said and did is objectionable to the Catholics, it is equally true that what a number of popes and other high-ranking Catholic officials have done down through the ages is equally offensive to us Protestants. If the Jew thinks that Shylock is bad from the Jewish point of view, let him read the process by which the author is supposed to have settled upon Shylock as one of his main characters, and he will find it was not with any necessary intent to disparage Jews as such, but to create a major character in the plot.

Members of minority groups would do well to stick to essentials in their commendable fight for equal rights, and forget about the happenstances of the past that make up much of our cultural history. It is true that ignorant, unthinking, unscrupulous people use Foster’s songs, Shakespeare’s play, and Twain’s and Dickens’ novels and other literature as vehicles to vent their prejudice towards others different from them. But if we are to embark upon a course that deletes from the press, radio, television, movies, etc., everything that might possibly offend someone, we are not only becoming a nation of sissies, but we are letting our concern for the incidental cause us to destroy the fundamental. Ours is a colorful culture and history, and all races, creeds, colors, nationalities have contributed to it: all should be proud of the contribution of each and every one of these. It should not be subjected to pernicious anemia because of the thin skins of the NAACP or any other minority group organization, and this reporter has great respect for the objectives and most of the accomplishments of the NAACP. Simple respect for the facts of history should cause us to have more sense.

_______

Probably most people who reflect on the subject would agree that religion, like many other areas of living, consists largely of a scale or pattern of values with respect to themselves, other people, and life in general. Someone has said, with considerable pertinence, that a person’s life can be evaluated by looking at his checkbook stubs, for they reflect the things that person considered most importance in life. Be that as it may, one who has a social consciousness cannot help but speculate occasionally about the pattern of values that causes people to bestow so much so frequently upon animals when such beneficence is totally unneeded. And this at a time when human beings in every community are in dire need of material comforts. Take the case of the Reading, Pennsylvania, woman who willed her dog a three-room apartment with air-conditioned bedroom, living room chair, a practical nurse, and $50,000. Or the Murray Hill, New Jersey, man who paid a carpenter $3,000 to finish the house with a glass-bricked roof, cedar and knotty pine walls, fluorescent lighting, and an electric blowing system. Then turned the whole thing over to his four Doberman Pinschers. Or the New York Life Insurance Company, recently chartered; its only policy holders: dogs. This reporter is fond of dogs and assorted varieties of other animals, but how many of these people for providing so lavishly for their pets will contribute 50% as much to a milk fund for undernourished children? Not only is the country going to the dogs in such cases, but, to put it biblically, it would seem that such persons are casting their pearls before swine.

_______

One of the virtues in any philosophy of religion framework is that of honesty; that is, being honest with oneself, as well as with others. Those of us who have studied and tried to understand the Russian system have long since given up the hope of finding honesty intentionally displayed by those who espouse the Moscow line. However, the recent hullabaloo in a few places in the United States over segregation, and the heyday the Russians are making of it has impelled one nationally-syndicated writer this week to point out that while in most places in this country, segregation under law is not practice, in Russia, segregation of the races for educational purposes is the order of the day, and that under not only statutory but under constitutional law. David Lawrence, the arch-conservative of the columnists, observes that Russia defends her segregation policies on the ground that she wants to preserve the literary tradition of the groups. Five of the so-called Soviet republics are in Central Asia, and there, according to evidence presented by Mr. Lawrence, “The Russians maintain one set of schools for their children and one set for the children of local people. It is a segregated system.”

Officials insisted, as do some of our southern Dixiecrat segregationists, that the “People like their own schools,” part of which may be true in both cases. It should be observed in passing that the Russian are European and white, while the Asians are Mongolian and dark. But what does all this mean for the argument put up by some segregationists here that integration is a Russian scheme? Well, it may be, for the communists will promote any idea, however inconsistent with their Marxian dogma, if they think it will cause confusion and trouble in the free world. Communists care nothing really about the civil rights of Negroes or anyone else but their own ilk.

And, what does it do to the Russian propaganda line that they invectively hurl at their own people and the world via their newspapers, radio, and other communication media?

There is a rule very old in the idea of Anglo-Saxon equity, namely, that’ he who comes into court should do so with clean hands. Or, to put it another way, he that would seek justice must be just himself. Obviously, two wrongs don’t make a right. If segregation in schools is wrong in this country, then it must also be wrong in Russia and vice versa. Christ put it much more succinctly when he said, “He that is without blame, let him cast the first stone.” But of course the Russians probably do not read the Christian Bible.

 

At Sewanee, Tennessee, the House of Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church opened its 105th meeting yesterday. The Rt. Rev. Henry Knox Sherrill presided. More than 100 of the church bishops from the United States and the Panama Canal Zone were in attendance. This meeting is being held in conjunction with the 100th anniversary observance of The University of the South in Sewanee. The university is owned and operated by 21 dioceses of the Episcopal Church. Dr. Edward McCrady, vice chancellor and president of the university reviewed the history of the school at a dinner meeting last night. A formal reception held at the home of McCrady followed the dinner. Today the Rt. Rev. Sherrill received an honorary doctor of civil laws degree. The Rt. Rev. Thomas N. Carruthers, bishop of South Carolina and chancellor of The University of the South presented the degree.

The main business sessions will begin tomorrow and continue through Wednesday. Among those on the program for tomorrow are Dr. W.A. Visser ‘t Hooft, executive secretary of the World Council of Churches, and Dr. W.G. Pollard, executive director of the Institute of Nuclear Studies at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

_______

In a report on religious items of current significance that ignored the developments in Nashville, Tennessee, and Little Rock, Arkansas, during the past two weeks would be ignoring one of the most pressing and important social problems with which all citizens, religious or not, prosegregationists or desegregationists, must be concerned. For cutting across the internet using the whole legal, political, and otherwise model crosscurrents, lies the simple consideration of the rights and dignity of the individual, and that, regardless of race, religion, nationality, or socio-economic status.

Today I should like to explore some basic facts in the matter as well as to suggest certain long-range, ideological implications of the problem, and this without regard to personalities, political, religious, or otherwise.

Our culture here in America is deeply rooted in the Judaeo-Christian ethic, and many of our mores, customs, and traditions stem from the beliefs and teachings of the Hebrews, from Genesis to Revelation. It was the Master himself who violated the current social taboos by demonstrating his respect for the individual. The little children whom he insisted be permitted to come to him; the lepers; the blind; the tax collector, an insidious individual in Palestine at this time; the woman of Samaria; as well as the more “respectable” Pharisees and others of the time. There is no mention anywhere in the scripture that he asked one his race, his nationality, or his economic status before ministering to him. The Hebrews themselves are not a race in the sense we use the term today, so we have no way of knowing which racial group Christ himself would best have fitted into.

Stemming from this recognition of the importance of the person as a person, philosophers who envisioned a better social order than existed in their time, generally advocated a system wherein there was a high degree of personal freedom and rights. It must have been this basic ethic back of Jefferson’s thinking (which, incidentally, was in no sense original with him) when he wrote those revolutionary but immortal words that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” Time does not permit exploring the social context of society at the time he wrote those words, nor does it allow discussion of the semantics of the terms used. But throughout our history we have adhered to this philosophy in principle, however much we have departed from it in practice – which, unfortunately, has been all too often.

It is a very simple faith. It holds that man is not only equal in the sight of God but that he has (or should have) the same equality before the law. It was to bolster this principle that the 14th Amendment was added to the Constitution after the War Between the States, forbidding a state the right to abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens or to deny to any person the equal protection of the law. It is, in the main, controversy over the meaning and application of this constitutional passage that the problems have arisen in Nashville, Little Rock, and elsewhere.

The sociologist recognizes at least three levels of social problems. One is where everyone, or almost everyone agrees on the existence and nature of a problem, and there is a high degree of agreement upon the desired solution. Integration, obviously, does not fit into this category.

The second level is where there is general agreement upon the existence of a problem, but no consensus as to the desired solution. The third is where only a vocal few insist there is a problem, but the majority do not recognize its existence.

It is the second level with which we are concerned here, namely both pro-and anti-integrationists agree that there is a problem, but there is no agreement upon a desired solution. Hence, we are going through the turmoil of seeking a solution in harmony with prevailing community opinion and also with existing constitutional requirements, a solution that it is impossible, in the present situation, to find without compromise or acquiescence. One or the other must give – perhaps both.

Through it all runs a continuous, unchallengeable thread: Ours is a government of law, not of men. And if enough citizens are of the opinion that the law, as interpreted by men, is inadequate or unjust, there are constitutional ways to rectify the matter. The Georgia proposal for resettlement of southern Negroes in white communities is no solution, though in a few instances it might lessen the acuteness of the problem in some communities if it could be made to work without doing violence to the rights of the individuals concerned. The use of the National Guard to defeat the orders of a federal judge is no solution. If enough Americans wish to amend the Constitution to provide for racial discrimination, there is a way by which this can be done, but it is a safe assumption that few would admit they would like to see this happen.

But the whole issue is even broader than merely national constitutional requirements, for it involves an ideological division among Americans that seems confusing to about everyone except the voter. He continues to recognize that which makes democratic order and that which does not. And while the connection may be incidental (more likely, co-incidental), there is a relationship between the Kasper-like advocacy of racial supremacy in this country and the autocratic orders that have developed, still exist in some places, and are still developing in some parts of the world.

Leadership in churches, government, education, management, farming, etc., seem to be divided, roughly at least, along liberal or conservative lines, i.e., the so-called left or right. But the American voter has seemed to sense that he cannot really be liberal without at the same time being conservative, and vice versa. That is, though liberal, he wishes to conserve the best that has been proven good in American life; and while being conservative, that there is need to recognize that change is inevitable. Sometimes to oppose change is good; at other times actively to promote it is better. So, he goes along with this leadership, making his daily decisions according to his own pattern of values in the light of his understanding of our past history, present condition, and future probabilities and possibilities.

The voter seems to feel instinctively that two world wars, particularly the second, were fought between kinds of autocratic order that in principle were left and right ideologies that had gone to maturity. Expanding imperialisms competing for limited world markets were primary cause for World War I. From the American viewpoint, both original opponents in that war were autocratic to a relatively high degree. When the security of American democracy became threatened the American voter demanded that his country enter the war against that particular group of nations which clearly threatened that security.

Again, in World War II, both original opponents were in many respects autocratic, from our own conception of democracy, and the American voter had little choice but to enter the war when it became clear that the security of his kind of democracy was threatened. And it is more than significant from the standpoint of segregation versus integration to reflect that the opponent we faced was one that had come to power mainly upon the vicious doctrine of racial superiority.

So it is today that the memory of the voter is not as short as many let themselves believe. He recognizes that within our own generation two world wars have been fought to uphold our conception of a democratic order, one in which the dignity of the individual is stressed, where there is free speech, freedom of religion, and all the other freedoms. He recognizes that we live today in a world of rapid change and pyramiding danger. This is reflected in the results of a poll just conducted by the American Institute of Public Opinion in which the voter was asked, “What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?” The replies, in this order, were: keeping out of war, 34%; high cost of living, inflation, 22%; and integration problems, only 10%. It’s highly unlikely that a mere 10%, however vocal and vociferous, will sway the course of the nation away from the basic commitment to the belief that “All men are created equal.” And it becomes increasingly difficult for us to pose as the leader of the democratic, free world, striving for a world in which all men can be free, and at the same time deny basic rights to a racial segment of our own people.

It is true that ours is far from an ideal society, but it is one developed within a framework of law that permits orderly revolution constantly to take place. We need to recall only such things as removal of religious and property qualifications for voting; abolition of slavery; the granting of the ballot to women; and similar changes, to realize that we have come a long way from the tiny nation of 3.5 million souls who founded what they hoped would be a “more perfect union.” At that time, one out of every five in the population was a Negro; today only about one in ten belongs to the colored racial groups. Ours is a society of classes, yes. There are social classes in any society; but perhaps our own is based more nearly than any other on an aristocracy of ability, industry and thrift – not upon inherited nobility or royalty. The greatest advocate of social change of all, as he walked by the Sea of Galilee, recognized only the worth, potentialities of the individual. So He saw possibilities in Matthew, a publican, who wrote the first Gospel; in Peter, a lowly fisherman; one Judas Iscariot – he believed in giving him a chance to prove himself.

So today, in the midst of a temporary turmoil, proponents and opponents of integration would do well to recall American history and the principles upon which our nation was founded. A reporter cannot tell whether what he says makes sense to his listeners, but he can think at this junction of no better injunction than that of Paul the apostle who urged the Philippians in these words, “… Brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just… think on these things.”

 

In the last broadcast, I cited a United Press dispatch to the effect that school administrators are feeling steadily increasing pressure to add a fourth “R” to the traditional “readin’, ritin’, and rithmetic,” namely “religion.” Jews and other (mostly minority) groups insist upon a hands-off policy in this respect. Protestants and Catholics are largely the ones who urge that if the schools ignore religion they discriminate against the majority of Americans who, they say, believe in God. Some rock-ribbed fundamentalists have gone so far as to propose that the Constitution be revised to permit schools to teach Christian religious doctrines. A segment of the agitants has suggested schools teach children the basic elements common to the major faiths. But here, by “major faiths” they usually mean the Christian faiths. Few would include, for example, the common elements contained in the Moslem religion. Still others recommend teaching the pupils “about” religion, insisting this can be done without teaching religion “to” the students.

All these proposals have their appeal to many people, and many of them take the position that unless schools do teach religion, they are godless institutions, implying or asserting that they must therefore be anti-religious. This reporter has worked with and in a number of schools where this pressure was exerted and can understand the dilemma of school administrators and teachers as well as the seeming sincerity of the proponents of the idea. The fact is, however, that those who propose religious teaching in the school mean “their” religion, i.e., they would have the schools tinge whatever teaching they do with a slant towards the Baptist, the Methodist, the Presbyterian, or the Catholic faith. They won’t admit it very often, but push them hard enough, and they admit it, inadvertently or otherwise.

And certainly they mean by “religion” the Christian variety, and here in the so-called Bible Belt of the South they certainly in 99.44% of the cases, they mean the Protestant religion. The teacher here who had anything good to say about the Catholic faith in classes in religion would soon find himself the target of suspicion, opposition, and perhaps worse, by many of the parents.

Few doubt the sincerity or the well meaning of proponents of religion in the schools, but many of us doubt their fairness or common sense judgment about the matter. Two or three facts stand out stubbornly in this controversy. The most immediate one is that preachers, priests, and rabbis who are strongest for embarking upon such a course admit by their actions that their messages in church do not have enough of a compelling attraction to hold a congregation, hence they wish to invoke the aid of the state to force students, who must attend the public schools, to spend part of their time listening to a religious instruction which they cannot escape. Some minister and priest friends of mine have finally admitted this when driven to do so. I must admit they have done so ruefully and reluctantly.

Another fact is the one mentioned above, namely that when these people say “religion,” they mean their own particular brand of it. They would be very disturbed if they heard that teachers were taking turns about reading devotional lessons from the Mohammedan Koran bible, or the Mormon “Book of Mormon” bible, or any other bible but their own.

A third fact, and one that cuts across all the others is that such a program runs counter to our whole history and tradition as a nation, i.e., separation of church and state. To use a statement that Christ made, we have tried to make a distinction between things that are Caesar’s and those that are God’s, though the line has not always been easy to draw. We have said that religion must survive or perish on its own appeal merits; that we had, and have, no place in this country for an established church; that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Those who urge teaching of religion in the schools ignore or are ignorant of that well-established fact. The public schools are charged with instruction of children of all faiths and those of no faith, for one does not have freedom of religion unless he at the same time has freedom from religion. To depart from this basic fact is to venture into a quagmire of danger that would embroil the school and community in controversy and would do violence to the conscience of many young school citizens.

The public schools have no responsibility to be either godly or godless. Certainly religion must come in for considerable consideration in the course of public school instruction. One cannot understand much of the impetus back in early colonization without learning of religious persecution, which the Puritans, Catholics, Quakers, and others sought to escape by coming to America. One cannot understand the founding of Rhode Island, for example, without knowing why Roger Williams disagreed with the Puritan fathers of New England. A knowledge of religious bigotry is indispensable to understand the Know-Nothing movement in American history that reached its climax in the 1840s and 1850s, especially the ridiculous and fictitious but harmful “awful disclosures” of Maria Monk that inflamed people against Catholics and set off a chain of persecution. There was an element of religion also in the revival of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, at least to the extent that Klanism was opposed to Catholics, Jews, and other non-Protestants. The schools do teach these things, as a part of our history, and to leave them out would make of history instruction an unbalanced, incomplete program.

To teach these things in the natural course of instruction is necessary and desirable; to embark upon a program of teaching religion in the public schools is quite a different matter entirely. The courts have made this quite clear in an unbroken line of decisions, highlighted in recent years by the celebrated McCollum case in Illinois. Despite all this, schools, and some colleges, go on year after year violating the law. They hold baccalaureate services in high schools, which, incidentally, the court held, in at least one case, to be a violation of religious freedom if students were required to attend as a requisite to graduation. In one school which I know, there are (or were last year) at least two teachers in the elementary division who, each Monday, asked their pupils whether they attended church or Sunday school the day before. All who did were commended, were given stars, or other insignia of merit, while the little fellows who did not soon caught on to what was happening and several of them admitted they told the teacher thereafter they had gone to church, whether they had or not. Those teachers should have been told in no uncertain terms to stop this outrageous practice.

Schools do have an obligation to stress the importance of such basic elements as truth, honesty, fair dealing, respect for the rights of others, sincerity, and all the other generally recognized factors that go into the making of commendable characters. But this can and should be done without any religious and sectarian flavor. If preachers and zealous laymen who urge upon the schools the teaching of their particular brand of religion would confine their efforts to improving upon the religious program and appeal of their respective churches, they would be doing not only their churches a service, but would not be violating one of the most consistent traditions of the American people. Moreover, they would not be cluttering up the schools with nonsensical advocacy of an un-American course of action by these schools. One can admire their sincerity; it is difficult to have much respect for either their sense of fairness or their knowledge of and respect for our basic constitutional principle of church and state separation. I am a Methodist, but I do not want any school teacher trying to make a Methodist out of my children; neither do I want them to be in a classroom where disparaging remarks are made, by implication or otherwise, about any religion. And that goes for all religions, non-Christian as well as Christian ones. Schools and teachers are simply getting out of their province when they do this. Preachers and others should know and respect this fact.

_______

Fairfield, Connecticut: The Rev. Joseph F. Mulligan, of Fordham University, has been elected president of the Eastern States Division of the American Association of Jesuit Scientists. He was elected at the close of the organization’s 32nd annual meeting at Fairfield University.

_______

Chicago: A Roman Catholic priest has criticized the Knights of Columbus on charges of racial discrimination. The Rev. Louis Twomey, of Loyola University in New Orleans, charges that the K of C has (in his words) “a policy that forced Negro Catholics to form a separate organization. The Knights of Columbus wouldn’t take them in.”

_______

Rome, Italy: A General Congregation of the Roman Catholic Jesuit order will be held in Rome starting next Thursday, September 5. The General Congregation, which is the guiding authority of the order, meets only to elect a new superior-general who is chosen for life, or when important problems of general character arise affecting the society as a whole. It has met only 30 times in 400 years.

_______

New York: Billy Graham, an itinerant preacher who has already received considerable publicity recently in New York, has compared today’s young hoodlums with Belshazzar, the corrupt, immoral, and bullying biblical ruler of Babylon. Belshazzar, who succeeded his father, Nebuchadnezzar to the throne, is the one who witnessed the handwriting on the wall and later was killed by the conquering Persians and Medes. Well, even a minister, I suppose, has a right to let his imagination help make a colorful impression. Anyway, comparisons are hazardous, as well as sometimes odious. Besides, such analysis does not take into consideration the differences in statuses of today’s delinquents with that of the king. And finally, one can find almost any kind of character in the Bible to compare to about anyone he meets on the street anywhere today.

_______

Washington: The head of the South’s largest religious denomination says church members have three clear duties to perform in seeking a Christian solution to racial problems. Representative Brooks Hays of Arkansas, recently elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention, says the first duty is to keep free the prophetic voice of the church (whatever that means); second, he said, is to throw all the influence of religion on the side of a non-violent adjustment of racial tensions; and third, church members must display imagination and Christian courage in correcting specific situations where the actual practice of the community has produced injustice.

_______

Mackinac Island, Michigan: The prime minister U Nu of Burma has sent a message of support to the Moral Rearmament Assembly of Nations meeting at Mackinac Island. Said the prime minister, “The world has need of the lead that is being given by moral rearmament in the moral and spiritual realm. The standards of honesty, purity, and unselfishness and love forming the basis of this ideology, if universally and sincerely accepted, will insure a safe and happy future for humanity.” Well, it may not insure such, but few there are who would argue that it would not help to bring such a future about.

_______

Canterbury, England: Church authorities are preparing a report for the archbishop of Canterbury on an Anglican priest who won’t stop using the word “bloody.” The Anglican priest, the Rev. Frederick Richmond, says he sees nothing wrong in using what he calls “a 17th century word.” But the word in England is considered vulgar and a cuss word. But at a trial, after his automobile had hit a truck, the Rev. Richmond admitted he used the word four times. He was fined $30 and lost his driving license for a year. And the archbishop wants a report of the whole affair. Of course it is easy to poke fun at our British cousins, but one cannot help but wonder what this world is a comin’ to when brethren of the cloth use such bloody words.

Washington: The Federal Census Bureau has a religious problem. The bureau is compiling a new questionnaire for census scheduled in 1960. And it is debating about including one question in the form: “What is your religion?” One faction in the bureau contends some factual data should be collected on the religious affiliations of Americans. But others claim it would be a bad mistake and that many citizens would resent the question as an invasion of privacy. No such question has ever been asked before in a census. The bureau has not yet made a final decision. All of us who have had to teach materials on religion – not a religion – but religion, period, have felt keenly the need for accurate census data on religious affiliations and have, from the teacher’s viewpoint wished for more nearly reliable figures. However, for government to nose its way into religious beliefs is treading on undesirable grounds. If any such question is used in the bureau’s questionnaire, the individual should be entirely free to answer it or not as he chooses, and there should be definite provision for recording his reply as “declining to answer.” As much as I wish accurate data as a teacher, I suspect that my reply would be under this category, for really it is none of the government’s business.

_______

New York: Some 88 sessions have been held in Madison Square Garden in the current emotional binge under the auspices of Graham and Company. These have attracted more than 1,650,000 persons, resulting in some 51,000 of what the star performer calls “decisions for Christ.” This reporter has no comment, for he is reluctant to judge lest he be judged.

_______

Minneapolis: The Rev. Dr. Franklin Clark Fry of New York, president of the United Lutheran Church in America, has been elected president of the Lutheran World Federation. Dr. Fry, who is 56, was elected at the organization’s Third Assembly. The Lutheran World Federation represents a membership of 50 million Lutherans all over the world.

_______

In Vatican City, Giovanni Cardinale Mercati, librarian of the Roman Catholic Church, died at his residence Thursday night. He was 91 years old. The death of this cardinal reduces the rank of the Sacred College of Cardinals to 58. There are now a total of 12 vacancies in the college.

_______

And in Rome this week some 30,000 Catholic youths from 87 nations and territories gathered for the First World Assembly of the International Young Christians Workers. The climax of the gathering takes place today when the youth pay homage to the pope in a colorful ceremony in St. Peter’s Square.

_______

….

The federation may complete its work this weekend on a set of basic principles setting forth a stronger partnership among Christian churches. The project is described as one of Lutheranism’s major goals. It is the hope of the federation that this set of principles will constitute an expression to the world of the nature of Lutheran thinking on major problems confronting the church. During discussion of the various proposals offered by leaders of 20 discussion groups, emphasis was given to one calling for restoration of what was called “right God relationship.” The outgoing federation leader, Hanns Lilje of Hanover, Germany said this relationship has been lost in some areas of the world due to fear and anxiety. The German clergyman acknowledged that the church is restricted in seeking greater freedom in those areas by a broken humanity. In such a predicament, he stated, man needs a deliverer who is more powerful than everything that is wrong.

_______

Oberlin, Ohio: The issues of Christian unity will be dealt with directly when U.S. and Canadian churches hold the first North American study conference opening at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, starting September 3. The theme of the conference will be “The Nature of the Unity We Seek.” Preparations for the meeting have been under way for two years. These plans involve more than 300 inter-denominational discussions, with working papers submitted by 16 regional groups. The final phase was a selection of 285 official delegates by 34 U.S. churches – Orthodox and Protestant – and five Canadian churches. The meeting is sponsored by the Canadian Council of Churches in conjunction with the U.S. conference for the World Council of Churches, and the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. The conference runs from September 3-10.

_______

Chicago: The Greater Chicago Federation of Churches is making an effort to see that newcomers to Chicago’s vast metropolitan area are not without friends willing to give help and understanding. The federation has set up what is called the “Newcomers Commission.” Members of the agency, which is a unit of the federation’s social welfare department, undertake the task of finding homes for the newly arrived family from Puerto Rico, the Indian used to life on the reservation, the Chinese, the Negro, or other type of family unused to city living.

The commission’s chairman, the Rev. James Caskey, says its activity represents a major effort by Chicago’s churches to give resettlement assistant and encourage church membership. In general, its task is to help the newcomer adjust to city life. The department’s newly organized Latin American committee is concerned with the needs of Chicago’s 100,000 Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. Among other things attention is given to problems of credit buying and rentals. Work is also aimed at passage of bills in the Illinois legislature designed to improve living and working conditions for the new residents.

_______

The persistence with which some newspapers and newspaper editors insist upon being concerned about something much, much less important than they tried to make it is being revealed these days by pronouncements regarding the effect of Supreme Court decisions in recent weeks upon secret, raw, unconfirmed, gossip files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Some two months ago, in the Jencks case, the courts ruled that a person on trial for criminal charges could not be convicted upon evidence contained in these gossip files until or unless he and or his attorney had access to them and to the evidence contained therein.

Squawks from pipsqueak law enforcement officers, which would include everybody from Brownell, Hoover, and company up or down, whichever way you want to go, would lead the unthinking to conclude that unless something were done to preserve these precious files that the fate of the U.S. will be sealed beyond redemption, at once, and forever. The Knoxville News Sentinel, which I read regularly and more or less religiously, devoted a blunt editorial to the subject this week imploring Congress before it quits to act upon what it calls “an emergency problem of law enforcement.” The local paper has also wasted some space and many words to the same issue and along the same line.

Now let us be sensible and unemotional about a very important real matter. Nobody but the ones who were loyal to a country other than the United States would wish to do anything that would weaken our system of things here. But a very important part of that system is regard for the rights and integrity of the individual. Convictions of the accused based upon secret informers and secret evidence are trappings and techniques of the dictatorships, not of the democracies. Amendment VI of the Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights, reads in part as follows: “In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right … to be confronted with the witnesses against him…” There are no modifying or qualifying words in this amendment. What the FBI does in an investigation is to take down every scrap of comment one individual may make about the person being investigated – known facts, rumors, suspicions, hearsay. All this is put into what the bureau calls its raw files. All of it is what it terms “unevaluated” data. Yet it is just such data as this that Brownell, Hoover, and The [Knoxville] News Sentinel and other editors want to keep secret from the person accused. Hoover says to reveal these will dry up sources of information. Well, why should one be convicted upon what a jealous neighbor or associate may say, spitefully or otherwise? Why should unevaluated materials be used? All the court said in the Jencks case is that such material should be brought into the courtroom and there evaluated. If it is found to be true, then let it be used without reservation to conflict; if it is false, brand it for what it is and let the chips fall wherever they may. Many people would talk long and freely about things they do not know but suspect would have little hesitancy as long as they can keep their identity secret. But if they knew that their words may later show up in a courtroom and they might have to back up their words, they’d probably be diligent in adhering to the truth. Do the Justice Department and the FBI wish to convict people upon untruths, half-truths, or pure fiction?

We have heard a great deal, too much, in recent weeks about the Fifth Amendment. But what about the Fifth Commandment in this connection? Does it not fit into this case, and is it not reinforced by our own Sixth Amendment to the Constitution? Those who deplore the sad state of affairs well could consider this, for it reads “Thou shall not bear false witness…” Do they wish to violate both the Sixth Amendment and the Fifth Commandment in their zeal to get headlines by convicting whomever they bring into court? I know of at least one court case where the outcome was based entirely upon false witness, but the person witnessing brought less credit to herself than blame against the one testified against. It is about time that the powers that be take another look at this whole subject and reconcile their efforts and pronouncements to American constitutional provisions, traditions, and good common sense, as well to religious and moral concepts involved.

_______

In Barbourville, Kentucky, this week the Kentucky Conference of the Methodist Church unanimously approved a constitutional amendment to allow Negro churches to apply for membership in white conferences. This is probably the second such act in the Methodist denomination, our own Holston Conference here in Tennessee being the other. Under the proposed amendment Negro churches must get a two-thirds consent from their conference before they can transfer. It will also be necessary for the white conference to give a two-thirds approval. However, it is a step in the right direction, i.e., to erase racial discrimination from the institution that should never have had it in the first place, for if racial groups cannot be united before the altar of God, then what hope is there for the Christianity we talk so much about in non-religious areas?

_______

Washington: The United Press reports that school administrators are caught in the middle of steadily mounting pressures on the subject of a fourth “R” – religion – as they prepare for the coming fall term of school. Jews and other minority groups want a hands-off policy, leaving religious training to the home and church. Protestant and Catholic officials say if the schools ignore religion, they, in effect, discriminate against the majority of Americans who believe in God. Some fundamentalists have proposed that the Constitution be revised to permit schools to teach Christian religious doctrines in the same way they teach political doctrines of democracy. Opponents claim that this would destroy the walls of separation between church and state. Another proposal has been to teach a so-called “common core” of religious beliefs held by all the major faiths. But opponents of this say that it would dilute religion so much as to be meaningless. Another solution, which has won the backing of many so-called, and probably self-styled educators, is to treat religion as politics and economics are treated – as a subject that is controversial but important to understanding American history and culture. The backers of this plan say the constitutional ban on sectarian teaching “of” religion does not prevent objective teaching about religion.

Unfortunately, time does not permit a further comment on this subject today, but since next Sunday will be the eve of the beginning of most school terms, and since the subject is an important one to all, opponents and proponents alike, I shall treat it in more detail at that time.

Some rather curious pronouncements have emanated from a Southern Presbyterian conclave meeting this week at Weaverville, North Carolina. Specifically a former mayor of Atlanta and a prominent layman said in addressing the meeting, that “When churches set up human relations or religious relations departments, they are intervening in fields that are very controversial.” And the speaker went on to decry what he called a trend toward the social gospel, asserting that it is a mistake for the church to get into in this field, for, in his words, “The devil must laugh with glee when he sees this present trend.” Further on the speaker opposes the idea that the church should make public pronouncements about segregation and civil rights, for they, according to him, “stir up strife and disunity.” The church then proceeded, through its organ, The Southern Presbyterian Journal that “Much today which purports to be ‘Christian race relations’ has nothing to do with biblical Christianity, but works towards destroying racial integrity as it has developed in the province of God.” “We deplore,” the writer goes on, “the fostering of social contact in the name of Christianity where such contacts are unnatural and forced. Therefore, we affirm that voluntary segregation in the churches, schools, and other social relationships is for the highest interest of the races, and is not un-Christian.” There is more, but this is enough to state not unfairly the basic viewpoint.

Well, at the outset, this reporter emphasizes that in our scheme of things the Southern Presbyterians or any other group has a perfect right to state freely what it believes on things – and to do so without fear of unwarranted penalty for doing so. However, a consideration of history and of current facts makes such pronouncements rather anomalous. If by biblical Christianity they mean restricting Christian religious scope to the confines of the lids of the Bible, they are talking about something that never was and most of us think never should be. Christ himself was the most controversial figure of his time. He sat, talked, ate, and otherwise associated with Samaritans, publicans, sinners, and all kinds. There is nothing in what he said or did to indicate that he cared for race, color, or nationality. His injunction to his disciples to “go ye therefore into all the world and preach my gospel to every creature” contains nothing about setting this or that race or other group apart and preaching it a little different to them than you do to others. The Master attacked smugness, egotism, wherever he found them. The Pharisee who thanked God that he was not like other men received little commendation from Christ, while the poor publican who admitted his sinfulness went down to his house justified more than the former. Paul emphasized that faith without works is dead, and it is not possible to see how Christianity, by its very nature, can be confined to the lids of the Bible. It has flourished across the centuries only as it has been a live, growing, even controversial doctrine that preached and practiced the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men. When it ceases to be this, it will become an embalmed figure in the mausoleum of history, to be looked upon by future generations as a quaint, academic, inert philosophy of the past that died from pernicious anemia because it had little real meaning in the lives of people. There is no such thing as racial integrity in today’s world, and the good mayor is talking about something that never was, is not, and never will be, for no friendly, Christian contact and relationships between the races are, as the Weaverville spokesman put it, “unnatural in the province of God.”

_______

It became apparent that some 40 Americans this week planned to visit Red China after attending the Moscow so-called Youth Festival, and to do this in the face of the stern warning from our State Department that to do so would be to violate U.S. foreign policy. Perhaps too much has already been said here about this policy that holds, by implication at least, that Americans generally do not have sense enough to go to Red China, see and talk with the people, and come back home without becoming sold on the idea of Chinese communism. And that only the super-beings that head the State Department know what is best for other Americans too dumb to agree with those same department heads. All this is a bit of egotism, arrogance, and paternalism that is anathema to American tradition, spirit, and good common sense. It assumes that I cannot see a murder committed without avidly desiring to commit a murder myself; that is not possible for me to read a book without agreeing with everything the author says; that I cannot talk with a person who disagrees with me without becoming converted to his way of thinking; that America is a ghetto from which nobody will be permitted to leave for travel or other purposes without having some bureaucrat tell him where he can go, with whom he can talk. It is difficult to imagine greater nonsense.

Of what is the State Department afraid? Americans generally have a mind of their own. In a democracy, it is a responsibility of every citizen to do his own thinking. Nobody but the communists and other anti-democratic elements would deliberately do anything that would undermine the security of this country. However, it is difficult to imagine anything more likely to make Americans appreciate our own freedom of religion, speech, association, etc., than to travel among and see firsthand what is being wrought under the ruthless hand of communism, in China or elsewhere. And those of us who believe in real democracy can imagine nothing calculated more to reveal to those behind the Iron Curtain the fruits of democratic freedom than to open our doors to young people from China, Russia, or elsewhere to let them come among us and see what life is like here. It is hardly likely that they would go home so willing to believe that America is a land where the toiling masses are ground down by the evil heel of Wall Street capitalists. But perhaps it is too late to hope that those in charge of making our foreign policy are ever going to see such simple facts. As the senior senator from Tennessee put it this week on a national radio broadcast, “The more our young people see what’s going on in other nations, the more they will appreciate the United States.”

_______

Nobody appreciates the United States Senate more than does this reporter. However, few could dislike hypocrisy more than he does. He cannot help but wonder how much hypocrisy there was in the proceedings this week in that august body that eulogized the late Sen. McCarthy, the same body that so roundly condemned him a scant three years ago. The Associated Press dispatch this week recounts that “Men with whom McCarthy fought, as well as those who worked shoulder-to-shoulder with him during his stormy career … joined in a session of tribute to their former colleague.” Led by Democratic Majority Leader Johnson, all the good little boys in the Senate got up and said how much and for what reasons they liked their former colleague. Such adjectives as courageous, effective, and such nouns as adulation, rare quality, respect, liking, etc., poured forth ad infinitum into many of us ad nauseam.

Most of us remember all too vividly that McCarthy cared nothing about whose reputation he wrecked by reckless smear charges which he never offered an iota of proof to substantiate. Many of us who wish to be honest with ourselves deplore the suspicion and hysteria, aroused and kept agitated by the same Joe McCarthy. Many of us cannot help but recall the dangerous wave of emotionalism, unreasoning suspicion, that was generated among the lunatic fringe that so easily could have been fanned into a totalitarian movement that would have brooked no opposition and would have given nobody a place to speak, think, or act except within the context of an un-democratic, fascist-like framework constructed by the master performer himself. It may be the polite thing to do to leave such things unsaid. The Romans had a saying that went like this: “Speak only good of the dead.” But Shakespeare put it more realistically if less delicately when he has Mark Anthony say at the bier of Caesar, “The bad that men do lives after them; the good is often interred with their bones. So let it be with Caesar.” Elsewhere Shakespeare said that “He who steals my purse steals trash, but he who filches from me my good name takes that which enriches him and leaves me poor indeed.” And all the pretty speeches of the Senators cannot change the history of the McCarthy period, and much of that period is not very pretty because of the things he did and said.

At the closing service of the World Council of Churches, meeting in New Haven, Connecticut, the delegates from 165 Protestant and Orthodox denominations from 50 countries heard a plea for closer bonds among all Christians. They felt it appropriate also to give thanks that, as they see it, such bonds are now being forged. The 14 members of the council’s executive committee were re-elected in a body…. The council also urged governments to act on their own to stop nuclear bomb tests for a trial period.

Some Roman Catholic spokesmen see discussions about religious liberty at the council meetings as greatly damaging world Catholic-Protestant relations. Debate at the meeting had arisen over a proposed resolution about Protestant difficulties in Colombia, South America, where, it was charged, Catholics persecute and harass Protestants. But a demand that the council charge Catholicism with suppressing religious liberties in some countries was dropped. Instead, the group’s executive committee was asked to study religious liberty in all nations. Executive Director Martin Work of the National Council of Catholic Men says so much more might have been done had the World Council leaders addressed themselves to matters of common spiritual and moral concern. Does the director intend, by this, to suggest that religious liberty is not one of the most important of matters that should be of common spiritual and moral concern? How academic can one become about religious matters, anyway?

_______

A prominent Quaker has told 1,000 Methodist Sunday school leaders that religious life outside the church is possible but not probable. Dr. Elton Trueblood, philosophy professor at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, has added it is almost impossible to be a Christian alone. He says the church is a fellowship, and it has kept Christianity alive from the time it was established as a little body of ordinary men and women seeking to demonstrate their faith.

_______

The Third General Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation, which opens this coming Thursday in Minneapolis, will have on its agenda such issues as how the church should deal with communism, colonialism, and national policies, as well as how rifts might be healed among various Lutheran bodies. Among delegates from Lutheran churches in at least four Iron Curtain nations – East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia – will be Hungary’s Lutheran primate, Bishop Lajos Ordass. He has been described as one of the world’s most courageous religious leaders.

_______

President Eisenhower has proclaimed Wednesday, October 2, as National Prayer Day. He urged all Americans to pray on that day for enduring peace. How silly can we Americans get about setting aside days for this, for that, for everything under the sun? The president didn’t say what we should pray for on other days, but doubtless it would not make much difference if we jumped the gun and started praying for peace before the second of October.

_______

The Association of Catholic Layman of New Orleans has appealed to the pope to stop Archbishop Joseph Rummel from enforcing racial equality in Catholic parishes in the city. The association asked the pontiff to rule that racial segregation is not morally wrong or sinful. The archbishop has said that segregation is morally wrong. The petition was aimed mainly at stopping integration in parochial schools rather than in the churches themselves. Archbishop Rummel said the laymen have the right to petition the Holy See, but he declined to make any further comment. Whether one thinks discrimination through segregation is morally right or wrong is, of course, a matter for one to conclude out of all his scale of values with respect to human beings. But this reporter cannot help but wonder if those same rabid segregationists expect that in the heaven they anticipate, there will be a roped off area for members of the colored race. How can you believe that all of us are children of God but that skin color determines whether you are a child of the first class or some lower class?

_______

And speaking of segregation, it looks as if the most notorious segregationist at the moment is getting the kind of treatment that probably hurts most; he is being ignored. The hate-mongering secretary of the Seaboard White Citizens Council descended on Nashville last week as if he expected to be a conquering hero. He announced his purpose to be to save our state capital city from desegregation in the public schools. It appears of now that few citizens care to listen to him. His audience of last Sunday attracted only some 300-400 listeners, at least half of whom seemed to be attracted out of mere curiosity. Then he was refused a board permit to use the park for his fascist harangues. In his speech of last Sunday he tried to court the favor of Tennesseans by telling them they were more aware of their civic rights than were citizens of other states. Most of us probably take this as a cheap trick of a small time politician to butter up his listeners; also most of us probably look upon this as an effort to deceive – for he probably means that we are dumber than citizens of other states and don’t have any more sense than to fall for his hate-filled nonsense. Anyway, he attacked communists and communism so much that he practically outdid Khrushchev and company in his mention of the words. Nashville newspapers have almost completely ignored him. One sent a reporter to interview him, and the subsequent write-up revealed the polite boredom the reporter felt as he listened to this headline hunter. The other Nashville paper has so far ignored him completely. [John] Kasper cannot stand this. Like McCarthy, he thrives on newspaper headlines, and when these are not longer forthcoming, it is not unlikely that he will fold his tent, put his tail between his legs and silently slink away.

_______

Washington: United Press religious editor Louis Cassels says a little-publicized “prayer cell” movement is turning into one of the most significant developments in America. The movement consists of small groups of laymen who meet to pray and read the Bible in each other’s homes, usually once a week. Episcopal Bishop Austin Pardue of Pittsburgh says more than 100 such cells have sprung up in Pittsburgh alone, and there are thousands throughout the land.

_______

New York: The first of a series of religious services is being held today aboard the Mayflower II in New York Harbor. The service commemorates the piety of the original Mayflower pilgrims. The service includes responsive scripture readings led by the Mayflower’s Australian skipper, Capt. Alan Villiers, and a sermon by the Rev. Dan Potter, president of the Council of New York.

_______

From Buffalo, New York: It is announced that one of the biggest pilgrimages of American Catholics to the healing shrine of Bernadette at Lourdes will sail next January on the Queen Elizabeth. The Most Rev. Leo Smith, auxiliary bishop of Buffalo, expects to have more than 200 pilgrims. They will go from Lourdes to Rome for audiences at the Vatican.

_______

A Methodist bishop who has spent 46 years in India as missionary, teacher, administrator and episcopal head, Bishop Waskom Pickett, says that America should be fighting as hard for her future now as at any time in her history. He goes on to say that we can lose or win our foreign policy on whether we win or lose in Asia. Bishop Pickett has known Indian leader Nehru for some 40 years and describes him as the greatest bulwark against communism in Asia. He says that the greatest tragedy of our time was when India so eagerly sought our friendship and modeled her new government after our own, but we, for ill-conceived military reasons, held aloof from her. But we go on negotiating for and succeeding in getting, airfields from Pakistan in return for arms and equipment with which the country can threaten aggression against India in Kashmir. And this last is said without in any way passing upon the merit or lack of merit in India’s claim to the whole of that province.

_______

Dr. B. E. Holiday, professor of educational psychology at the University of Tennessee says there is a strong religious feeling existing among the people of Yugoslavia. Describing a recent trip through the Balkans which he made, Dr. Holiday says that religion is living on despite all attempts of the communists to destroy it. He saw large groups attending churches despite communist disapproval.

_______

Our Bible, and most other bibles, are replete with references to the importance of justice as well as mercy. An editorial in today’s local newspaper is worth calling to your attention in regard to the demands for justice in a situation about which we all know. This reporter has not failed to criticize the local newspaper when items in it, from a moral or ethical standpoint, seemed to call for such criticism. Moreover, he has made references at least twice to the case with which the editorial deals. From the response of you listeners, he feels that such references were not without merit. Anyway, the editorial reads as follows:

“East Tennesseans in growing numbers are becoming disgusted at the continuing battle of works among the assortment of officers, special investigators and attorneys participating in the Jenkins dynamite case.

“We believe we speak in the public interest when we call for a cease-fire in the forensics and an open-fire toward the kind of earnest and concerted effort needed to remove what, as of today, is an ugly blot upon the face of Washington County. Let’s cut out the grandstanding, gentlemen, and get down to the point, which is this:

A man has been killed, horribly killed, and the public is interested in seeing justice done – in an orderly, efficient and dignified manner. The public is not interested in competitive stage-play among those who, either by official responsibility or by invitation are charged with getting on the task at hand.

“This is Operation Murder, gentlemen, not Operation Sound Off!”

Do any of you listeners disagree with the rightness of this concise statement of the matter?

_______

It looks at the time of preparation of this broadcast that the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate Conference Committee are doing their best to effect an acceptable compromise between the different versions of the civil rights bill that is now before it, a bill that has seen and heard more heat than light in the Senate, the newspapers of the country, and radio and television stations of the nation in recent weeks.

Much that we have seen and heard on this important subject from senators simply cannot be true, and truthfulness is, or should be, one of the characteristics of a worthy public official. From a bill applying to civil rights generally, the present version would limit its scope to voting rights only. Which raises the question of how much do the voting rights of Negroes need protection? Well, the white parade of the Klansmen has all but disappeared as a threat to potential Negro voters. Lynchings have become largely a matter past history, thank God; but the pattern itself has merely changed, not disappeared. More subtle methods are used: jobs are threatened and in some cases taken away; threatening telephone calls are made to Negro leaders before election, calls that indicate dire things to happen if Negroes in the community vote. And the caller never gives his name, or at least his right name. Credit is withdrawn from Negroes who have the temerity to vote, or even to register to vote. Resort is even had to violence in the bombing of homes. Difficult examination questions are asked of Negroes; simple ones to whites, if the latter are questioned at all. These and other methods are parts of the intimidation pattern in the South of 1957. Wonder if those responsible ever took seriously the biblical passage which says that “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

New Haven, Connecticut: The general secretary of the World Council of Churches has attacked what he called the “misrepresentation of the council’s attitude and policy” as shown in many parts of the world. The council resettled 27,000 refugees in 1956 with the aid of about $700,000 contributed by churches around the world. The secretary, Dr. Visser T. Hooft, of Geneva, Switzerland, was referring to reports … which were published in East Germany and China about the council’s action in Hungary.

______

Again, New Haven: Two members of the World Council of Churches called for a middle-of-the-road policy in commenting on world affairs. The archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, and Dr. Hanns Lilje, of Hanover, West Germany, both called for moderation at the New Haven meeting, which is the 10th annual meeting of the Central Committee of the council.

_______

Rome, Italy: Samuel Cardinal Stritch of Chicago left Rome last week for Paris after a two-week visit in the Italian capital. In Rome, he was twice received in private audience by the pope. The cardinal also visited the pontifical North American College, where he studied many years ago. He paid a visit to U.S. Ambassador James Zellerbach and visited Italian children camps.

_______

Cairo, Egypt: Egyptian astronomers and Moslem religious leaders failed this past week to agree on when the new Moslem year started. Scientists said the new years day was last Sunday, while the mufti of Egypt said it was Monday. Because of the dispute, government employees benefited, for they received two days off instead of one.

_______

Jerusalem, Israeli sector: An Israeli archaeologist says a study of the Dead Sea Scrolls shows St. Paul’s epistle to the Hebrews was addressed to the sect which wrote the scrolls. He said Paul wrote the epistle in the first part of the second century. He added that the Dead Sea Jewish sect had become Christian by that time but had not accepted Pauline Christianity.

_______

In Northfield, Minnesota, Bishop Hanns Lilje of Germany has answered charges that Iron Curtain delegates to the Lutheran World Federation Assembly are secret appointees of communist governments. The bishop said, “We will not be fooled.” He is president of the world organization and will preside over its session when the assembly meets in Minneapolis from August 15-25.

_______

Eastern Orthodox churchmen have charged the Christianity movement would be disrupted if a Protestant-run missionary group were brought into the World Council of Churches. A prominent Orthodox theologian, the Rev. Dr. Georges Florovsky, has also declared it would be a move in the direction of one-sided Protestantism. The clash has come over a proposal to make the International Missionary Council a part of the World Council, which is meeting at Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut. The Missionary Council itself is a federation of national and regional Protestant groups, includes 165 Protestant and Orthodox denominations in 50 countries, and thus embraces most of Protestantism and Eastern “Orthodoxy.

The ecumenical patriarchate in Istanbul, Turkey, has instructed its delegates at the meeting to oppose the new plan.

_______

A controversial religious group in Boston has brought a large colonial residence and 20 acres of land in Worcester County, Massachusetts. The group is St. Benedict’s Center, an organization in Cambridge founded seven years ago by an excommunicated Roman Catholic priest, Leonard Feeney. The black-garmented members are now said to total about 170 men and women. Feeney was excommunicated after a controversy with the Vatican over church doctrine. As a priest, he had insisted that only Roman Catholics could be saved, where the church holds that nonbelievers can also achieve salvation.

_______

Hungary’s communist government has accused a group of Roman Catholic priests of aiding the rebels in last autumn’s tragic revolt. All are under arrest are to be brought to trial soon. The statement of charges against the group also accuses Josef Cardinal Mindszenty in one instance. This relates to what the Hungarian government says was looting of its religious affairs office by armed persons led by the cardinal’s secretary. Cardinal Mindszenty is still in asylum in the United States Embassy in Budapest.

______

City Judge Frank J. Stich of New Orleans has issued a temporary injunction that forbids men and women to sit together in an Orthodox Jewish synagogue. The Chevra Thilim Synagogue had started a policy of allowing them to sit together last January. But several of the congregation went to court to force a return to the former policy of separate seating. Judge Stich has ruled that family or mix seating in the synagogue is contrary to and inconsistent with the Orthodox Jewish ritual. All Orthodox synagogues traditionally have separate sections for men and women. But temples of Reform congregations, a more recent branch of Judaism, permit them to sit together. What bothers this reporter is this question: What business is it of the city judge, or any other officer of the state how seating arrangements are carried out in any church?

_______

When queried by newspapermen this week about a possible conflict of interest in his accepting gifts while in office, the chief executive replied that since he had was an elected official the law did not apply to such gifts as a $4,000 tractor with a cigarette lighter, a prize bull with $1,000, and numerous other gifts. The president may be technically correct, but is likely that the American people, if they know the facts, think otherwise. Remember a few years ago about the row over deep freezes and mink coats that were alleged to be gifts to officeholders? Anyway, a few years ago an employee of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, an underling at that, was fired for accepting a 12-pound ham as a gift. In our scheme of things, not even the president is above the law, and if he uses technicalities and complying with its letter, he may – and probably will be – rightly held responsible for violating its spirit.

_______

It is a safe assumption that the mass of people everywhere desire peace and fear war. FDR once said that “90 percent of the wars are caused by 10 percent of the people,” and few serious, honest students of world affairs would challenge that. If this is true, then, the problem of war or peace revolves around 90 percent of us devising a way under international law to control the rash and selfish actions of the 10 percent. This week in London, Sir Winston Churchill, addressing the Bar Association, urged that the U.N. charter be revised in such a way that the small countries in the General Assembly not have equal representation with the larger ones, that Costa Rica, for example, not have the voting strength of the United States.

Nobody is more sensitive to the rights of little people or little countries than this reporter, but he has been one of those who have pointed out the ridiculousness of this situation from the inception of the United Nations. However, Sir Winston’s recommendations are only one tangent of a comprehensive problem that must be solved if we are to have peace. The U.N. charter provided that at the end of 10 years, i.e., in 1955, there would automatically be held the convention to consider needed charter revisions. This reporter watch carefully, at once even hopefully, for some sign that the great powers, including ourselves, were willing to learn anything from experience. He even wrote the State Department asking specific questions about what we were or were not ready to recommend regarding charter changes. The replies received told him neither yes nor no, neither perhaps nor maybe. They answered none of the questions; they ignored most of them entirely. Instead, the letters were filled up with double talk, the kind to which we have had to become accustomed in recent years.

_______

For some weeks now a mis-called “disarmament conference” is going on in London. Only the most naïve expected anything concrete to emerge from these talks, concrete that is, unless you can call a still further crystallization of nationalistic maneuvering for individual advantage “concrete.” It took our own special representative weeks to unfold the so-called American plan, and many of us were made to wonder if we had any plan or simply improvised as we went along.

We spend billions of dollars in foreign aid each year, much of it going for military purposes to put guns in the hands of natives around the world who neither know nor care what the shooting is likely to be about but are willing to go along for the ride in order to get a steady income and clothing and shelter while they are in the military.

Veritably the gentleman cry peace, peace, but there is no peace. Nor will there be any until and unless we, and that includes at least all the so-called free peoples of the world, are willing to recognize that we can have peace only under law; the law cannot come into existence without a duly constituted law-making body; and that this will not happen until a world organization, having its roots in democratic expression of free people everywhere, is brought into existence to provide such a legislature. It is more than amazing – it is alarming – that the so-called leaders of the free nations will go so far out of their way to avoid seeing and meeting a problem whose base is a relatively simple one. In the meantime, national armaments become more terrible in their potential destructiveness; do-good-ism organizations are born, flourish, and die almost aborning; and international anarchy goes on. Truly it is a wonderful world we live in, its wonders never cease; all civilized people are threatening war; and savage nations are at peace.

_______

Some of you listeners have indicated that at times I have belabored too much the billboard problem on the soon-to-be-started 41,000 miles of federal highways. Reports this week indicate that even a mild bill seeking to secure some federal inducement to get the states to restrict highway billboard advertising is lost for this session of Congress, which means the billboard lobby has one. Even some labor unions fought the bills because they wanted employment defacing our highways with ugly signs. The best satire, even sarcasm, this reporter has seen on the subject appeared in the local paper this week by the noted cartoonist Herblock. It depicts a huge sign along the projected highways which reads: “The eyesores along this highway come to you through the courtesy of the following Congressmen, devoted servants of the billboard lobby. Local billboard Congressman is J. $. Crawlwell.” Do you know how your representatives in Congress voted on this issue? It might be illuminating find out. It will reveal whether they represent the public that values the beauties of nature in this country that God gave us, or the crass, commercialized billboard lobby.

A forest draping slope and stream are more than timber for the mill. A river winding through the hills is more than power for industry. And as a mountain pushing its snowy peaks into the clouds is more than ore for the smelting furnace, an orchard in blossom in springtime is more than fruit for the canner in autumn. Or as a field of ripening wheat waving and billowing in the breeze is more than grain for the oven, so this land with its “rocks and rills,” it’s “woods and templed hills” is more than a source of our livelihood. It is our home, our dwelling place forever – the place where we live and love, work and play, grow old and die. It was a beautiful place as it came from the hand of nature, beautiful in the grandeur and majesty of its great distances and proportions, in the contours and settings of its brooks and rivers, it’s ponds, lakes and seas, in the lines of its valleys, hills and mountains, in the rhythms of its calms and storms, of its days and seasons.

We are fortunate to possess it. Our major duty now is to try to repair the scars that have already been left by greedy exploitation for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many. It is not too much to wish that the millions who drive the highways now planned can do so without having their view of this beauty obstructed by unsightly, trashy billboards the represent hucksterism at its most disgusting extreme.

_______

A headline in today’s local newspaper reflects the final fruits of hypocrisy and double talk, both of which are anathema to religious morals and ethics. It reads: “Washington County faces critical teacher shortage,” and the article goes on to point out that many key teachers in the county are leaving for other states where there is greater economic rewards for their efforts. It is highly likely that this is not only happening here, but also in the other 94 counties in the state.

This is a classic case of politicians’ chickens coming home to roost. [Governor] Clement and Company, including Washington County’s own representative, boasted while the legislature was in session of their victory over the teacher demands for a modest annual increase in salary. They now are finding that it was a pyrrhic victory. Political demagogues are fond of stating, for campaign purposes, that our children are our greatest resource, then when in office, proceed to give more attention to roads, migratory birds, and similar items than to the schools of those same children. There is an old East Tennessee-ism that, while slang, is colorful and expressive. It goes like this: “Put your money where your mouth is.” Maybe sometimes Tennessee politicians will learn to do just that and make their practice square with their preaching.

Teachers are not crass materialists. They have to possess a great deal of idealism to remain in an occupation that is comparatively poorly paid, respond to job demands that are infinite, accept the fact that their community prestige is low. Far too many times their just requests have been met with such silly twaddle as “dedication,” “opportunity for service.” Too often they have worked under a grossly unfair, so-called merit system salary schedule. They are at long last realizing that such soft soap does not pay the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker who, inconsiderately, insist that teachers pay their bills like anyone else. It is hardly likely that many teachers will shed crocodile tears over the shortages that now exist. Politicians, both of the legislative and educational variety, will have to accept the idea that if they want to get and keep good teachers they will have to pay for them. Then, and only then, will they demonstrate that they really mean what they have been saying about the importance of our children.

The Lone Star Steel Company of Dallas Texas, one of the major steel companies of the country, has added a full-time minister to its staff as chaplain for its workers. The chaplain, an ordained Methodist minister, is available to all workers for personal counseling and advice. The company has also constructed an interdenominational chapel for prayer and meditation by any of the more than 4,000 employees of the company.

_______

New York: A new name for the Brotherhood of the United Lutheran Church in America will be proposed to delegates at the organization’s 1957 convention in Pittsburgh, from October 17-19. A change in name, to United Lutheran Churchmen, along with a new constitution and by-laws had their first reading at last year’s convention. The United Lutheran Church in America has reported that it paid a quarterly dividend of 11.8 cents to subscribers to the common investing fun.

_______

The editor of The Christian Century magazine has raised questions about the lasting benefit of crusading techniques like those of Billy Graham. In an article written for the United Press, Dr. Harold E. Fey says, “Mass-produced conversations fail to endure the test of time. On the other hand, the one-by-one conversions which take place through the churches amount to more than 3 million each year, without fanfare or excitement and with a minimum of loss and disillusionment.”

_______

Mackinac Island, Michigan: A Philippine newspaper columnist says moral rearmament (whatever that is) is “the only platform for reconciliation between the Asian countries.” Vicente Villamin of Manila spoke last Tuesday to the Moral Rearmament World Assembly.

_______

Pittsburgh: A segregation law passed in South Africa this month has been described by the Anglican bishop of Johannesburg as, in his words, “a straitjacket of racist ideology.” The Rt. Rev. Richard Ambrose Reeves, speaking in Pittsburgh, said the new law threatens the freedom of assembly for the first time and includes churches. This illustrates clearly that once the people embark upon a restriction of one basic right, such restriction tends to spread until it embraces others, and unless stopped and reversed, ends by turning the country into a concentration camp where no rights exist. We have some in this country who think we can have just a little bit of restriction without harm.

_______

The dean of the Harvard Divinity School, the Rev. Dr. Douglas Horton, has been elected chairman of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches. Dr. Horton succeeds Archbishop Y. T. Brilioth of the Church of Sweden. The bishop of the Church of South India, the Rt. Rev. J. E. Lesslie Newbigin, has moved into Dr. Horton’s former post of Vice Chairman. Delegates to the commission meeting at Yale University Divinity School this week heard their executive secretary declare neither the World Council of Churches nor the Faith and Order Commission has claims of monopoly on matters of Christian unity. But Dr. J. Robert Nelson continued that the commission is unique because it is the only fully international and inter-confessional body that has as its sole purpose the promotion of the unity of all Christian people.

_______

Northern and Southern Baptists have at least their top officers on a remarkably intimate level. Both belong to the same congregation. The Rev. Dr. Clarence Cranford heads the American or Northern Baptist Convention. He is pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. One of his parishioners is Democratic Representative Brooks Hayes of Arkansas, who leads the Southern Baptist Convention. The two church bodies have been rivals in the past, and still are, but the two presidents have a fine working arrangement. Representative Hayes says, “Happy circumstances find us together. The exchange of ideas is very helpful.” Dr. Cranford states, “We can keep each other informed.”

This top executive proximity happens because of a simple but unusual arrangement in the nation’s capital. The 54 Baptist churches in Washington are duly aligned, that is, they are affiliated with both northern and southern groups. No report yet has been received of development of split personalities as a result of this arrangement.

_______

New York’s Francis Cardinal Spellman is reported as mentioned very prominently as a possible successor to Pope Pius as head of the Roman Catholic Church. The information comes from the Vatican-approved biographer of the 81-year-old pontiff. The biographer, Seamus Walshe, also says Archbishop Giovanni of Milan is considered a possible successor to the throne of St. Peter. Walshe has written what is described as a “human and personal” biography of Pope Pius XII. He is in the U.S. for a six-month lecture tour. He is an Irish educator on sabbatical leave from the Notre Dame International School in Rome.

_______

Every minute of every day for the last seven years prayers for easing the problems of the world have been sent up from the Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Church in Oklahoma City. The church’s pastor, the Rev. Monsignor John Walde, says that when the prayer vigil began, the Korean War looked as if it might lead to a third world war. There was tension over the whole world. And Corpus Christi Church had its own problems. Vandals had twice entered the church, burned valuable vestments, and ruined sacred vessels. Father Walde adds, “We thought prayer was the answer.” So at least one of the church’s 1,500 members has been in the church praying since that time. But Father Walde sees no reason why the vigil should end. As a matter of fact, no expiration time was set when the praying began.

_______

A subject of basic import to all Americans who cherish freedom, including freedom of religion, is one that receives little attention in the press, namely the serious restraints upon Americans who wish to travel in other countries. As The Washington Post editorialized not long ago, the State Department is now denying to all American citizens, with a few official exceptions, the right to travel in China, Albania, Bulgaria, North Korea, and North Vietnam. Earlier, and for some months, it imposed a similar blanket ban on travel to Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. Moreover, some Americans are denied permission by the department to travel anywhere, Americans, i.e., who are adjudged (or prejudged) by the department as being persons who cannot be trusted, according to the arbitrary standards of the bureaucrats in the Department of State.

Prior to World War I, passports were not required, but in recent years they have become a kind of exit permit without which one cannot leave the country, and while, in form, they are somewhat like birth certificates, i.e., mere documents of identity and nationality, the department uses them as instruments of policy, withholding them whenever and from whomever it chooses. A serious question exists as to whether these restraints on freedom of movement, whether applied indiscriminately to certain areas or discriminatory in regard to all travel abroad of suspected individuals, do not violate the basic American constitutional right.

It is true that there is no explicit guarantee of freedom of movement in the Constitution, but that freedom has been recognized ever since the Magna Carta in the common law of England and in the traditions of the U.S. as a right of free men. In 1948, the United States signed, but the present chief executive has not seen fit to present formally to the Senate for ratification, a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted unanimously by the General Assembly of the United Nations, and which reads in part, “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his own country.” In recent decisions, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has referred to the right to leave the country as “an attribute of personal liberty” and as “a natural right subject to the rights of others and to reasonable regulation under law.”

However, since 1918 it has been a crime to leave or enter the country in time of war without a passport. Congress gave the president authority, in 1941, to make travel restrictions in times of national emergency. In pursuance of that authority, an executive order forbids citizens to go abroad except in conformity with regulations prescribed by the secretary of state, and in this order designates two bases on which passports may be denied:

1. That travel by ordinary Americans might adversely affect foreign relations;
2. That travel by persons suspected of communist sympathies might impair national security.

Without venturing to comment on the constitutional issue that may be involved here, it is pertinent to question whether, as a matter of national policy, the freedom of Americans should be so drastically limited at the mere discretion of a public official, and an appointed one at that. Power to conduct foreign relations does not mean power to control all acts of Americans which may affect foreign relations. The General Counsel of the American Jewish Congress, Will Maslow, pointed out recently before a Senate committee that American citizens in this country may, by acts or utterances, affect foreign relations more significantly than by routine tourist travel, yet the State Department, thank goodness, has no power to regulate such acts or utterances. The department may rightly warn against travel into countries where danger exists, but to prohibit such travel at the traveler’s own risk is a kind of paternalism – or “father knows best” idea – that is alien to the American tradition. It may refuse protestation; it should not refuse exit.

And as far as suspected security risks are concerned, one cannot help but wonder whether the power to deny passports is not more dangerous to liberty than the travel itself. It is of course true that disloyal persons might serve as communist couriers or might do things abroad that are not to the advantage of the United States. But the danger is hardly as great as reposing in the passport office arbitrary authority to keep Americans at home. Since freedom of travel is a basic human right, it ought to be denied only when the exercise of it would facilitate a violation of law, such as in the case of fugitives from justice, draft evaders, or others seeking to escape their rightful responsibilities. It is more than doubtful that, if they knew the facts, many Americans would subscribe to this paper curtain erected by little men whose egos impel them to tell what other people shall do or not do in the matter of travel; little men who think they know what is good for others and for America. A strong country such as ours needs no such dictatorial nonsense.

_______

These are stirring if not exactly great days, both on the local and national scene. Last Friday, according to eyewitness reports and newspaper comment, a hearing was held for an accused person in Jonesboro, where the atmosphere must have been somewhat like old Roman days where the crowds gathered to see Christians thrown to the lions. At any rate, the climate of the courtroom was far less than decent decorum of judicial proceedings would require. Whether the accused in this or in any other criminal case is guilty or innocent is a matter to be determined in a calm, judicial atmosphere, not the kind that prevailed in this case. The popular curiosity-seekers, the morbid fascination, etc., are all understandable. What is not understandable is that the person presiding would let such a ridiculous situation continue throughout the hearing.

On the national stage it would appear that everything else has to wait while a handful of Southern Dixiecrats kill off, with administrative backing through vacillation, a bill designed to strengthen the enforcement of basic civil rights of all Americans. The House is stymied until the filibuster fanfare is over, and it looks right now as if the civil rights bill may be carried out of the Senate draped under a Confederate flag. It might be appropriate also for those responsible for its demise to get a few Nazi salutes, which would be in keeping with their ideology of racist supremacy and superiority.

All agree that the legislative program of the administration is bogged down and that little if any constructive legislation is to emerge from this session of Congress. The school aid bill was killed in the House this week. The administration blames Congress and the Congress blames the administration. It is likely that if the chief executive would like to know who is most responsible for this lack of achievement on his proposals, he could first meet that person merely by walking to the nearest mirror.

Denver: The editor of the Episcopal Church news magazine has raised the question whether Christianity can get too “popular.” Dr. William S. Lea, recently chosen dean of St. John’s Cathedral in Denver, says in a special article for the United Press that thoughtful Christians are concerned about relating their beliefs to the real problems of the modern world. He sets forth seven steps for cementing religious awakenings:

1. The parish church has to show forth in its common life what is proclaimed from its pulpit;

2. Evangelism and the church’s mission begin at home but does not end there;

3. Every layman must be a minister;

4. A greater application of the Gospel to all life;

5. The need to recognize the principle of contagion: He says that “Christianity is more often caught than taught;”

6. Jesus talked about God-centered living, not about religion. Religion is not a biblical word at all;

7. The need to proclaim the principle of redemption.

By relating Christianity to these steps, Dr. Lea believes that the current religious revival in America will have a more lasting effect, and, by implication at least, if it is not so related, it is simply superficial manifestation that will soon vanish.

_______

The president of the National Council of Churches indicates that communist practices call for serious questions about the Western world’s treatment of women. Dr. Eugene Carson Blake says the communists try to treat women as if they were men. He also told a meeting of the World Council of Churches, meeting at the Yale Divinity School, that the Western paternalistic society assumes the man to be the head of the household and the leader in all activities. (An assumption, this reporter should like to interpolate, that is more apparent than real.) Anyway, Dr. Blake goes on to say that the communist attitude raises the question whether the Christian church needs to find an alternative between the two patterns. Ideally, there should be a partnership between men and women on an equal basis, but making use of the special abilities of each sex. He asserts that it would appear a Christian society should hasten on its own initiative to remove legal and other artificial barriers; I should like to add, to both men and women.

_______

Rabbi Jacob K. Shankman of New Rochelle, New York, has been elected chairman of the American Board of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. Announcement of the election has been made in the biennial convention of the union in Amsterdam, Holland. Rabbi Shankman succeeds Rabbi Ferdinand M. Isserman of St. Louis, Missouri, in the American post.

_______

Just before the weekly Moslem noon prayers Friday, one of the Islamic world’s leaders was buried in the “Land of the Setting Sun.” The body of the Aga Khan III will lie first in a temporary brick tomb in a corner of the courtyard in the old imam’s villa at Aswan, on the Nile in Upper Egypt. Later a permanent mausoleum will be built for the remains of the 79-year-old Islamic Moslem leader, who died in Switzerland.

_______

At Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, Bishop William T. Watkins of Louisville, Kentucky, has told a five-day session of Methodist pastors and district superintendents that “We southerners have a fearful responsibility in the matter of race relations, and we must be careful not to consider the same old problem.” “This is a new hour and history has turned a corner to face a brand-new situation when the worth and dignity of an individual, regardless of race or color, is being fully recognized and fought for around the world.” He goes on, “Race relations is not merely a southern or American problem.” But “America’s future and well-being, it’s leadership in world affairs, is at stake in this whole matter.” Few realists would disagree with that.

_______

Many, perhaps most, of our Puritan forefathers were stalwart Calvinistic Englishmen and of course we are proud of them. But from around 1650 to the present, theology has experienced revolution after revolution: the protest of Pynchon; the concession of Jonathan Edwards; the Arminianism of the Wesleyan revival; the anthropology of Channing; Bushnell’s “Christian nurture”; the social gospel; and today philosophic humanism moving in one direction and despairing neo-Calvinism moving in the opposite direction. Once in a while we need to pause to survey the distance we have come and to envision the road before us. It will suffice little to waste our energies battling for a system of theology, whether it be humanism or Calvinism, and losing sight of the essential nature of religion (all religions) itself.

Religion is man’s response to the totality of the universe. The critical examination of this phenomenon is a philosophy of religion – any religion. The study of religion is a derivative and summative science. Religion has no data that are not also the data of other disciplines. The study of religion is the study of man on this planet from the standpoints of value, meaning, and appreciation. Since these are all involved in human experience, there is nothing in life that is foreign to religious examination. Thus practically religion is the science of life, the art of living. Psychology calls it “adjustment.” Religion can be studied in solitude, but it’s doubtful that it can be practiced in solitude. A. Eustice Hayden helpfully suggests that religion is simply “the shared quest for the good life.”

As one tries to examine the trend of scientific advance and tries to answer the question of whether modern scientific development was inevitable, given the nature of the human species, it is easy to arrive at the conclusion that technical progress is an inescapable necessity, like the law of nature of itself. There is little hope of trying to hold back the unfolding of science. But such a conclusion raises cogently the question of conflict between necessity and freedom, or determinism and freedom of the will. If civilization moves by unchanging laws, then what is the sense in our endeavor to direct it or to give it reasonable purpose? Would it not be better to accept a fatalistic attitude and live gaily from day to day? How can we speak about guilt and collective crime when we have recognized the inevitability of the development from the savage with bow and arrow to the airman with a hydrogen bomb?

One answer may be that the real world, which at times seems to be predetermined, sometimes seems to be a place where free will operates, and may actually be both. Just as light sometimes seems to be a train of waves, and sometimes a group of corpuscles, while both descriptions are really different aspects of the same physical situation, so also the apparent contradiction between predetermination and free will is not a real contradiction. Metaphysicians may proclaim one or the other of these doctrines but common people can accept the dual nature of the universe.

It is true that the hydrogen bomb is a devilish invention and that there is opposition to its manufacture and testing. The man who had directed the production of the first uranium bomb, Robert Oppenheimer, tried to resist production of the hydrogen bomb and was squeezed out of the Atomic Energy Commission for his pains. The principal promoter of the hydrogen bomb, Edward Teller, not only developed the theory of the bomb, but has agitated for its production. Thus he has inscribed his name in the book of world history – whether on the debit or on the credit side, the future will reveal. Teller’s justification of his course ran something like this: If we do not make this bomb, the Russians will. As a matter of fact, the first H-bomb explosion took place only a short time afterwards.

The leading statesman of the big atomic powers are in the habit of declaring that great war has become impossible. But neither their own foreign offices, nor the governments of smaller states take much notice of such declarations. The old diplomatic game, the bargaining and quarreling about small advantages, continue as if nothing had happened. Immensely expensive preparations are constantly being made for a war, which must under no circumstances be allowed to come about. Such is the crazy situation in which we find ourselves. It looks as if our civilization were condemned to ruin by reason of its own structure.

At the present time, fear alone enforces a precarious peace. However, that is an unstable state of affairs that must be replaced by something better if catastrophe is to be avoided. It is not necessary to look far in order to find a more solid basis for the proper conduct of human affairs. It is the principle which is common to all great religions with which all moral philosophers agree: the principle which in our part of the world is taught by the doctrine of Christianity; the principle which Mahatma Gandhi actually carried into practice before our own eyes, in liberating his own country, India, from foreign domination. It is a renunciation of force in pursuit of political aims except insofar as collective force, under control of the community – in this case, the world – is applied in an orderly way to prevent those who would destroy mankind from carrying out their evil purposes.

National sovereignty run amuck is a principal force blocking the development of such a community. Vested interests, in the form of markets, bureaucratic positions, personal and group status and prestige, as well as plain ignorance, combined to distort, misinterpret, frustrate the efforts of those who believe that the free world must rapidly, while it has a chance left, move to develop a world order based on law and democratic process that will curb the Hitlers and Stalins, and others much nearer home, but who here shall remain nameless, who would fasten upon mankind the terrible destructiveness of its own inventions. It is these who regard anyone advocating world order under law as being destructive of the status quo, and they are right. But a great prophet once remarked that “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Vision and action are needed urgently now before inevitable conflict under the present system may well cause us all to perish. I personally prefer one world to none.

_______

This last item is one that every person in Washington County should have in his consciousness and on his conscience. On April 30, a citizen of this community was murdered in cold blood, premeditatedly. It was almost a month before the first arrest was made in the case. Another arrest was made a week ago. Within this past week, an almost unbelievable series of events have occurred.

Two independent investigators employed by the county have withdrawn from the case, stating as their reason that they did not have cooperation from the chief law enforcement official of the county, an elected official. One report has them stating that he actually impeded the investigation.

To further compound the confusion, a legal firm, one of the best-known in the region, that had been hired by the father of the murdered man to aid the prosecution, withdrew from the case, giving as its reason that it could not get the cooperation rightly expected from the chief legal officer of the county, also an elected official.

To add a touch of something or other to an already chaotic situation, one of the accused has employed the services of a much-advertised attorney to conduct her defense.

In lengthy statements that, to this reporter at least, confuse rather than clarified the basic questions, both sheriff and attorney general avowed their earnest desire to see justice done, the latter saying that he was requesting a special prosecutor from the state capital to conduct the prosecution.

All of these things have left the public disturbed, confused, disgusted. The blood of Everett Jenkins cries aloud and loudly, not for vengeance, but for simple justice. Those to whom the people of this county have entrusted enforcement of the law have failed, either in procedure or purpose, to function effectively, or this sorry mess of affairs would not have developed. The public has a right to a simple and unequivocal answer to the sheriff’s own question when he heard the second arrest had been made: “What’s going on here?”

The Tennessee Press Association, meeting this week at Gatlinburg, continues its fight for the right of the people to know how government is handling, or mishandling, the public business. Resolutions were approved affirming the stand of the association, under the slogan, “What the people don’t know will hurt them.” Is it not ironical that in America, devoted to the government supposedly of, by, and for the people, that elected and appointed officials should consider that the work they are doing in behalf of the people is none of that same people’s business? Boards of education, meeting of administrative officials, and the like, which should be open to the public are being held behind closed doors from which the public is excluded. The press should be commended for its continuing fight for democracy against the stubborn undemocratic attitudes of public agencies that would deny the people the right to know what their government is doing.

_______

One adjustment to the uncomfortable summer weather in this region is made by the Rosemont Presbyterian Church of Bristol, which began this morning at 8:30 its services normally held at 11:00 o’clock. Sunday school, usually preceding the service, will hereafter be held immediately after the sermon. This practice is intended to continue through the worst heat period of the summer. It is the first adjustment of its kind that so far has been reported in the news.

_______

A prominent speaker and writer, one Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, writes that God always answers prayer. If you get that for which you pray, that’s proof. If you don’t, he says, “Your prayer has been answered negatively.” This would seem to be a sort of “heads I win; tails you lose” proposition, is it not? Anyway, it is very definitely in the Peale tradition. That should be something, though just what, it is very difficult to say at times.

_______

A short lesson in theology appeared in the news this week. It goes like this: “Humanism is not a denomination but a philosophy of religion. Unitarianism is not a philosophy of religion but a denomination, providing a framework for many different philosophies of religion. Each person should make his own spiritual adventure. Thoreau said we do not all march to the beat of the same drum.” Make sense, does it not?

_______

It is gratifying to know that the Ten Commandments for parents that were passed along in the last broadcast struck a receptive note with some of you, and it is a pleasure to pass along the ten for children, which was mentioned then. Here they are:

1. You shall not cause one parent to turn against the other.
2. Remember your parents have the same right as you to enjoy life, secure rest, and to have the fruits of their labor.
3. You shall not ignore your parents’ experience and wisdom.
4. You shall share in the responsibilities and labor of the family according to your ability and according to the need.
5. Your brother and sister shall be your friend and not your rival.
6. Your behavior before your teacher and in the community shall not bring reproach upon your family.
7. You shall respect the privacy of your father and mother, brother and sister.
8. You shall not reveal the secrets of your household nor bring gossip within your gates.
9. You shall observe the routine of your household and need not to be reminded of your daily tasks.
10. You shall learn diligently thy faith, observe its commandments, and attend its worship that you may be worthy of the best life.

_______

Much has been appearing in recent weeks and months about censorship. Movies, radio, television, newspapers, and even courts have dealt with the matter – not to mention the local busybodies, official or self-appointed, who are always trying to tell someone else what can be read. These same people would resent anyone telling them what they could or could not read. Several times the National Organization for Decent Literature, a Catholic agency, has been mentioned on this program. And some of you listeners have taken offense when none was intended. For that matter, it seems appropriate here to explain again the program viewpoint on the matter. The Roman Catholic Church, or any other private agency has a right to express its opinion on literature. That is merely an exercise of the right of freedom of speech. However, it does not have the right to coerce publishers or bookstores. The government is forbidden by the First and 14th Amendments to abridge the freedom of the press. If Catholics want this organization to tell them what they can and cannot read, that is their business, but it is likely that most of us resent having a priest, minister, or rabbi tell us what may or may not be read. It would appear that the organization’s priests are not in favor of sex. Under its express standards it would be logical to ban the Bible, the Odyssey, and Shakespeare. It would be very illuminating to you listeners, Catholic and non-Catholic, to secure a list of books banned by this organization. You can then see the dangerous quagmire into which such interference with legitimate knowledge can lead.

_______

And along the same line, it is pertinent to observe that the Supreme Court this week held that freedom of speech and press under the First Amendment does not extend to the obscene. Now probably 95% of Americans could agree upon certain things as being obscene; a similar proportion might be found agreeing upon what is not obscene. But what about the in-between? By what criteria is obscenity to be determined? Any of you listeners want to send in a definition that will fit all situations? It is more than likely that the court is going to have a fine list of cases coming up to it where not even the wisdom of a Solomon can draw a dividing line between the ’tis and the ’tain’t. In most cases it is also likely that whether something is or is not obscene depends upon the inner state of the reader or hearer, and this fact defies even the collective wisdom of the Supreme Court.

_______

So you have evinced some interest as to why this, a program devoted to current items of religious significance, is concerned so often and so much about various American freedoms, some of which are not exclusively religious in themselves. There should be no wonderment on this. Our bundle of freedoms is indivisible, and an attack on one anywhere anytime is a potential threat at least to all the rest of them. How can one have freedom of religion without freedom of speech? If speech can be curbed in the name of secular ideology, it can also be restrained next, in the name of religion. Without freedom of the press, dissemination of diverse views on religion would not be possible. If men and women were not free peaceably to assemble, if government at any level can prevent today a meeting of a political group, it may tomorrow, with as much logic, interfere with the gathering of a religious body that it does not like. Restriction of any one of the traditional freedoms sets up a chain reaction that can have reverberations throughout the whole range of civil liberties, including that of religion. And yet, some religious-minded people, or people who think they are religious-minded, would, if they could, curb ideas, meetings, or publications they do not like. I personally detest some of the stuff that rolls over the air waves, purporting to be music. To me, it is just noise, and very unpleasant noise at that. But who am I to say that it shall be banned? Some people actually like that stuff. And I could not be consistent in my thinking and behavior if I tried to ban it. Instead, I reach for the knob and turn it off. That is the limit of my freedom to curb. If my neighbor wishes to listen to it, that is his business, not mine.

_______

All of us are familiar with a supposed saying of a former president that his minister was “agin sin.” Well, the current chief executive, it would appear, is also. At his press conference this week, he was asked for a comment on the recommendation by a federal study commission that Congress make it a crime for private citizens, including newsmen, to disclose secret government information. The president replied that anyone doing that ought to be ashamed of himself. It is comforting to know that he is going to take such a firm and forthright stand on a very critical issue.

In Louisville, Kentucky, this week the Grace Lutheran Church opened its doors for the vacation Bible school. Out in front of the church had been placed a sign which read “All Children Welcome.” The church has been in existence for 66 years as an all-white institution, and it had no apprehension that the sign would be taken literally by non-white children, but that is what happened. Eleven Negro children showed up unexpectedly, and in about half a minute a 66-year tradition had been broken. For the minister, the Rev. Henry Kleckley, and the school director, Mrs. P. E. Davis, decided immediately to take the Negro children into the classes. The church governing body moved to support the decision, and thus this Lutheran Church is believed to be the first all-white church in the Louisville area to adopt integrated vacation Bible classes, and the first of its denomination south of the Mason-Dixon line. Believers in democracy and in Christianity applied cannot but applaud this episode, and hope that there may be more like it –  soon.

_______

Some time ago there appeared in the local daily newspaper two sets of 10 Commandments: one for parents, another for children. Since this reporter is more of a parent now than he is a child, he has taken the set for parents more seriously and wishes to pass them on to you, in modern day version. They were prepared by Rabbi and Mrs. William M. Kramer of California, and read as follows:

1. You shall strive to banish fear and anxiety from your gates and invite love and security within your portals.
2. You shall see your child as a personality to be released, not as a possession to be retained, praising his accomplishments, judging them according to his youth and gifts.
3. You shall honor and cherish your mate so that love permeates the household and adorns its inhabitants.
4. You shall train your child to respect himself, but in so doing not feel rejected by you.
5. You shall not be cowardly or overly-indulgent lest your child knows not the bounds of decency and good behavior.
6. When you are vexed with the ways of childhood remember, then, the days of your youth.
7. You shall help your child love beauty, uphold truth, walk in friendship, and serve his nation.
8. You shall make your home your child’s home wherein his friends are welcome guests.
9. You shall not exploit, nor compete with your child for gain or for pride or for any selfish end, nor visit upon him your parent’s shortcomings towards you.
10. You shall teach your children diligently your faith, to observe its commandments and attend its worship, prepare him for marriage, and the doing of good deeds.

It is entirely possible, even probable, that not everyone will subscribe to all of these, but it is also unlikely that many will disagree with very much. Parenthood is essentially a responsibility vested in parents, a responsibility which they cannot escape, to provide the best possible environment so that their children may develop in wisdom and stature to the utmost of their physical, mental, and moral capacities. For parents, both of them, to do anything less, is to shirk their responsibilities and to stunt the full development of young lives entrusted together to their care. Parents who put their own narrow and personal desires ahead of the welfare of their children are likewise not living up to their most important obligations.

_______

Perhaps many of you can recall that about two years ago there was much publicity about the so-called Reese Committee study of the foundations – Carnegie, Rockefeller, Ford, and others of the large philanthropic funds set aside for particular purposes. Particularly did the Ford Foundation come under fire of the committee mainly because it was making objective and impartial investigations and reports in areas and in a manner that aroused the ire of vested interests with whom members of the committee were very much in sympathy. The Fund for the Republic, a branch of the Ford Foundation, particularly, came under committee attack because it was sponsoring studies in the field of human rights and the American tradition.

An undertaking of the fund initiated within the past year has been little publicized, but is one which potentially could be very productive, and in its nature, is designed to articulate and make more widely understood basic elements of the American scheme of things. It is entitled “The American Traditions Project,” intended to discover and dramatize incidents from daily life, particularly those which might never reach the headlines, in which courage and good sense of Americans had been demonstrating in action our traditions of freedom and justice.

A series of awards was offered for letters reporting true stories of individuals or groups who had successfully defended the rights to think and read freely, and who had applied the principles of the Bill of Rights in concrete human situations against the dictates of expediency. These letters were submitted to a panel of distinguished judges who selected those most worthy of award. The first prize was awarded last year to Mr. John B. Orr, Jr., a native Southerner of Florida, who, as a representative in the Florida state legislature, was the only one who stood up and voted against legislation designed to control school segregation in his state in spite of the Supreme Court decision. This was not only risking a political career, but was undertaking an extreme hazard to his own personal safety. He believed segregation was morally wrong, no matter how long it had existed. So he voted, one in 90 members, against what he believed to be evil. He was running for re-election even as he cast his vote, and while his vote was contrary to the personal statements of virtually all his constituents, the election was a great tribute to him and the good common sense of the voters, for while there were the usual threats, abuse, anonymous telephone calls, he was re-elected because enough of the people in his district admired and respected his courage and integrity.

The second award, while not having the drama of legislative debate on a public issue, reaches deeply into the American tradition that prevails among the masses of the American people. Two women were waitresses in a bus depot in Akron, Ohio. A stranger, an unknown man, had come into the bus depot after attending a midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. He fell asleep there. Some local police came in, awakened, abused, struck, handcuffed him and finally arrested him for loitering, and took him to jail. This man was a recent refugee from communist Poland and had suffered many years in Nazi concentration camps, but the ladies did not know about that. They saw only a stranger who was threatened unjustly. After the man was taken away they drove out to the man’s home in an adjoining town. They spoke to his landlady, to the police, and even went to see the mayor of the town. When they went to court, though their employer had broadly intimated they should not voluntarily testify, they did so in the man’s defense, and as a result of their testimony, the man was released. They did all this for a person whom they had never seen before but because he was a human being receiving treatment that was alien to the American concept of fair play and justice. And had they had not acted in his behalf, he would probably have been thrown in jail and stayed there for a term for something he had not done. These women received the Fund for the Republic award because of their perseverance and insistence on American traditional fair play. Their names are Mrs. Ann Harr and Mrs. Bessie Dick.

Time does not permit enumeration in any detail of the other awards. A third involves a courageous newspaperwoman in Lexington, Mississippi, who, despite deep-seated community opposition, attacked bootlegging in a supposedly dry state. She opposed race violence, and in her forthright editorials made her convictions clear, though she suffered a judgment of libel brought in a suit by a local officer, and was charged with contempt of court. Fortunately higher courts threw these out. She is Mrs. Hazel Brannon Smith.

It is examples such as these that keep the true spirit of American traditions alive. The people involved had little to gain by espousing unpopular causes, but it was such espousal of such causes that created our heroes at Valley Forge. And if America ever reaches the point where such kinds of courageous people with disinterested convictions failed to exist and act, the most vital essence of the American spirit in human affairs will have ceased to exist, and we will be a morally bankrupt people.

_______

Four Congregational Christian Churches and a number of ministers and laymen have asked federal court action to prevent merger of their denomination with the Evangelical and Reformed Church. The suit, filed last Thursday, asked a declaratory judgment that the basis of the union is null and void and that the idea of a merger at this time is illegal and invalid. The group filing the action contend the Congregational Church General Council does not have the power to conduct the merger. The Congregational churches are described as fully independent and the General Council is termed an advisory body with no authority over any of the churches. However, Dr. Fred Hoskins, minister or head of the Congregational General Council, has stated that the lawsuit contains nothing to prevent proceeding with uniting the General Synod this coming week in Cleveland. The proposed church will have the name of the United Church in Christ, with some 2.1 million members.

These are two of America’s oldest Protestant denominations. The Congregational Christian Churches, descended from the pilgrims who came to New England aboard the Mayflower; while the early German and Dutch immigrants established the Evangelical and Reformed Church in this country in the early 18th century.

_______

The 171st Annual Conference of the Church of the Brethren has passed a statement on war that says its members should neither participate in war nor learn the art of war. Concern is expressed over what the church terms the nation’s increasing movement toward a permanently militaristic outlook. It urges the Brethren to study international relations and foreign policy and the constructive use of atomic power for the benefit of mankind. The convention has been meeting this week in Richmond, Virginia. This church has a long record of conscientious objection to war, and its actions this week is well within its long-established tradition.

_______

Again Richmond, the Temple of the Jewish Beth Ahabah Congregation stands only one block from the St. James Episcopal Church. Several months ago, a service was held in the synagogue for the retiring Episcopal rector. The Episcopalians were invited, and saw the Rev. Dr. Churchill Gibson presented with an inscribed Bible. Now the two congregations have gone further. They had jointly bought three of the homes separating their two buildings, and will make a parking lot. This will work out well, for Beth Ahabah worships on Saturday, and St. James congregation on Sunday.

_______

In Munich, Germany, a Catholic priest, a rabbi, and a Protestant minister have recorded interviews for broadcast behind the Iron Curtain as a symbol of religious freedom in this country. Father Robert Welch, Rabbi Frederick Bargebuhr, and Lutheran minister George Forell are members of a unique religious education experiment at The Iowa State University. They conduct classes in their beliefs at the university’s School of Religion…. The only one of its kind in the United States.

_______

London: Russia is starting to woo Moslem religious nationalist movements in the Arab world. A policy review in the Russian publication Kommunist urges that special attention be paid to religious sects and leaders in the Middle East.

_______

Indianapolis: A Methodist bishop says there must be closing of what he calls a “gap of misunderstanding” between Protestant and Roman Catholic churches. Bishop Richard C. Raines, the Episcopal head of the Methodist Church in Indiana, referred to the closing of Protestant institutions in Spain last year. He said this action makes Americans, in his words, “apprehensive lest the Roman Catholic should ever become dominant in the United States.”

_______

Waterloo, Iowa: Methodist Bishop Gerald Ensley believes the average community thinks ministers are much like Eagle Scouts – nice but not important. He told the North Iowa Conference of the Methodist Church that the community looks on ministers benevolently, but doesn’t take them seriously. This, he added, is worse than being persecuted or verbally attacked.

Today near Nashua, Iowa, is a celebration of the centennial of a song about a church, “The Little Brown Church in the Vale.” It was written on June 14, 1857, by music teacher William Pitts about a spot where a church did not stand. But the place impressed him as waiting for a church to be built there. Pitts saw the spot en route to visit a girl, Ann Warren, and to ask her parents’ permission to marry her. He sang the song at the dedication of the church in 1864. Later Pitts became a doctor. “The Little Brown Church” has its own long-time tradition as a very popular wedding place.

_______

The United Presbyterian Church of North America has voted to merge with the Presbyterian Church USA next May…. The moderator of the United Presbyterians in their final year is to be Dr. Robert Montgomery. He is president of Muskegon College, in new Concord, Ohio, where the church has been holding its final separate assembly.

_______

A scholarly yet easily-read book has been published to help tell the story of Judaism. Dr. Bernard Bamberger, rabbi of New York City’s West End Synagogue, stresses in his work the development of the great ideals of his religion. In the book, entitled “The Story of Judaism,” he states his firm belief that the core of Jewish experience is religious. In the core are the God idea; the concept of man and of humanity; the moral law; the future hope; the two foci or centers of synagogue and home; and the system of study, prayer, and observance. But Rabbi Bamberger says the current secular Jewish philosophies are a challenge to Jewish religion and thus must be considered. Still, he adds, the Judaism of today is the Judaism of Sinai. He tells the story from the seeds and roots – as Abraham and Moses and the exodus from Egypt. The Torah is explained. The author terms it more than “law.” Instead, “Torah” means the direction given man by God for the guidance of his life

In other chapters, the author writes of the effects of the Jews, Greeks, and Romans and their religions on each other; of the Jews and their religion up through the middle ages; the combating of discrimination by American and French revolutions; pogroms and anti-Semitism; American Judaism; and the state of Israel today.

Bamberger says that Paul, or Saul of Tarsus, made Christianity a different kind of religion than his and its native Judaism. The author defines Judaism as a religious discipline of acts and duties. “Pauline Christianity,” he declares, is a plan of salvation achieved through faith. Judaism is seen as centered around a divine command, and Christianity around the divine person.

Judaism, he goes on, is the source of another world-religion, Islam. But Islam never had any connection with corporate Jewish life. Although its teachings closely resemble those those of Judaism. Dr. Bamberger says that Mohammed taught a religion derived largely from conversations with Jewish acquaintances. Islam means “submission,” that is, submission to the will of the deity. The author sees the ethical standards of the Koran is fairly high and doing much to lift the Arab moral tone. But he adds that the Koran does not teach the full measure of universalism and sensitive tenderness found in the best Jewish teachings.

Well, that is the evaluation of his own religion and of other religions, and one can forgive him if he is ethnocentric about that to which he subscribes. Is there any of us who is not?

_______

Two Roman Catholic missionaries from California have been released from four years of jail and house detention in Communist China. The Rev. Charles McCarthy, 45 years old, of San Francisco, and the Rev. John Alexander Houle, 42 years old, of Glendale, expect to be in Hong Kong in about 10 days. By telephone from Shanghai, Father McCarthy has reported that he and Father Houle are in fair health. But he also said that Father Houle has a back ailment for which he is in bad need of treatment.

_______

A Protestant Episcopal minister charges that evangelist Billy Graham is using Madison Avenue advertising techniques to fill Madison Square Garden every night. The Rev. Howard Graf, of the Church of St. John’s in Greenwich Village, New York, said “There are thousands in the garden who are there because they love a parade, a show, circus, or to watch the fire engines go by.” Graf spoke from the pulpit of his church to about 100 persons. Graham has been preaching nightly to crowds estimated at 15,000 – 19,000 persons. Graham has never been a favorite or hero to this reporter, and many times he has aroused skepticism about many things. But could it be that the Rev. Graf may have a little jealousy also at the contrast in size of respective audiences? Is it not about time we quit throwing stones at each other? It is to be hoped that the net effect of Graham’s activities will be good. Who can complain about one who does good, however small that amount of good may be? It is better to ignore such if you do not to agree with them, then to berate and give them more publicity and perhaps make a martyr them to some.

_______

Vatican City: The newspaper L’Osservatore Romano has reminded its readers that the Vatican holds that there can be no collaboration between Catholics and socialists. The paper pointed out that the church not only condemns the communists, but has explicit reservations with regards to socialists, even when they have no formal links with the communists. It would be wonderful if labels were accurate and distinctions between right and wrong were always so simple.

_______

A 46-year-old man who spent 16 years in prison for a murder he did not commit has been ordained a Presbyterian minister. Nearly 450 persons were on hand to see John Cacopardo, of Hackensack, New Jersey, ordained at the Oliver Presbyterian Church on Staten Island. Cacopardo, married, and the father of two children, was sent to prison in 1937 for the murder of a young woman. Later, his uncle, Paul Petrillo, who had been a witness against him, was proved to have committed the murder. Cacopardo was granted a full pardon by Gov. Averell Harriman.

_______

Vatican City: The primate of Poland, Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, returns on Monday, tomorrow, to Poland after a 39-day stay in Italy. The 56-year-old cardinal who was released last October from the communist detention camp had a farewell audience on Thursday with the pope. He will return to Poland by train, by way of Vienna.

_______

One more brief comment on liberal religion and the attitude of the religious liberal: The liberal is tolerant, hospitable to truth from every and any source. Tolerance does not imply a don’t-care attitude, nor does it mean a mush of complaisance. It does not mean everyone is right, and it certainly does not mean appearing to agree when you don’t. In short, it does not mean being a hypocrite. The liberal would explode superstition wherever he finds it; he would expose error; uncover fraud; stop exploitation of man by man; oppose wickedness; and correct ignorance. It is possible to pursue a gladiatorial attitude towards evil without impairing other values.

_______

The Walt Disney movie production which this reporter has not seen comes highly recommended in reviews that he has read, and he intends to see it when the opportunity arises. It is about the city of Boston where its citizens revolted when they believed their rights as Englishmen were denied. The review goes on to point out that the picture shows how hard-won and precious is our political heritage. This picture of Englishmen who had to become Americans in order to ensure domestic tranquility and secure the blessings of liberty comes highly recommended.

_______

It is a matter of increasing concern to many of us who like our system here in this country, and would seek to improve it, that so many take our freedoms, and this includes religious freedom, for granted, and refuse to see that if these freedoms are attacked, it will not be by a frontal assault but by persons seeking in the name of freedom to protect it by their own authoritarian devices and strategy. For example, in some parts of this country and by some elements of the population, both public and private, our Constitution is mocked and the Bill of Rights, disregarded. Within the past few years many reputations have been ruined by government stool pigeons. Citizens’ rights to travel are now being abridged and denied, and a possible new tyranny under the name of “internal security” sweeps over the land. Both private and public-appointed sensors survey the books we read are permitted to read, the magazines we buy, and the friends we have. Reports crop up now and then  – how many more there are that do not get revealed cannot be estimated – of browbeating of the press and intimidating the clergy. The press, on its part, plays up the releases given out by investigating committees and censors boards, and thus participate in character assassination. The self-styled intellectuals in many churches busy themselves with the metaphysical contradictions of Barth, Niebuhr, and Graham, while defenders of our traditional liberties are called suspicious characters and enemies of liberties are given metals as patriots. Coercion at home becomes coercion abroad, and the U.S. could easily become a replacement of Britain as a bully among the nations, telling them what kind of government they can have and what their several foreign policies shall be.

These are not welcome facts, but they are facts. The Pollyannas will keep repeating to themselves that “God’s in his heaven, all’s well with the world,” and maybe some of them will actually believe it. Democracy flourishes only when all are informed and willing to face facts realistically in the face of them. Perhaps it will do us all good to see “Johnny Tremain” and reorient ourselves in the true spirit that activated the people of Boston who made it possible through their acts to provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare.

_______

Some of the materials that crossed my desk this week contained writings of certain neo-orthodox disciples, writings that have very pious sounds. However, if one seeks the meanings behind these sounds, the writings become very confusing. What these neo-orthodox persons are saying in effect is that religious man must give up the idea of human understanding and place his faith in the absurd. To put it in their phrase, “The ways of God are beyond human comprehension; therefore absurdity is the ultimate basis of faith.” Well, if the ways of God are beyond comprehension, how are the neo-orthodox in a position to make any statement about God and God’s ways? Ancient theology, when subjected to a rigorous methodology, can often become incredible and absurd. But the neos, in an effort to hold the line, make a bold pitch for the incredible, the absurd, and the contradictory as the only basis of true faith. There appears little difference between Cadillac neo-orthodoxy and pedestrian fundamentalism.

There is a sense in which the church and believers in it are not free: They are not free to reject sound scholarship; They are not free to deny the valid conclusions of science; They are not free to believe where there is no evidence; And they are not free from mental discipline, whatever men may put into books to the contrary.

_______

The much-maligned Fund for the Republic, part of the Ford Foundation, recently announced the establishment of a Commission on Rights, Liberties, and Responsibilities of the American Indian. This commission is headed by O. Meredith Wilson, president of the University of Oregon. The purpose of the commission is to arrive at a better understanding of the obligation of other citizens, and the federal and state governments to the Indians. This particular cycle of studies, commissions, surveys, recommendations, studies, etc., infinitum, has been going on now for at least 150 years, and the Indian has shown a remarkable vitality, enough to survive and to make remarkable progress in spite of his continuing role as a guinea pig in a land where he ante-dated the bureaucrats, benevolent or otherwise.

---

Expressions of concern expressed on this program regarding censorship of reading materials by both public and private groups have been met with misunderstanding by some listeners; and, it would seem, by misinterpretation by others, perhaps misinterpretation based on misunderstanding. My meaning has always been clearly in mind, even though the words may not always have conveyed clearly that meaning. Any private group has a right to evaluate literature, movies, etc., and to make known its evaluation. That is a part of private freedom possessed by all. However, when an organization, public or private, tries to prevent the public from having access to literature, movies, television and radio programs, it enters a field where only the courts can make decisions regarding what is and is not obscene.

Perhaps the most widely known and publicized private group of this kind is the National Organization for Decent Literature, a nationwide organization whose membership is made up largely of Roman Catholic layman. Its units are to be found in many towns and cities. Its purpose is to campaign against “the lascivious type of literature which threatens moral, social, and national life.” Now few if any will disagree in principle with such a worthy purpose. It is only when it campaigns through use of force, expressed or potential, to prevent the public from reading what it, the organization, conceives to be immoral, and prevents the public from having access to the criticized materials that its work becomes indefensible. The novel, for example, which may be thought of by a committee of Catholic mothers to be unsuitable for a Roman Catholic adolescent may not be so thought of by a non-Catholic. The organization thus becomes a self-selected conscience of the whole country. And at the risk of crowding out other materials today that might well be included, it appears justifiable to observe that the recommendations of this organization have often gone far beyond merely expressing disapproval of a publication.

For example, representatives of the organization … call upon booksellers and ask that the condemned titles not be offered for sale. They inform non-complying booksellers that they will boycott him unless he complies with the request, thus contradicting its own assertion that the list is merely an expression that the publication does not conform to the organization’s code. Newsdealers who agree in advance not to sell anything to which the organization objects, are given monthly certificates of compliance. Lists of complying and non-complying dealers are widely publicized, and the public, both Catholic and non-Catholic, are urged to confine their purchases of all commodities to complying dealers. Check-ups by organization representatives are recommended at fortnightly intervals, thus creating a private-morals police force. And, worst of all, in many cases … , prosecuting attorneys, and military commanders of Army posts have issued instructions or orders that no books or magazines on the organization list shall be sold within their jurisdiction, thus putting the authority of the state in the service of a private sectarian group. For example, the prosecutor of St. Clair County, Michigan, has officially recognized the organization’s list as a guide to what publications cannot be sold in his jurisdiction. Thus the judgment of a particular group is being imposed upon the freedom of choice of a whole community.

Furthermore, many of the titles appearing on the organization’s proscribed list are considered among the most distinguished in literature. Books by recipients of the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Award have been made markedly less available to the reading public by the censorship of a private and anonymous jury acting under its own standards of morality and taste. To mention just a few: Nelson Algren, National Book Award winner of 1950 had his “The Man With the Golden Arm” banned by the organization; William Faulkner, prize winner of many awards, had his “Sanctuary” denounced by the group; James Jones, who wrote “From Here to Eternity,” found that book listed among the immoral; Ernest Hemingway’s “To Have and Have Not” met with a similar fate. Works by such famous writers as John Dos Passos, Aldous Huxley, Erskine Caldwell, Kathleen Winsor, Richard Wright, and many others have been banned.

For an organization to let the public know what it thinks of a given publication is one thing, a justifiable action; to decide that the public must not read certain materials, and to use pressure to prevent publication and distribution of such matter, is another, and decidedly unjustifiable, procedure. To defend its right to evaluate is in no sense to support its right to prohibit. Freedom to know is an essential ingredient of the American bundle of freedoms, and no private group, Catholic or otherwise, has a right to impose its conviction and prejudices upon the public at large.

It would be both interesting and illuminating to know who, of those seeking government aid to suppress literature they do not like, are also among the emotional crowd now bewailing recent decisions of a branch of that same government, the federal judiciary, upholding the right of individuals to see the evidence upon which they are being tried for criminal charges. Unless one can separate morals from religion, both are involved here. All the courts have done is to say that a man cannot be convicted in a criminal case on secret evidence. But the congressmen and the Department of Justice have become near hysterical over these decisions and have rushed legislation seeking, as they put it, to protect the FBI files. They ignore or fail to mention that the FBI can protect itself, while the individual, faced with the power of government, is the one who really needs protection, to the end that government itself does not wreak an injustice.

Why are some Americans, who now constitute the most powerful nation in the world, afraid of the magnificent, fundamental liberties nailed down in the last years of the 18th century by a small nation, one that was weak, poor, and exhausted by a victorious war against a great power?

To put it another way, one may ask why should 170 million Americans, armed with the hydrogen bomb, be alarmed by the rights to free speech, press, and religion, won for us by fewer than 3 million colonials who at times not only fought barehanded but, at Valley Forge, barefoot in the snow. Are we so terrified of internal subversion on the part of a mangy political party, whose numbers probably do not exceed 50,000 persons, that we are willing to let civil liberties guaranteed to us by the Constitution go by default? Until the [Supreme] Court in recent decisions called a halt to such attrition, the guarantee in the First and Fifth Amendments were literally going by default. What the court has done is simply to scrape the barnacles off this vital portion of the ship of state.

If those now yapping at the Court for returning to fundamental American precepts want to put the matter to a test, let them have the courage of their convictions and try to get an amendment in Congress to repeal the Bill of Rights. That way we could find out if the American people are running so scared that they will yield up their basic liberties for a false security. Who, minus liberties, is secure? What is security, minus freedom, except prison?

Too often the past 10 or 15 years any unpopular idea, even fluoridation of water, has been equated with subversion and pronounced communistic. The people who established the Constitution had had considerable experience with unpopular ideas, but they were not afraid of them when they wrote the Constitution and, two years later, framed the Bill of Rights.

The record of their fears of unbridled government, i.e., one without a Bill of Rights, is impressive. Both Virginia and New York came to the first session of Congress with separate and long bills of rights. The subject was a major item of business in the first session of the first Congress of the United States. North Carolina even refused to ratify the new document until such a bill was added. Massachusetts and New Hampshire ratified it, but made urgent recommendations that civil rights be spelled out. Until the Court spoke out these past few weeks, these great, fundamental rights were being nibbled away little by little by little people who were afraid of the very freedoms that make America unique among her enemies. Secret trials and conviction by secret witnesses are trappings of the dictatorships against whom we are competing. To emulate them is to become like them and destroy the very reason for competing. To imitate them is to surrender the right to freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion –  and nobody but the commies wish that. And they wish it because they are afraid of it. It is time Americans quit being afraid.

_______

New York: Two Iowa clergymen report the tremendous postwar prosperity in West Germany has brought with it a decline in religion, while in communist-run East Germany there is a religious revival. Father Robert Welch, a Roman Catholic priest, and Dr. George Ferrell, a Lutheran minister, returned last week from a one-month tour of Germany, France, Holland, and Switzerland. Both men are associate professors in The University of Iowa School of Religion. Dr. Frederick Bargebuhr, a Rabbi, who is also an associate professor at the School of Religion, accompanied them on the trip. Dr. Bargebuhr is now in London. The chief purpose of their trip was to tell students and teachers about the School of Religion. Students who attend their lectures often expressed amazement that clergymen of three different faiths now associated socially but traveled together and spoke from the same platform.

_______

Mackinac Island, Michigan: Representatives of India, Japan, and South Korea addressed the Moral Re-armament Assembly of Nations at Mackinac Island this past week. Japanese Senator Takeshi Togano called the gathering, in his words, “a testing ground for the atomic bomb of moral re-armament. This fallout, he said, will blanket the world in answer to the fallout of the military bomb.”

_______

A 10- year-old Lutheran girl and her mother are flying to Lourdes, France, seeking a miracle cure at the Roman Catholic shrine. Neighbors of Lynn Lambrecht of West Allis, Wisconsin, donated $1,000 to cover expenses for the trip. The girl is critically ill with arthritis. Catholic authorities have confirmed the report that many miracles have occurred at the shrine. But the Rev. Adolph Kappes, pastor of the Lutheran church attended by the Lambrecht family, said, “The shrine of Lourdes has no more power to cure than any other church.” So, it would seem that this is a case of “You pays your money and you takes your choice.”

_______

Dr. Maurice Eisendrath, President of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, returned last Friday from religious conferences in England, France, and Switzerland. He also attended the meeting of the World Union for Progressive Judaism in Amsterdam, Holland. His organization is the parent body of more than 550 Reform temples in the United States and Canada, representing more than 1 million congregants.

_______

A prominent Jewish author died this week. He was Sholem Asch, who had said he tried to demonstrate in his novels the interdependence of the Jewish and Christian religions. That was in the hope that mutual understanding might lead to a better world. Asch left his home in Miami Beach, Florida, about four years ago because of some Jews’ hostility towards his books. They had criticized his handling of New Testament personalities in such works as “The Nazarene.” To persons who said Asch seemed preoccupied with Christianity, the author replied he had never considered leaving the faith of his fathers and never intended to. He admitted his books made him some enemies. But he added that he had shown how deeply rooted Christianity is in Jewish history and religion. He was a fervent Zionist, inspired by the state-building experiment in Israel.

Asch was born in Poland and received rabbinical training. But he decided such spiritual leadership was not for him. He came to the U.S. in 1910 and became a citizen in 1920. He died in self-imposed exile in London at the age of 76.

_______

This weekend, the Seventh-day Adventists are celebrating the 50th anniversary of their youth department. The meeting is being held on the campus of the Adventist Mount Vernon Academy [Ohio], where the movement was started in 1907. When it began, the department had about 5,300 members. Almost that many, 4,000, are attending this golden anniversary session. Now the youth department has more than 400,000 members all over the world.

_______

A flying hero says he will now limit his air trips to serving his two congregations. He is the Rev. Lester J. Maitland, former Air Force brigadier general, one-time aide of Air Force General William Mitchell. Friday of this week he was ordained a priest in the Protestant Episcopal Church, and will serve at St. John’s Church in Iron River and St. David’s at Sidnaw, both in Michigan’s upper peninsula.

Washington: A New York congressman has asked the president to sponsor a meeting of the world’s religious leaders to organize a collective security pact for the protection of the souls of mankind. Representative Herbert Zelenko said the religious leaders (and it is a pretty good guess that he means Christians only) could issue a manifesto that would be a philosophical rallying point for men of spiritual belief everywhere.
_______

Philadelphia: The Rev. Clarence W. Crawford, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., has been nominated without opposition as president of the American Baptist Convention. He will be installed tomorrow at the closing session of the meeting.
_______

Paducah, Kentucky: The Memphis Conference of the Methodist Church has voted to permit Negro churches to request membership in the annual conferences of white churches. The measure is permissive and applies only to conference activities. It does not apply to local membership in individual churches.
_______

New Concord, Ohio: Final action will be taken next week on a proposal to merge two Presbyterian Church groups into one denomination comprising 3 million members. The 99th General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church of North America will vote next Friday on merging with the Presbyterian Church, USA. The latter group voted approval of the merger last month.
_______

Washington: President Eisenhower named Edward McCabe, his associate special counsel, to represent him at a solemn pontifical Mass yesterday honoring St. Benedict the Moor. The Mass commemorates the 150th anniversary of the canonization by the Catholic Church of the first Negro ever elevated to sainthood. Wonder what the white citizens councils and the Catholic haters think about that!
_______

In Syracuse, Sicily: Polish Primate Cardinal Wyszynski said Mass this week before the image of the weeping Madonna, fulfilling a vow he took during the dark days of persecution and confinement in his homeland. Said the cardinal, “In the most anguishing time of my life, I turned with faith to the Virgin Mary, vowing to kneel here before her.” More than 10,000 Sicilians watched the Polish cardinals celebrate the open air Mass.
_______

Vatican City: Pope Pius has told a group of American surgeons they are dedicated men who devote all their energies to the essential good of the individual and the community. The pope spoke in English to representatives of the American Section of the International College of Surgeons who are visiting Italian medical centers.
_______

Again, Vatican City: The pope says that even in an age of automation a biblical injunction will apply. This is that men must earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. But the pontiff adds that new forms of labor will replace those eliminated by automatic machinery and electronic brains. He also stated that spiritual as well as material values must be kept in mind as automation develops. And he has charged that Marxists are wrong in attributing a determining weight to the technical side of life and claiming automation by itself can change the life of man in society. Well, anybody want to bet that it won’t? Despite what the good pontiff says?
_______

A 40-year-old reductionist priest and author has been named director of the Family Life Bureau of the National Roman Catholic Welfare Conference. He is the Rev. Henry Sattler, a native of North East, Pennsylvania, and a leader of many retreats and conferences for married and engaged couples. Father Sattler has written a book entitled “Parents, Children, and the Facts of Life.”
_______

Trained sponsors and friends will be the rule from now on for confused, rebellious children in Louisville, Kentucky. A youth program has been set up to show that kindness is not a gimmick. This program is undertaken by the new Committee on Institutions of the Louisville Area Council of Churches. The chairman of the council’s Juvenile Court Committee, Edgar Price, explains the aims will include leading youths in a Christian way of life, aiding the juvenile court with problems and helping young persons prepare for and find jobs.
_______

A Baltimore, Maryland, policeman is going to change from a uniform to clerical dress. Patrolman Thomas Barranger will resign from the force at the end of this month. Next month he will become a Protestant Episcopal Church deacon in Roundup, Montana. Patrolman Barranger has been in the Baltimore Police Department since 1943. It took him 10 years of night study to earn a college degree. He is already ordained, is married, and the father of three children.
_______

Three Midwestern professors have found a lively interest in Germany in the University of Iowa’s Interfaith School of Religion. They have told the Berlin Society of Christian-Jewish cooperation that they help university students arrive at a better understanding of religion. Professor F. B. Bargebuhr, representing the Jewish faith, has stated it is not the teachers’ intention to put the Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish beliefs into a melting pot. Professor G. W. Forelli, a Lutheran, declared the U.S. background keeps Americans from considering it unusual that professors of three different religious faiths work together. Also on the tour is the Rev. Robert Welch, a Roman Catholic member of the University of Iowa Interfaith School faculty.
_______

The president of the Rabbinical Council of America says Orthodox Judaism is experiencing a new vigor on American soil. Rabbi Solomon Sharfman has told a meeting of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America that theirs is no longer a religion for the aged. He adds that Orthodox Judaism has begun to capture the imagination of Jewish youth, who are, he says, returning to the synagogue and giving it new energy and militancy.

_______

Some of you listeners have been interested in having me pursue further the term “liberal religion,” which is been used quite frequently on this program. Any attempt to define any term is hazardous because the person doing so perforce reads into it something of his own prejudices and values. However, I should like to make it clear that the liberal is not free to believe in anything he would like to believe. He is constrained by history, reason, science, observation and common sense. For example, he is not free to believe that a man named Balaam had a donkey that could talk, that the earth was created by divine fiat in exactly 4004 B.C., or that God dictated the Bible.

The liberal approaches religion as he does everything else…. Suppose, for example, we sit in on a conference of scientists. A member reads a paper setting forth a conclusion in the tentative form, based on research. He presents evidence for critical evaluation and perhaps lists some difficulties in the acceptance and calls for further exploration. He has use the scientific method – observation, experimentation, calculation, and history of previous relevant studies according to the needs of the investigation. He has felt free to use any method that promised to yield results. He is modest and by truth he means only a very high degree of probability supported by unvarying evidence. This is what the liberal means by freedom, freedom under discipline.

But how different across the street in the church were there is a meeting of Orthodox churchmen. No modesty is found there, nothing is tentative. There heard thundering affirmations and dire predictions of doom for all who disagree. The difficulties are not mentioned, such as that which is not in accord with common observation, the contrary evidence of history and science, and the absence of testing by logic. In all that is spoken, reason is downgraded, emotion is upgraded. It is plain from what is said that all good people will accept and that those who do not are sinners. Appeal is made to writers on religion of centuries ago, and their writings are labeled as the final word. Appeal is made to ancient materialistic creeds that are meant to summarize what the speaker thinks people used to believe. The self interpretation of some religious fanatic long since dead may be cited as authority.

In short, while the scientists are engaging in an earnest and continuing quest for truth, the church, a backward and undemocratic organization, is saying “Stop here. This is the end. We know what is good for you to believe and we’ll tell you, and if you do not accept you are not a religious person.”

Liberal religion means freedom to exchange the views of yesterday as new evidence becomes available. At one time every religious person believed the earth was flat. But anyone would seem pretty silly insisting that this is true today. Religious liberalism is free, democratic, unafraid, and thus is well calculated to make contributions to the happiness of the race.

Some people attack reason in religion by calling attention to all the problems that reason has not solved. Well, authoritarianism, revelation, self-appointed revelators, and holy virgins have not solved them either. Elaborate rituals have not solved them. Appeals to God in the sky to intervene have not solved them. So far as problems have been solved it has been by slow, careful, patient, scientific investigation. So the liberal chooses between the creeds and superstitions of yesterday and today’s relentless search for truth.

Of course there is more to religion than reason, and the liberal recognizes that. Religion has to do with the whole of life. But the liberal also says that if religion will not stand up under the impact of reason, it needs revision. Religion is not static. It is not something delivered full-grown once and for all to the hands of this planet, complete and finished. It is intrinsic, a potential, native and natural, and must change as man changes and grows in knowledge and spiritual insight. The person who will not reason in religion is a bigot. He who cannot reason is a fool. He who dares not reason is a slave.

_______

Two events this week have moral and ethical if not strictly religious implications. Last Monday the Supreme Court handed down a decision that said in brief that a person cannot be convicted on a criminal charge if the evidence used to secure the fiction is marked secret for security purposes and the accused or his attorney does not have access to examination of this evidence. The other event involves whether an American soldier, on duty in Japan, who killed a Japanese civilian should be tried by Japanese or American courts.

The howls about these two events were remarkable. In the case of secret evidence, the newspapers, of all agencies, three of them serving the Johnson City area, blazed forth with editorials urging that Congress do something to prevent baring secret materials in criminal cases. One wonders if those editors have not read Amendment Six to our Constitution which guarantees that in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall have the right to be informed of the nature and cause of accusation and to be confronted with the witnesses (evidence) against him? What would those same editors have said had a decision been handed down restricting freedom of the press that is guaranteed under the First Amendment of that same Bill of Rights?

In the case of the American soldier accused of killing the Japanese woman, the veterans organizations, the professional patrioteers, the DARs, and others of similar mind made speeches, wrote letters denouncing the executive branch for permitting an American to be tried in other than an American court. Unfortunately, the soldier’s case is confused by technicalities. He was on duty at the time, but the act he committed which is said to have caused the death was not exactly in line of duty. Furthermore, the civilians had been warned to stay off the range where the firing was taking place. A further complication is found in our Status of Forces Agreement with Japan.

But waving all technicalities aside, let us consider a moment the incidents and the howlers. If it is incumbent upon our Supreme Court to uphold Amendment One of the Constitution, it is equally responsible for defending the Sixth. If Japanese soldiers were on occupation duty in this country, those same ultra-nationalists would be demanding that the soldier be tried in American courts. One cannot but wonder if editors and patrioteers had thought of this. Was it not an itinerant carpenter in the insignificant little place called Galilee who said, “As ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.”

Heidelberg, Germany: Episcopal leader, Rev. Henry I. Loutitt, says church attendance among members of the Armed Forces is particularly encouraging. Loutitt, who is Protestant Episcopal bishop of South Florida and chairman of the Armed Forces Division of the National Council of the Protestant Episcopal Church, says attendance of Armed Forces personnel at church services compares favorably with any civilian church.

_______

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts says he believes a Roman Catholic could be elected president. Kennedy says the people are running ahead of the politicians who say a Catholic would have no chance for the presidency. In 1928, says Kennedy, Al Smith failed in his presidential bid for reasons other than his Catholic religion. He pointed out that Smith did better in the South that year than Adlai Stevenson did in 1952. Well, it is a pretty good bet that any presidential candidate with hopes for election is going to have to espouse civil rights for all on a basis of equality. Al Smith lost many votes because of his religious affiliation, and any candidate of that faith probably would lose votes. Given both an integration declaration and a Catholic affiliation, it is more than doubtful that such a candidate could carry a single southern state. Had this reporter had a vote in 1928, he would have voted for Al Smith, largely because of the bigotry injected into the campaign. There is considerable evidence that anti-Catholic bias has decreased considerably in the last 25 years, but no conclusive evidence that it has disappeared, unfortunately.

_______

In Montgomery, Alabama, this week two white men, one a teenager, were acquitted of charges of bombing a Negro church. An all-white jury rendered the verdict and a packed courtroom cheered the verdict. The prosecutors told jurors that an acquittal would say that it’s all right to bomb Negro churches and dwellings, and might lead to retaliation. The defense countered with the assertion that an acquittal would serve notice “that we are not going to yield another inch fighting for our way of life.” And what is that way of life? Simply a denial to other human beings, because of the accident of race (which is unimportant anyway and about which the individual can do nothing) those same rights that they, the white folks, demand for themselves? How one person can insist upon those rights for himself, deny them to other human beings, and then say that he honestly believes that God is the father of all humanity? It is impossible to see. It would indeed be a capricious father that would show so much partiality among the children he creates. Perhaps a form of tragedy would have emerged from the trial, whichever way the verdict had gone; but it is tragic for individuals so to try to deceive themselves on such fundamental matters.

_______

From Chicago and Philadelphia comes more comforting news. In Chicago, the Southern Baptist Convention has urged an end to resistance to integration. It also has demanded in a unanimously adopted report that persons perpetrating violence against Negroes in the cause of segregation be brought to legal justice. And by the end of the autumn of 1958, a fifth Southern Baptist seminary may be admitting qualified Negro students. Thus the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary at Wake Forest, North Carolina, would be added to other Southern Baptist clergical educational institutions – teaching Negroes at Louisville, Kentucky; New Orleans, Louisiana; Fort Worth, Texas; and Berkeley, California.

_______

In Philadelphia meanwhile, the American Baptist Convention has voted to choose ministers and accept the membership in its 6,000 churches without regard to racial background or origin.

_______

A noted biblical archaeologist and Jewish leader has gone back to Israel on a twofold mission. Dr. Nelson Glueck, president of the Hebrew Union College, a Jewish institution of religion in New York City, will put final approval on plans for a half-million dollar graduate school in archaeology. The school will be operated in Jerusalem by the college institute. Dr. Glueck also will resume his mile-by-mile exploration of the Negev desert region. Last summer, the theologian-archaeologist uncovered some prehistoric settlements. These pointed to a thriving agricultural civilization in the Negev as long as 4,000 years ago.

_______

Quite a furor has been aroused in England by the accusation of the archbishop of Canterbury, directed at the Roman Catholic Church there. Dr. Geoffrey Fisher says that the Roman Catholic Church in Britain is hostile to the established church and does not work with it as Catholics work together with other churchmen in Europe. Dr. Fisher, speaking at Wolverhampton, charges that the Catholic Church is waging what he termed “open war” against Anglicans.

The reply came from London by Dr. William Godfrey, Roman Catholic archbishop of Westminster, who declined to reply to the Anglican minister’s charges, but said that he would “rather not make any statement. I prefer to leave it to the good sense of the British people to judge who is waging open war.”

_______

Back in our own country, something of a tempest in a teapot was aroused by the warning some time ago that Catholics should not attend the so-called Crusade Services now going on in Madison Square Garden, New York City. The Rev. John E. Kelly says in Washington that he was not voicing personal prejudice when he warned Catholics to stay away from Graham’s revival meetings. Kelly, information director of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, says he was voicing a long-established rule of the Roman Catholic Church. Kelly says he has received a lot of mail from Catholics as well as Protestants accusing him of bigotry. And when churchmen wade into such an argument, it is the time for a layman reporter to stay out of the ridiculous mess.

_______

Last Sunday I dealt with in as much detail as the time permitted with the current schools of thought regarding objective criticism of biblical literature. It is not surprising that it aroused some of you to disagree. That is good, for where there is no disagreement, there is not likely to be any thinking.

The fact is the books of our Bible are not all in the order of events or in the order in which they were written. Thus the first five books of the Old Testament are composed of four separately written narratives composed years apart, and combined and recombined, re-written and re-edited from about 850 B.C. to 250 B.C. The Jews had two Bibles. One in Hebrew was made official about A.D. 100 but no Hebrew manuscript exists that is earlier than the 10th century. They have a Greek Bible that was translated the second and third centuries B.C. So, even when we talk about the Old Testament, we may be talking about either one or both of these Bibles.

In studying any part of the Bible, it is necessary to restore as nearly as possible the actual wording of the original manuscript of the author. This is known as “lower criticism” and fortunately has been pretty well done for the present-day student.

“Higher criticism” includes all that can be learned about a passage and its author that is not included in lower criticism. In considering any part of the New Testament, for example, it is necessary to look for the sources of ideas. One person has identified 11 separate sources for the fourth Gospel, and not all those sources were Hebrew. A part of this higher criticism is to see if a passage in question is supported by parallels in other Gospels and in apocryphal literature. In addition, the careful student, in considering any part of the Bible will try to find who wrote it, when it was written, the cultural pattern at the time of writing, the political situation, the interest of the writer, and the language conveyed to the people to whom it was addressed. It is especially pertinent in the Old Testament to identify the approximate time of writing in order to know the trend of changing religious thought under the impact of political and cultural change due to contacts with alien cultures.

The truth is that the Bible has many literary stereotypes. These may be classified as miracles, legends, folk-tales, parables, naive philosophy or wise sayings, traditions, etc. Moreover, considerable work has been done in separating Jewish from Hellenistic elements.

Today more is known about Bible literature than at any previous time. It is a fascinating literature, and it stands in its own right. It’s moralities, philosophies, errors, and insights find parallels in the literature of many peoples – in English, Chaucer and Shakespeare, for example.

Comments made here on these two programs are intended in no way to detract from the importance of biblical literature; on the contrary, they should make the person who really wants to know something about this great literature more satisfied than ever. In this connection, the book entitled “Origin and Character of the Bible” is highly recommended.

_______

Allusion has been made here a few times to the incredible situation in South Africa. Now comes a recent issue of The Christian Century that underscores the shocking things happening there. There are about 3 million whites and 10 million Africans. In that unhappy land it is legal to persecute Africans. The theory of the law seems to be that anyone who does not like the government of South Africa as presently constituted is a communist and therefore guilty of treason. This is an old McCarthy trick that the South Africans seem to have imported.

In July 1955, a so-called Congress of the People was called and an alleged “Freedom Charter” was drawn up. Its contents seem innocent. Indeed, it sentiments and propositions might well appear in any Christian sermon on any Sunday in the year. Yet, over 200 arrests have been made charging those who signed it with treason. The barbarous white masters of that strange country have passed laws that zone the whole country racially, register the population by race, forces an education that prepares the Africans as servants of white masters, and controls the movements of the Africans.

In parts of our own country there is race prejudice, but prejudice and discrimination are not elevated into law. The reverse is true; Negroes are legally free to propagandize, educate, and agitate. Also, it is not a case of a minority enslaving a majority.

Of course the South African Union is a part of the British Empire. In theory the parliament of Britain has complete control over all the empire from dominions to crown colonies, but this principle is not applied. Legally the British Parliament could repeal all or any part of the Constitution of South Africa. Probably it would not be politically smart. But couldn’t it do something? If not, is this not something the United Nations might take up under its human rights declaration? It would appear that the great powers of the world are more ready to defend oil and other commerce than human beings.

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the USA was told this week that “In the area of race relations, America is facing a moral crisis such as it has not faced since the Civil War.” Without dissenting voice, the assembly, meeting in Omaha, approved a report which declared “Racial segregation is a problem of such magnitude and urgency that it takes precedence over other social issues in American life today.” This vote was taken in the face of a challenge from an all-white Birmingham presbytery in Alabama which objected to a policy statement that took an entirely anti-segregation stand. Dr. Earle, secretary of the church’s Department of Social Education and Action, declared that “The crisis is characterized by blindness and resistance to the demands of simple justice and fair play.” And any comment this reporter might make on that statement would indeed be super superfluous, and belaboring the obvious.

_______

The Southern School News this month gave a summation of progress or lack of it in the three years since the original Supreme Court decision. It found that 685 school districts have either begun or completed the integration process, embracing some 325,000 Negro children and nearly 2,000,000 white. As against this, there are about 3,100 bi-racial districts that remain segregated with nearly 2.5 million Negro and some 7 million white children. During the period, legislatures of 11 states adopted more than 130 pieces of pro-segregation legislation since the May 17, 1954, Court ruling. This is legislation which doubtless will delay, but is hardly likely to avoid, the ultimate inevitable adjustment to integration.

_______

The Hebrews, after coming into contact with Persians, believed in the resurrection of the body. The Hellenistic Greeks believed in the immortality of the soul. Paul wrote about a “resurrection body.” No one, probably including Paul, knew exactly what that meant.

_______

Current Sunday school lessons for adult Protestants are based on the Old Testament and commentators in the accompanying literature stress the importance of the Bible as the basis of religion. Well, it is true that the Bible has been the basis of Protestantism, but the word “Bible” itself came from the Greek meaning “books.” I wonder if those same commentators are not, consciously or unconsciously, overlooking the fact that our Bible is one of the results of religion; not the cause of it. Were the Bible blotted out, man would still be a religious animal, for the phenomena of religion is not dependent upon any one Bible.

A listener writes, “It seems to me a scientifically trained person must put critical evaluation in moth balls while reading the Bible.”

It is difficult – impossible – to agree with this. Probably more than any other literature, critical examination of Bible is necessary to a real understanding of it. One can read Rousseau, even Kant, with ease and understand fairly well what he reads. But Paul’s book of Romans, for example, is pretty hard going. The fact is that the Bible is a large body of heterogeneous literature of the people of spiritual genius who passed through many cultural, political, and religious changes. It took some 10 centuries for the Bible to be written. Important manuscripts have been lost. Parts have been badly translated and even more badly interpreted. Worst of all perhaps, it has been the football of theological controversy.

There are at least two schools of biblical criticism in the U.S., both claiming to use the scientific method of critical examination. One may be called the conservative school, and it is concerned in preserving the religious values of the Bible. To use the language of some of its members, it sees the Bible “as a revelation of God to man, as man’s talk through this life with God.”

The other school claims that the work of the first is at some points rendered invalid by the theory it holds. The logical conclusions must be avoided if they are in conflict with the theory. It accuses the first school of abandoning the scientific method at precisely the points where it is most needed. It charges the first schools of sometimes bending biblical scholarship to theological ends.

The latter school sees the science of biblical criticism as an independent empirical discipline having no necessary connection with theology. It claims to be wholly objective and if at any point it conflicts with theology, then theology can do the worrying. This school is not out to prove something, or to support something, or to conserve something. Each of these schools has capable scholars within its ranks and both cut across many non-fundamentalist denominations.

The truth is that the Bible is historical material but not objective history. The books of Kings, for example, are told from the standpoint of, and are to the advantage of, the Southern Kingdom. In this day when we are supposed to have developed something of a science of history, we know how prejudiced our historians are in writing about any way in which we have been involved. Few would look upon Kings, for example, as objective history, and only critical examination, without regard to theological theory, can determine the degree of objectivity to be found there.

It not only took centuries to write the Bible, it also took centuries for men to determine what books should be included in it. The process of selection of books that shall be official Bible is called “canonization.” The Roman Catholic Church made a decision that seems to be final. It canonized 11 books of the 14 that were in the Septuagint. The Roman Catholic bibles in any language are based on Jerome’s Latin Bible of the fourth century A.D., which in light of manuscripts discovered later is judged to be a weak work.

Again, there is no single Bible accepted universally by all Christians. There is the Roman Bible, Protestant bibles of various kinds, based on different collections of manuscripts, and those of the Armenian church, of the Coptic Church, and of the Syrian church. All are different – not merely one text translated into different languages. Some English bibles have been printed with 14 apocryphal books between the Old and New Testaments. Today printers leave them out and Protestants lost one-third of their Bible and few of them ever missed it.

The point of all this? Well, maybe you will think there is no point, but here in the so-called “Bible Belt,” it may do us good to take a little broader look than most of us seem inclined to take and make a critical study of how our Bible came to be, how it is like, and also how it is unlike, bibles of other Christian, even other Protestant, groups. The trouble with too many of us, and this reporter is no exception, is that we would willingly die to defend the Bible but we do not know what it is, have never read it, but we take offense when we hear even objective, constructive criticism of it. Could this very lack of understanding not well put us in the unenviable position of being blind people trying to lead the blind?

Clearfield, Pennsylvania: Superintendents of the Central Pennsylvania Conference of the Methodist Church have spoken out against ministers’ wives accepting full-time employment. The report said there is a growing practice of pastors’ wives accepting such employment apart from church work. It added: “This may be necessary sometimes because of low income but it is our conviction that when this is necessary it is a bad practice… There are those who feel that one of the factors contributing to the instability of many homes in our modern lives is a full-time employment of husbands’ wives… Members of our church look to the parsonage as the ideal of a Christian home and family life”

_______

The Northwest Synod of the United Lutheran Church has reinstated and re-ordained the Rev. Victor Wrigley of Brookfield, Minnesota, who was convicted of heresy and ordered unfrocked last year.

_______

The Rev. Dr. James Pike of New York City will be given the Universal Brotherhood Award for 1957 this evening. The award goes to the dean of the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine for outstanding work in human brotherhood and human understanding. The occasion will be of the Universal Brotherhood Dinner of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

_______

The official Roman Catholic directory says the approximate 34.5 million Catholics in the U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii are a gain of almost a million in one year. The directory says the largest Roman Catholic archdiocese in the U.S. is that of Chicago. The biggest Catholic diocese is in Brooklyn.

_______

The chief spokesman for a Protestant group, which seldom agrees with a Roman Catholic stand, has defended the right of Catholic students to boycott a public school baccalaureate service in a Protestant church. The incident occurred in Moundsville, West Virginia, where 22 members of the high school graduating class stayed away from the baccalaureate ceremony held at a Methodist church with a Presbyterian minister delivering the sermon. The Rev. B. F. Farrell, parish priest for the 22, had said the school board rules requiring attendance was, in his words, a “violation of the rights of free exercise of religion.” Four other Catholic students in the class of 182 attended the service. Subsequently the 22 were barred from participating in commencement exercises, but got their diplomas. The executive director of Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Glen Archer, said in a statement that the school board’s rule, as he put it, “is not quite in harmony with our American heritage.” This is about as gross an understatement as one could imagine. Wonder when or whether school boards and other officials, especially in public high schools, are going to eliminate the baccalaureate services entirely and thus stop violating the First Amendment? Courts have in decision after decision held such things unconstitutional. The “Father Knows Best” attitude, which seems to be an occupational disease with some administrators, feel they are law unto themselves in many things, the Constitution of the U.S. notwithstanding.

_______

New York: The poll of Methodist ministers shows that those responding oppose by a margin of 5-to-1 the use of hydrogen bomb warfare, even if our government sees no other way to stop communism. The Fellowship of Methodist Pacifists conducted the poll by sending questionnaires to 16,000 ministers. Fewer than 3,000 replied.

_______

Along the same theme, the president general of the Methodist Church of Australia says future generations would condemn the Christian church if it kept silent today about atomic tests. Dr. A. H. Wood told a Methodist rally in Melbourne that atomic war is suicide, adding, “It is not too late even now to negotiate with Russia to abandon nuclear tests and arrange nuclear disarmament.”

_______

Providence, Rhode Island: The Episcopal bishop of Rhode Island has criticized the State Department ban against American newsmen working in Red China. The Rev. John Seville Higgins calls the policy “incredibly shortsighted, if not worse.” American reporters, he says, can be trusted to observe life in Red China or anywhere else with an objective eye and report what they have seen and heard.

_______

New Haven, Connecticut: The Dean of Yale Divinity School charges that the church is the most segregated institution left in America. The Rev. Liston Pope, in a book, “Kingdom Beyond Caste,” says the church “has fallen behind most other major areas of human association as far as the achievement of integration in its own life is concerned.”

_______

Omaha, Nebraska: The 169th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the USA has taken the first step towards a merger with the United Presbyterian Church of North America. The General Assembly voted unanimously in favor of a merger. The two, if combined, would have a membership of about 3 million.

This is Religion in the News, a program of non-sectarian report and comment on current items of religious significance.

Kiamesha Lake, New York: The Rabbinical Assembly of America has urged President Eisenhower to abrogate the air base treaty with Saudi Arabia because of that country’s discrimination against Christian religious services and American Jews. Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, of Englewood, New Jersey, told the 57th Annual Convention of the assembly that American acquiescence to the discrimination is an insult to the moral integrity of Jewish chaplains and tens of thousands of Jewish servicemen. It is not likely that any positive decision will be made on this request anymore than has been forthcoming on many other kinds from the same source.

_______

Two proponents of Protestant church unity have predicted that American churches will take historic steps toward unity late this summer. At that time, representatives of 43 denominations will meet at Oberlin, Ohio, to talk over differences in doctrine, organization, and policy which now keep Protestants divided. Dr. Samuel McCrea Cavert and the Rt. Rev. Angus Dun say the Oberlin meeting will rank as one of the most important ever held in the long, slow effort to heal the divisions of Christendom.

_______

Toledo, Ohio: Two Protestant church denominations in Ohio have lowered racial barriers. The Lexington Conference of the Methodist Church approved the transfer of a church in Steubenville, Ohio, from a Negro to a white conference. Presently, to change jurisdiction, the change must be approved by all churches in the new jurisdiction, which will be true in the case of the Steubenville Negro church.

_______

Vatican City: Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, primate of Poland, received yesterday the red hat and ring of his cardinal’s rank from the pope in a private ceremony. The cardinal was elevated to that rank four years ago, but at that time did not attend the investiture in Rome because he feared he would not be allowed to return home. Yesterday’s ceremony was held in the papal apartment and was strictly private, being attended only by Vatican ceremonial officials and the four Polish churchmen who accompanied cardinal to Rome.

_______

St. Louis, Missouri: J. L. Sullivan, dean of the College of Journalism of Marquette University, has been named recipient of the 1957 Catholic Digest Award. He was presented an inscribed medallion and a stipend of $1,000.

_______

Fatima, Portugal: Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from all over the world journeyed to Fatima to observe the 40th anniversary of the apparition of Our Lady to three Portuguese peasant children.

_______

New York: A 150-year-old rule barring women from governing bodies in the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of New York has been repealed. The annual diocese Easton Convention has also voted to allow women to serve as conventional delegates. Last year women were voted equal status with men for serving on vestries and as wardens in churches of the New York diocese. Approval required the consent by two successive conventions. The action by the Episcopal Diocese of New York is not mandatory on the church or the member churches. What is this world a coming to anyway when churches concede that women are equal to men in church affairs?

_______

Connell, Washington: A 38-year-old father will spend the next seven years training for the Presbyterian ministry. Donald Wright will give up a $16,000 a year income from a prosperous oil distributorship. He says his wife is as enthusiastic about the prospect as he is. They have three children. Wright never belonged to a church before 1946, but he is an elder in his hometown’s First Presbyterian Church, and his wife is Sunday school superintendent. The oilman turning to the ministry says behind his decision are several reasons. They include four years in the Navy in World War II and a later realization that man ceases to exist when he excludes God from his daily tasks. It is barely possible also that he has managed to save from his oil business enough to enable him to devote this time to study and at the same time take care of his family needs.

_______

Omaha, Nebraska: The 168th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. has elected the Rev. Dr. Harold B. Martin as its moderator. The pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Bloomington, Illinois, succeeds a Maryville, Tennessee, businessman, David W. Proffitt.

_______

Anchorage, Alaska: Two Roman Catholic prelates have met to compare the sizes of their dioceses. One was Josef Cardinal Frings, archbishop of Cologne, Germany. He can motor from one end of his diocese to the other in one hour. Bishop Dermot O’Flanagan, of Juneau, Alaska, said his diocese is a 1,500 miles wide, from Ketchikan to Kodiak. The churchmen met when the German Cardinal had a stopover en route to Tokyo, after flying over the North Pole.

_______

Again Kiamesha Lake, New York; A Jewish theological leader says young Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish Americans are rediscovering their ancestral faiths. Dr. Louis Finkelstein has also told the 57th Annual Convention of the Rabbinical Assembly of America that in this rediscovery lies the real hope for the emergence of America as a spiritual force so needed by the world. Dr. Finkelstein is chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. The meeting also heard that the synagogue does not have its former all-inclusive scope in American Jewish community life. Rabbi Israel Goldstein, president of the American Jewish Congress, adds that much of the synagogue’s problem has been taken over by specialized agencies. Rabbi Goldstein also believes that in church-state relations, secular Jewish groups should yield spokesmanship and leadership to Jewish religious bodies.

_______

An episode in human relations as both it’s sickening and it’s encouraging aspects occurred recently at the University of Texas’s College of Fine Arts in Austin. The college chose as its annual full dress opera last October to present Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas.” Dido was a Tyrian Princess, Queen of Carthage, and its reputed founder, who entertained Aeneas after his flight from Troy, fell in love with him, and on his desertion, stabbed herself.

Chosen to play the leading role of Dido was Barbara Louise Smith, 19, the best soprano in her class at the university. The only trouble was that she is a Negro. However, anticipating no difficulty, the cast rehearsed conscientiously and was about ready to give the performance a couple of weeks ago.

Only a few days before the opera was to be presented, she was called to the office of Dean E. W. Doty and told that certain legislators in session in the city objected to having a Negro girl play a romantic role opposite a white boy. The Dean insisted that he was sorry, but that she would have to give up the role she had worked hard to play. This bending to the whims of segregationists loosed a flood of activity on their part. Barbara was hurt over the matter, but insisted that the success of integration at the university was more important than her appearance in the opera. From that point on, she refused to discuss the matter. University officials decided to do the same.

However, within a week it became apparent that integration had already achieved far greater success than the administrative and legislative officials imagined. Eight legislators wrote Barbara apologizing for the snub that had been given her by their colleagues, asserting that these colleagues were “more interested in personal advancement … than they are in Christian principles of right and wrong.” Two segregation legislators were hung in effigy on the campus and another in the rotunda of the capital.

The student assembly met and reaffirmed its belief in the right of all students to be given an equal opportunity to participate in campus activities. The presidents of two leading service organizations recommended that students boycott the opera. Angry letters flooded into the office of the student newspaper, one alumnus writing that he was deeply ashamed and another that it made him sick at his stomach. After a week of this protest, the president had not abandoned his “no comment” policy but when the opera opened, less than half the auditorium was filled. From the flagpole in front of the university’s main building hung a swastika flag with the words “no comment” on it. And these facts in the case require no comment from this reporter.

_______

Quite in contrast to this rather shabby performance is the graduation ceremony that took place at Clinton, Tennessee, on Friday night of this week, three years to a day after the Supreme Court of the United States declared that racial segregation in the public schools was illegal.

During the past year, events at Clinton have brought to Tennessee notoriety throughout the nation and world that, it is probably safe to assume, most Tennesseans are ashamed of and would have preferred to avoid. Last Friday night, however, with only one policeman on duty, Robbie Cain, the only Negro in Clinton’s senior class, marched across the stage with 87 of his classmates and received his diploma of graduation without incident and fanfare, thus bringing to a successful conclusion, insofar as he is concerned, his attempt to get an education equal to that of his neighbors and without discrimination because of race. Perhaps other communities will have learned a lesson from Clinton as to how not to attempt to permit prejudice and violence to interfere with democracy.

_______

A thought-provoking sentence comes from a correspondent that has had me wondering ever since I read it if it is or is not true. I’ve been forced to the conclusion that it probably is. It goes like this: “The church has always been more severe on heresy than on immorality.” If it is true, it is a serious indictment of organized religion.

_______

On his 75th birthday, Albert Einstein, on March 13, 1954, put succinctly something that churchmen as well as layman would do well to consider. He said, “By academic freedom I understand the right to search for truth and to publish and teach what one holds to be true. This right implies also a duty: one must not conceal part of what one has recognized as true. It is evident that any restriction of academic freedom acts in such a way as to hamper the dissemination of knowledge among people and thereby impedes rational judgment and action.”

_______

American business is something of a curious social institution. Across only a few days, one finds on his desk appeals for money, correspondence from listeners – some good, some bad; a pile of bills: offers to put one into a lucrative position through practically no effort; morbid letters from insurance companies and one from an undertaker who is cheerfully willing to bury people in “style and dignity”; a medical press assurance that one is using only one-sixtieth of his brains (the uncomfortable thing is that this one may be all too true); invitations to attend conferences, camps, etc.; another urging me to save money, which I should like very much to do if I could find a way of making the money go as far as the month; and an amazing amount of mail that says “free, free, free” this, that, and the other. The truth is that nothing is free if you read far enough. This junk mail clutters up the boxes, weights down the postman, takes your and my tax dollar to make up post office department deficits, and about the only way the present postmaster general knows how to avoid such a deficit is to raise the postage on first-class mail, the only class that is really paying its way. Is this a moral thing to do?

_______

This program has been off the air for three weeks now because your reporter learned the hard way that a twirling tractor is more powerful than human spine. However, during that time the Senate of the U.S. has lost a member from Wisconsin and the people of that state have been given an opportunity to fill the vacancy with someone who respect the oath he takes to honor, defend, and protect the Constitution. McCarthy’s passing marks, we hope, the end of the hysterical era in American life where insinuations spread in newspapers wrecked the lives of innocent men and women, and where not a shred of evidence was ever offered to prove such insinuations. Shakespeare, in his Julius Caesar, has Mark Anthony say that “The bad that men do lives after them, the good is interred with their bones. Thus let it be with Caesar.” Let’s hope that the good bard of Avon was wrong in this case and that we can accurately say his historic words with the paraphrase that “Whatever good he may have done will live after him: the bad was interred with his bones. Thus let it be with McCarthy.”

Pope Pius has called the Roman Catholic world to a vast missionary action. He has appealed for a special effort in Africa, where, he adds, the people face the dangers of communism. The pontiff urges the world’s more than 450 million Catholics to aid in bringing faith to others by prayer, financial help, and in the case of some, by dedication of their lives. The appeal is in an Easter encyclical letter to bishops of the church, and was made public Friday of this week. He points out the church’s recent expansion in Africa is a motive for hope. The approximate 23 million Roman Catholics in Africa include almost 10 million new members in the last seven years.

_______

A Jesuit educator says too many Catholic students do not want the scholastic life. The Rev. Edward Clark of Fordham University adds that instead the students use their college education to advance in industry and the professions. Father Clark has suggested greater use of scholarships and fellowships to make teaching and academic research more attractive. The comments of Father Clark were made at the annual meeting, in Milwaukee, of the Jesuit Educational Association.

The impulse to comment upon this statement is irresistible. Father Clark’s comment upon the resistance of Catholic students could as well be applied to all too many non-Catholic. Most of them want a diploma but are not beset by an urge to acquire an education in the process. But if by “scholastic life” he means teaching or the ministry, he displays how naive we school teachers are. When are we going to learn that young people in schools today are realistic without being unduly mercenary? They recognize that they live in a world where money not only talks but is indispensable in order to live. Hence, they look over industry, the professions, and teaching. What they see leads them to go into industry or some occupation other than teaching. We talk about free enterprise and the beauties of competition, but when are we going to recognize and do something about the fact that teaching must compete with other occupations? Until inducements equal to those offered by other occupations are offered to young people who want to teach, young people are not going into teaching. No amount of exhortation will substitute for the possibility offered by a job of getting ahead, not only financially but in other ways. We in Tennessee say to a college graduate who enters teaching that “If you be a good boy, work hard, watch you behavior and associations, you can hope to earn $3,000 after 15 years.” That in a society where plumbers, truck drivers, and other occupational jobs offer far more without the time and money investment of a college education. But often, young people are met only with the idea that teaching is a dedicated career. Most of us are getting rather tired of such prating. There is no apparent reason why a teacher should be dedicated or teach for dedication purposes any more than a personnel manager in industry, or newspaper editor, or a radio station owner should be dedicated. Until we stop talking such nonsense and start talking realistic sense to young people, they’re going to continue to enter industry by preference over scholastic careers, and the bewailings of the good Father Clark and others will not change that.

_______

The Board of Home Missions of the Congregational Christian Church has voted the largest budget in its history. For the year starting June 1, it will spend $3 million on new and needy Congregational churches in the U.S. The budget has tripled over the past 14 years.

_______

Commissioners of the Southern Presbyterians to that denomination’s General Assembly have approved a program for developing and training lay workers in the church. They say they need 700 lay workers right away, and about 256 new ones must be trained every year for work in Christian education. Tomorrow, the Southern Presbyterians will consider two controversial proposals about relations with other denominations. One is a request for exploring the possibilities of a merger with the Reformed Church of America, which is mostly in New England, and the other proposal is for withdrawal from the National and World Councils of the Churches of Christ. Already resolutions opposing merger have been introduced.

_______

President Eisenhower has urged the American Council of Judaism to bring the power of its faith to bear on the problems of our day. His message helps mark the 13th Annual Conference of the council, in New York City. The chief executive has also stated that as a religion of universal values, Judaism contributes to our national culture and the world’s spiritual resources. Well, those are safe statements and commits nobody to anything. Everybody is against sin – at least, nobody openly and earnestly advocates it.

_______

The Israeli government has officially recognized the Druze sect as a separate religious community. Thus Israel’s 20,000 Druze will have their own religious courts for such matters as family affairs and religious funds. Until now, the Druze were included in Israel’s Moslem community. Recently they won special rights for their members serving in the Israeli army. They had refused to obey the army call-up in protests of their status. The Druze is a mystic sect that broke away from Islam almost 1,000 years ago.

_______

In Vatican City last Wednesday, in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Pius received in general audience of some 20,000 Italian and foreign pilgrims who had flocked to Rome for Easter. The pilgrims included French, Belgian, British, Austrian, Dutch, Spanish, and one from the United States. Also included was a group of 2,000 nuns participating in a congress of hospital religious orders.

_______

Tonight in Woburn, Massachusetts, a Negro minister with two all-white congregations will be ordained at the First Baptist Church. He once served the church as associate minister. The Rev. Joseph R Washington, Jr. will be ordained, and faculty members from Andover Newton Theological School where he studied will take part in the ceremony.

_______

In London, England, the cornerstone of the first Mormon temple to be built in that country will be laid on May 11. The temple will be known as the London District Temple and is being built at Newchapel. Elder Richard L. Evans, of the Council of Twelve of the Church of Latter Day Saints, has been appointed to attend and officiate at the services in connection with the cornerstone laying ceremonies.

_______

For some five years now there has been a battle in the Illinois courts against the Chicago police censor board’s ban on the Italian film “The Miracle.” Recently, Judge Hugo M. Friend of Chicago’s appellate court reversed a lower court and ruled that the movie was not obscene. The picture, which tells the story of a simple-minded peasant woman who is seduced by man she believes is St. Joseph, has never been shown in Chicago, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1952 decision against New York’s ban on the film. It is not only remarkable, but a cause for concern, that so many people in so many places wish to appoint themselves keepers of the morals as to what people shall read, see, and hear. So, the Hitlerite do-gooders in communities all over the country are wringing their hands and shedding crocodile tears because someone is reading a book or seeing a movie which they, the would-be sensors, don’t like, or, more likely, never read or saw, but which they have “heard about.” There is a problem involved in the matter of the steady diet flowing across newsstands, through radio amplifiers, across TV screens. Much of it all is, in my judgment, merest piffle and occasionally trash. But many of you listening will call my own reading and listening diet trash. So who am I to be my brother’s keeper in the matter of literature or entertainment? We have laws against obscenity, and if a publisher or producer violates those laws, the proper way to punish him is in a court of law through due process, not by means of setting up a censorship board policeman on the beat, laymen in the community, etc. The fathers at Salem, Massachusetts, burned witches: censors of today are burning books and trying to eradicate ideas they don’t like. How conceited can we get, or who was it said, “Be not wise in your own conceit”? Censors haven’t read that one either.

_______

Along the same line of censorship in the written word and visual presentation is the fact that recently student organizations in two New York City municipal colleges were thwarted when they tried to provide a platform for John Gates, editor of the Communist Party’s Daily Worker, during academic freedom week. Gates, who served a prison term under the Smith Act, spoke without incident before two meetings sponsored by student groups at Columbia University. First, a Queens College organization invited Gates to address it. When the Queens College Provost Bart Gates, a student forum at City College asked him to speak. This led the heads of five New York municipal colleges to vote unanimously to ban Gates from their campuses. An effort was then made to provide a suitable place for him to speak to college students at the Martinique Hotel, the protests from other groups using the hotel caused it to cancel arrangements for this meeting. Unable to find another suitable hall, the interested would-be sponsors abandoned efforts.

Well, some of us teachers at times rate student mentality and industry fairly low. But not often so low that we are afraid to subject them to presentation of views in conflict with our democratic freedoms. Anyone who knows anything about communism, communists, and the Daily Worker, if he can add two and two, can soon realize the basic dishonesty and lack of sincerity in the Party line. Communism is an idea around which all sorts of semantic gibberish has been grouped. You cannot kill an idea by burying it, but you can kill it by subjecting it to the crucible of analysis. Apparently the fathers of the New York City colleges fear that their students may learn something about the real nature of communism and have taken the position that ignorance is better than knowledge, which is a highly untenable viewpoint. Apparently they cannot distinguish between teaching about and indoctrination. Which reminds me of the University of Colorado professor who was asked by a member of the community if it were true that they were teaching communism up at the university. His reply was classic: “Yes, he said. And we also teach venereal disease, but we don’t advocate either.”

_______

A recent militant attack on war by the membership of the Ohio Pastor’s Association says, in formal resolutions, “We will never again sanction or participate in any war.” But won’t they? These resolutions bring to mind Mark Twain’s disquisition on the same subject.

“There has never been a just one, never an honorable one – on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances.

The loud little handful – as usual –will shout for the war. The pulpit will, warily and cautiously, object –at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there ‘ should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, “It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it.”

Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the antiwar audiences will thin out and lose popularity.

Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers – as earlier – but do not dare to say so.

And now the whole nation – pulpit and all – will take up the war cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.

Twain wrote before World War I, but there, unfortunately, is not any evidence to indicate that he was wrong then or now.

 

 

 

The results of another Gallup poll in the field of religion are now available. Last time, which I reported, it had to do with the differing viewpoints of British and American regarding church-going. This time, it tries to answer the question: Should churches speak out on social and political questions? Again, there are interesting contrasts between us and the British. Most Englishmen believe the church should keep out of such matters. In this country, there is a definite difference of viewpoints, with slightly more people believing that churches should speak out on social and political matters. Among the typical views expressed on the issue in this country are these:

“If the church expressed its views more it would clear a lot of people’s minds. Politics have always been a corrupt business. There are good and bad politicians and more good politicians would help affairs.”

Again: “The church cannot separate itself from the political side of life… It preaches the Gospel to the people and the preacher has a right to express his views. If the government would listen to the church there would be less corruption.”

Against the idea of churches taking an active role in these matters are such positions as:

“The church should teach the Bible and let the people govern the state outside of church.”

“If a minister is called to preach, he should not be in politics. If he is in politics, he does not have time to save souls.” (A rather curious mixture of theological jargon that may have been meaningful to the person making the statement but is by no means clear to this reader.)

“The church should teach the Bible and stay out of politics. The two don’t mix.”

Statistically, 53 percent of those in Britain said the churches should keep out of the social and political picture; 44 percent thought it should express its views; and 11 percent had no opinion.

In this country, 44 percent thought it should stay out; 47 percent said it should express its views; while 8 percent had no opinion.

An interesting variation was revealed between women’s and men’s viewpoints in this country. Most men said that churches should keep out of political matters, while a majority of women thought they should express their views.

It is difficult to see how churches can refrain from speaking out on social, economic, and political matters unless they are content to simply be academic monasteries in which, like the three monkeys, they see, speak, or hear no evil, devoting their church-going merely to mental, emotional, or what have you exercises in ritual that is removed from life and probably devoid of real meaning. Nobody but the rash would suggest that a church should espouse the cause of any political party. Probably almost all of us would be repelled by a church that did. However to say that there is no moral obligation of the church to let itself be heard on vital issues affecting the lives of people is to let it be shorn of the most important function for which it exists, that is, to bring meaning, purpose, and hope of achievement in the here and now. Wherever the church has for long remained an instrument through which men were encouraged or forced to forgo improvement in this life in the hope of something better in some imagined future one, it has become something of a dead institution, having little meaning to anyone but the spiritual and socially blind.

If religion, any religion, is to flourish in the hearts and minds of people, it must pursue a course that will make people see in it an instrument through which the lot of mankind can be improved, physically, morally, and spiritually here and now. Anything that comes afterward as a result of such improvement can be regarded as something of a bonus, for the good life is worthwhile within and for itself, and churches should help make that good life more nearly attainable. If they do not, they become as sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.

The newsletter of the Student Christian Fellowship of the University of Utah carries currently a comment upon the stodginess and narrowness of schoolteachers that is worth repeating here. It goes like this: “The student very often sits silently in class trying to determine the professor’s opinion so he can repeat it back on the final exam…. He would maintain his independence of thought in the classroom, but when he feels that the professor will not understand this independence and that it will result in a lower grade he becomes silent and gradually comes to feel that does not pay to think.”

If this is true, and to the degree that it is true, then we who tried to teach are committing at best a moral wrong in taking this attitude toward our students. Other things being equal, it is assumed that the professor knows more about the subject than the students generally, otherwise there would be little point in his being there. But all of us, if we are honest with ourselves, have come across students who not only knew as much about a given topic as we, but often a darn sight more. Not only that, but occasionally we have a student who can think circles around us. What are we doing to these students when our method of instruction and our attitude towards class learning consists merely in pouring into the class a portion of subject matter and then are satisfied with the results only if the student gives it back to us by rote in undigested form? Students may, and many will, forget fairly early a block of subject matter in a given course, but they are not likely to forget a course in which they are made to think, to do critical thinking out of the information they have learned. Teachers have an obligation, not only to the students, but to themselves, to stimulate students to be curious about the world around them, to want to satisfy this curiosity through learning, and to evaluate through critical thought processes what they are learning and how to relate this to the satisfaction of their curiosity. Unless this process is encouraged – even demanded – much of what goes on in the classroom is not only a farce, but is robbing the student of his right to develop his ability through classroom experiences that require the exercise and expression of his independent thinking and learning.

All of this puts important responsibility on the student, and all too many of them recoil from this responsibility because it means effort on their part. Far too many of them come to college desiring a diploma and shrinking from doing what is necessary to get an education. But even they have a right, moral as well as educational, to an opportunity for stimulation of their mental development through class experiences rigorous enough to challenge their best ability, liberal enough to encourage them to think. If they do not take advantage of such opportunity, they have no business in college, and their grades rightly should reflect this. Failure on the part of the professor to provide such an opportunity and on that of the student to profit by it, is immoral, intellectually, however smug the teacher may like to be or non-receptive the student is.

_______

Being a native of this section of the country, and having lived elsewhere for a rather long period of time, this reporter is in something of a unique position to look rather objectively at the constant conflict and tensions arising among denominations, and among members of the same denomination, over the fundamental versus the modern point of view in religious beliefs. Nowhere in the United States is fundamentalism in religion more entrenched than in the South, and Johnson City, being a part of that South, has its share, maybe more, of these tensions and traditionalists who would restrict religious thinking to the 17th, 16th, or even earlier centuries. Religion, perhaps by its very nature, can change slowly, but even it must change with changing needs, or it loses its value to the people who rightly can profit by cultivation of this very important part of human existence. But how many sins do we commit in the name of religion? Cloak any idea with a religious aura or flavor, and immediately, to some people, merely to question that idea is to be an infidel, or best an agnostic. The fact is that many people, including myself, have had religious experiences that were not worth having, while many experiences not ordinarily associated with the religious realm, have had for us deep and abiding religious significance.

Traditionalists are alarmed lest the values that sustained people of the past be thrown away. They lament that sin has become behavior and that psychology has captured theology. Liberals feel that our religious needs of today cannot be reached by the dogmas of yesteryear. Traditional theology is not religious enough to meet the needs of a people whose culture is maturing fairly rapidly. The rise of liberalism in the last century or so is no more revolutionary than many previous upheavals in church history. Traditional emphasis has been more on belief than on being. The church is always been more severe with heretics than with sinners. Traditionalism seeks to reassert the past. Liberalism is dissatisfied with the past. Traditionalism emphasizes heredity; liberalism emphasizes variation and perhaps experimentation. Traditionalism holds that guidance for man is embedded in the past, that the task is to rediscover it and make man except it. Traditionalism wishes to enforce inherited beliefs and institutions. Liberalism seeks to examine its inheritance, reject what has been outgrown, and restate its religion in view of present day needs. But liberalism is not merely a restatement of old beliefs in modern terms. That is neo-orthodoxy. It is not a new collection of theological principles. If it were it would be but a new orthodoxy, which it is not. It is a method, an attitude, an approach. Traditionalism grounds truth in authority. Liberalism grounds truth in the inductive method, for that is the only reliable way we have developed thus far to determine the reliability of a supposed fact.

_______

And along the same line of thought comes something of a progressive evaluation of the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were discovered in a cave a few miles south of Jericho, a decade ago. It will be interesting to see if there is a consensus among students about the scrolls, and more interesting to see whether their impact will be such as to alter the relatively fixed notions that many, perhaps most, people have regarding their present tenants in religion. Very likely, to the traditionalist whose mind is already made up about everything, whatever consensus there may be about these scrolls will seem as subversive to him as the Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

Already two extreme views seem to be emerging among students. One is that the Dead Sea community where the scrolls were found might shed more light on Christianity than Bethlehem; the other attach relatively little major significance to them. If there is one thread of conclusion about them shared by more students than any other, it is that the scrolls may modify in some ways certain religious viewpoints, but that fundamentally, they do not alter the foundations of Christianity. Rather, they will do much to contribute to the understanding of these foundations.

_______

Some interesting comparisons and contrasts with respect to church-going habits among Americans and Britons are revealed in a survey by Gallup, the results of which are just out. Almost three times as many Americans attend church more or less regularly than is true of our British cousins. It was found that 51 percent of American adults attend church on some occasion during the week, while only 14 percent of the English do. Almost 40 percent of the British say they never or almost never go to church. More of them stopped going to church between 16 – 20 years of age than any other age level. One in seven Briton says he goes to church only on special occasions, such as Easter. Also, fewer Britons than Americans make a point of listening to or watching religious services on radio or television. Among the major reasons given for not attending more regularly are such stock ones as “too busy doing other things,” “just lost the habit,” “services are boring or uninteresting,” “no one else is in in the family goes,” and “find it hard to believe in Christianity.” Just what all this proves, if anything, this reporter is not sure. Certainly it would be unsafe to equate church going with belief in religion, and I do not propose to arrive at such an unequal equation.

_______

Well, the new federal highway system, to be built with your money and mine, will be replete with billboards, unless a miracle happens, and few of us believe in miracles, at least of the political kind. Aside from contaminating the beauty of creation by their unsightliness, these road signs make driving hazardous and thus contributes to highway deaths. But while the Senate Public Roads Subcommittee plans to draft an anti-billboard measure, even if the Senate acts, the House obviously will not. Representative George Fallon, Democrat of Maryland, heads the House Public Roads Subcommittee, and he lists himself in the congressional directory as partner in an “advertising sign business” run by his family. While this firm does not specialize, at least not yet, in roadside signs, Fallon has close ties with outdoor advertising circles in Baltimore, and perhaps elsewhere. This supposed-to-be representative of the people has already stated in advance that he does not intend even to call a meeting of his committee on the billboard issue. He insists that he wants it left to the states, which is exactly where the billboard lobby wants it, for it is easier to maneuver toward their objectives within state legislatures than within the Congress where the national spotlight can be focused upon them. There is nothing necessarily unethical about lobbying as such, but what about conflict of interests where a head of a congressional committee refuses to grant a hearing on an issue which, as a member of a firm, might be unpalatable, but who, as a member and chairman of that committee he has an obligation to see that all sides of that issue have a chance to be heard. The psychologists will call such a personality schizophrenic; some of us who are not psychologists have another term for it, but is hardly as euphemistic.

_______

Rumor and gossip are at times simply nuisances, but they can and too often do become menaces to business, to government, and to individuals, for the poisoned relations between people affect the well being of society. Rumor cuts across all occupational boundaries with a speed greater than that of any other human communication. Under some conditions gossip is a powerful tool for keeping society in order ethically and politically. All of us dislike to be talked about, and gossip can become vicious in small communities especially. Sociologically, gossip is the voice of the herd, thundering in our ears, telling us that the goblins of ridicule, ostracism, and punishment will get us if we don’t behave. Our culture seems to be saddled with it, for good or ill.

How does it start? It may arise from love of one’s own pet ideas. We may gossip merely to fill a gap in a tea party conversation. But whispering campaigns can also be organized to slander a public official, a business executive, or a private individual. And gossip does not exist only on the lower levels, either as to the person spreading it or the nature of the subject matter. Some high in administrative hierarchies indulge in it. It is a mulish way of thinking and acting. It rests not necessarily on evidence, but on prejudice, egoism, or a deliberate intent to spread propaganda. To indulge in gossip is to betray, unwittingly or otherwise, an immature mind, an indiscreet one, and a mind that seeks its indulgence without regard for the direful results that may be visited thereby on the victim. Those who practice the codes of the Golden Rule and the square deal refuse to be so small. Was it not a great writer who said that “He who steals my purse steals trash, but he who filches from me my good name taketh that which enricheth him not and leaves me poor indeed?”

---

A Roman Catholic priest held prisoner by Red China for six years has left for home in Omaha, Nebraska. The Rev. Fulgence Gross, a Franciscan missionary, sailed from Shanghai yesterday for Hong Kong. Four more Catholic clergymen are among the eight Americans still held by the Chinese communists.

_______

The Vatican’s secretary of state office has denied remarks of Hungary’s communist Premier Kadar about that nation’s Roman Catholic cardinal. The premier had said Pope Pius had asked Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty to resume his post as primate of Hungary. The Vatican statement declares that Cardinal Mindszenty is still considered the primate of Hungary, even if the government prevents him from exercising his functions. The cardinal has been a refugee in the U.S. legation in Budapest for five months. The Vatican view is that there or any place else, he is still the primate.

_______

Religion is one reason that the U.S. State Department officials expect heavy movement of U.S. visitors into the Middle East in the next few weeks. The U.S. recently ended its ban on American travel in some Middle Eastern countries. The Christian Easter and the Jewish Passover are the religious magnets. Passover begins one week from Monday, on April 15. The following Sunday is Christian Easter. Religious observances usually cause a great influx of travelers to Jerusalem.

_______

Russia’s chief rabbi died recently. The end came to Solomon Shleifer in a Moscow synagogue just before the evening service. He had been chosen spiritual leader of the Jews in the Soviet Union 11 years ago when he was 57 years old. The Moscow synagogue, through his backing, recently published a new Hebrew prayer book and Jewish calendar.

_______

This week some 300 million persons throughout the world began a month-long religious observance. For Moslems it’s the feast of Ramadan (ram’a-dan‘), during which nothing is to be eaten or drunk in daylight hours.

_______

President David O. McKay says that economic progress has been good to the Church of Latter Day Saints, but he cautions against accepting the benefits of this progress without recognizing the resulting responsibilities. He has also told the church’s 127th Annual General Conference at Salt Lake City that new scientific and engineering developments have increased greatly the standard of living of many, and that this includes Mormon families. But he sees perils threatening because of that progress, declaring that “All depends on whether we can match this flow of new material power with an equal gain in spiritual forces.”

_______

A new Vatican ruling has produced some significant changes in the worship of the nation’s 32 million Roman Catholics. Parish priests have noted a substantial increase in the number of persons receiving Holy Communion since Pope Pius relaxed church requirements of prolonged fasting before Communion. Catholic officials say this is exactly the result the pope hoped to achieve and expressed confidence the trend toward frequent Communion will continue to grow. Under the new rules laid down by the pope there is no longer any obligation for any Catholic, priest or layman, to fast for more than three hours before taking communion – whether at morning or evening Mass.

_______

Vatican City: Pope Pius has advocated a social security system for the world’s farm workers. In a letter to Cardinal Rodriguez, of Santiago, Chile, the pope said the material, moral, and social living standards in the rural areas must be raised in order to avert an exodus from the fields to the cities.

_______

London: The unofficial Church of England newspaper, The Church Times, has called attention to the sharp division of opinion in the Council of Churches over impending British hydrogen bomb tests. The council voted to deplore the test – but by a narrow margin. Says The Times, “This division of opinion in the Council of Churches is a reflection of a genuine bewilderment. All are one in loathing the whole horrible business of these weapons of mass destruction. But it is by no means a simple matter to expect those who are responsible for the safety of these islands to jettison a means of defense.”

The British, like ourselves, are merely talking about treatment for symptoms of the disease, war. Wonder when or if they we will ever getting around to attacking the disease of war itself? There is little room for optimism that we will, or if we do, it will probably be too late.

_______

Cape Town, South Africa: Compulsory racial segregation in churches has come a step nearer in South Africa. The Parliament has advanced a bill making it an offense for whites and Negroes to worship in the same church. The action came only a few hours after it had been announced that a native pastor would conduct the first service Sunday by an African for a white congregation and the Dutch Reformed Church. Premier J. G. Strydom and all his government are members of the church. When we look at such stupidity as this in the name of government and religion, why is it that some Americans still wish to go on mixing church and state without regard to the basic implications of what they are doing? Of course they do it with the best intentions, but all of us have heard that the road to a reportedly undesirable place is paid with good intentions.

_______

Washington: Rep. Adam Clayton Powell, of New York, says he is asking all House members to help rebuild Negro churches bombed during recent racial strife in Montgomery, Alabama. Powell suggested that those who might be embarrassed at home by such gifts could send cash in a plain white envelope. He hopes to raise $100,000. The question arises: Why would anyone be embarrassed at home or anywhere else by helping repair damage by hoodlums to innocent people and their property?

_______

It was announced in Jackson, Tennessee, this week that the Tennessee Supreme Court had ruled that a property owner in a neighborhood may sell this property to a Negro without being liable to a lawsuit for doing so. Does this sound silly? Well, it happened. It all arose over the sale of a home in Shelby County by a white owner in an all-white neighborhood to a Negro purchaser. Suit was brought alleging that the remaining white owners sustained loss through the sale because it was “an unusually nice, quiet, all-white residential section” and that the sale did “undermine and destroy the value of plaintiff’s home” by the sale to a Negro. The bill of particulars went on to allege that the property in question was in “the heart of a most desirable, inviting and valuable white neighborhood, and the sale created a great disturbance, … upsetting the entire community and destroying both the value and desirability of the plaintiff’s home as well as that of the neighbors…”

The Supreme Court, quite properly, rejected the claim for damages. As long as we deny to a minority the right to educational opportunity, public services generally, to live where they choose and can afford, and, in short, to go about the process of living just like other Americans, we are that long failing to live up to the precepts that we often so righteously give lip-service to but by our actions deny any real belief in them. There are both undesirable and desirable characters in almost any neighborhood, but it is hardly likely that such differences are based upon race, nationality, or religion alone. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto me,” and that can be applied to denial of the right to a desirable location as well any other aspect of living. No race, religion, or nationality has a monopoly on either vices or virtues.

_______

Nobody is more aware than this reporter of the hazards of commenting upon a book, movie or other materials which he has not seen. This, however, is based entirely on the fact that, so far, nobody has found anything good to say about the book just published by John Robinson Beal, entitled “John Foster Dulles, a Biography.” Truly amazing is the fact that analysts, commentators, reporters, reviewers, and politicians are unanimous in pointing to what must be numerous flaws, either in the writing or the behavior of the subject about which Mr. Beal wrote. I can hardly wait to read it, but from accounts of this reporting, it bids fair to rate, sooner or later, at the top of the bestseller fiction list.

_______

One of the remarkable features of man’s religious behavior is the unquestioning attitude he takes toward anything that is coated with a religious flavor. Thousands would willingly die to defend the Bible but have never read it. If all Bibles were suddenly destroyed, man would still be a religious animal. Strictly speaking, we Protestants have no canon. They used to print 14 books of the Apocrypha between the Old and New Testaments. Then the printers left them out and Protestants lost one-third of their Bible and never missed it. It is nothing new to rearrange the Bible. It has been going on since about 850 B.C. God is not in the bookbinding business. He didn’t hand the King James Bible to us – text, hasp, clasp, and binder. But in recent years the furor over the Revised Standard Version has been of huge proportions. Those creating it are either ignorant of the history of the Bible, or, more likely, have their minds closed to any questioning about the book which they have never read thoroughly and critically but which they believe in implicitly. Incidentally, this reporter prefers the King James Version for individual use, but he can see nothing profane of sacrilegious about the Revised Standard Version. In science, to refuse to examine ideas old or new is heresy; in religion, to refuse to examine ideas old or new is orthodoxy. And the ridiculous thing about it is that those of us who fumble around trying to examine religious ideas are classed by the orthodox as being iconoclasts.

_______

This week the National Education Association is observing what it calls its 100^th anniversary – actually its 87^th. This may be a minor point, but in education the first regard should be for meticulous accuracy, historical and otherwise. Anyway, it is a proper time for realistic appraisal of the organization, since so much has appeared in the press and over radio and television about it that is either unfounded or misleading. It has been hailed as a professional organization representing the rank and file of the classroom teachers of the nation. Actually, it is nothing of the kind, except indirectly. The association is what is rightly termed, in blunt parlance, a “company union,’ in the sense that it is dominated from the national to the local level by administrative bureaucracy. Pick up, for example, any state affiliate organ and run through the list of names on its governing board, and there will be found few if any teachers. Virtually all the names will be city or county school superintendents, principals, supervisors, or other non-classroom personnel. It is these who direct the policy of the organization: namely, that whatever is good for the administration of a school unit is good for the teachers, which may or may not be true.

I have no personal knowledge of but one instance (during the long period that I have been associated with the organization in any way) that it took a forthright stand on the principle of defense of the classroom teacher where both academic freedom and separation of church and state were involved. In that case it permitted (perhaps “bungled” is the word) the matter to become so involved that no … decision was forthcoming that clarified the issues and protected the teacher.

So, most of us go on, affiliating with it, either from pressure from above or because it is the only existing organization through which the cause of education can be pressed before public bodies, like legislatures, for example. But many of us who are in the vulnerable position of classroom teachers and who would like to feel we had a professional organization that truly represented the rank and file of the teaching occupation, find the National Education Association and its smaller affiliates sadly lacking as such an agent.

Perhaps the hope for an ideal man of the future is the fact that the man of now is dissatisfied with himself and the society he has created. To the person uncertain of himself, we feel like giving sympathy. To the one who is always certain of himself, we generally feel like giving nothing. But we cannot have healthy minds and healthy bodies except in a healthy society. And, whether we like it or not, it is difficult to see how we can have saved personalities (whatever that means) apart from a saved society. And we cannot have a sound society unless we remove the conditions that make slaughterhouses of men’s personalities. In surveying any proposal for social change, we can do well to use Karl Menninger’s test: “Does it promote love and diminish hate?”

But some creeds, like Pilate, wash their hands of any connection with social change and reform. Many creeds are exclusive, those who hold them seeming to say, “You do not believe as we do, therefore you are not one of us and cannot be right.” How much more sensible to say, “Come and study with us and let us see if we cannot find common principles and procedures to reach a common goal. But we go on, maximizing creedal differences and minimizing creedal similarities, until we find even church groups so far apart that they no longer act like church groups.

Yet, is it not true that experience, study, and reflection lead us to accept the true as sacred? We can reverence others without reverencing what they reverence. Not our conclusions but out behavior should excite admiration and command affection. Most churches find it difficult if not impossible to free themselves sufficiently from creedal dogma to enable them to look realistically at the world about them. A church freed from dogma well could have many functions. It could assist people in their search for intellectual validity. It could promote and defend social righteousness. It should provide people an opportunity to enter into a growth-into-love experience. We are more than fellow pupils; we are a fellowship pledged to love one another, without regard to creed.

_______

The Divinity School of the University of Chicago has made reference in some materials that reached me this week, to a sermon delivered by the famous Dr. Martin Niemoller. In it, the doctor confesses that no one can prove that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, but he goes on to urge that all accept that proposition because it is, in his words, “an impossible thesis.” He thinks, as his sermon illustrates, that a Christian should abandon the promptings of experience and reason and “defy the so-called law of nature” and become “God’s obedient child.”

Maybe the Divinity School’s version of it was not exact. Let us hope not. As I read the above, I could not help but wonder if this preacher were insane. Are God and God’s creation at war with each other? If God is in all and through all, are not nature, experience, and reason manifestations of God? Are not those acting as “God’s children,” to use Niemoller’s symbolic language? How can one act as “God’s obedient child” by opposing what we know of God’s creation and evolution? I do not know the answers to these questions, I merely ask them. But even I can see the contradiction in the sermon, even if it comes from someone as famous as Niemoller. Should we become unreasonable in the name of or because of piety? Is such unreason “piety”?  Or is it something else less commendable? All of this is about as sensible as the central theme of the movie entitled “A Man Called Peter.”

______

In New Jersey recently, a suit was successfully fought against an inter-faith baccalaureate service planned by the Bergenfield High School senior class. Father Edward McGuirk of St. John’s Roman Catholic Church said not long ago, “We believe that the time-honored custom of keeping religion out of the public schools must be maintained.” But various types of combination of public education and religious teaching go on, call it religious emphasis days or weeks or by any other name, the principle is the same. We talk about separation of church and state, then turn around and combine them. In such cases, our talk is so much lip service to a principle that we really do not believe in. Wonder when we’ll either quit talking about it or quit violating it? I seem to recall that a lowly Galilean said nearly 2,000 years ago, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.” Looks as if we are trying to pay tribute to both in the same breath.

_______

Last summer Communist China invited 18 American reporters for a visit, but our State Department refused. Recently two newsmen from Look magazine and one from the Baltimore Afro-American went there anyway. The State Department announced that their passports were being suspended except for the trip home, and some U.S. officials hinted that the three would be indicted under the Trading with the Enemy Act because they had paid for living expenses in China. All the arguments of the Secretary of State for the government’s policy have, and rightly, been angrily rejected by leading newspapers in this country and by such groups as the overseas press clubs. Leonard R. Boudin put the issue squarely and sharply in a recent letter to The New York Times in which he said, in part, “The State Department’s announcement that it will revoke the passports of American correspondents in China raises important questions of law and public policy. No statute, executive order, or departmental regulation makes it unlawful to visit China or any other country. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 prohibits citizens, during a period of national emergency, from leaving or entering the United States without a passport…. These newsmen were entitled to visit China for two reasons. First, as American citizens they may exercise their ‘power of locomotion,’ as Blackstone called it, outside this country as well as within it, whether their purpose be amusement, education or business. That right is still being obstructed by the department’s passport policy despite the repeated judicial criticism these last three years. Secondly, the public has a right to information on public issues from on-government sources. To forbid our newsmen to see for themselves is no less censorship than to proscribe or punish their writings.” Whatever one may think of communists or Communist China is beside the point. Ours is supposed to be a government of law, not one of arbitrary policy by an appointed official. That is the communist’s way of doing things.

_______

Some of you have expressed to me orally and otherwise some curiosity as to why so much time on this program is devoted to the matter of civil rights. Frankly, it is a matter of curiosity to me as to why you are curious about the matter. In reply, I should like to call your attention to the 36^th Annual Report of the American Civil Liberties Union which has just reached me recently. The title of the report this year is not only provocative; it indicated why the matter of civil rights is always a fundamental problem. The title is “Liberty is Always Unfinished Business.” In it are treated developments over the past year such as the following: “freedom of belief, speech, and association, including freedom of religion and conscience,” academic freedom, “the importance of diversity,” “justice before the law.” And the feminine element will be interested to know that it deals with their rights or lack of them, and violation of such rights during 1956.

In connection with the question of civil rights, a colleague of mine from Yankee-land made the comment a short time ago that the term “civil rights” does not mean a thing here in the South. I’ve thought about this a great deal, for I’m sure that what he really meant by his statement is true, namely, that there are more violations of civil rights in the South than elsewhere. It is in the South where the “right-to-work” laws have gained most headway; it is in the South where there is more racial, religious, and cultural intolerance than anywhere else in the United States. We as Southerners may not like this, but if we insist otherwise, our insistence is based on wishful thinking rather than upon informed conclusion. But it is not only in the South that civil rights are violated. Differences in violations are matters of degree, not kind. And individual liberties are everybody’s business, or should be. For freedom of speech, thought, belief, assembly, and all the others means freedom for those who disagree with you as much as freedom for ourselves. And until we become as concerned about the freedom of those we differ with as of those with whom we agree, not even our own freedom is safe. There is no such thing as a second-class citizen under the Constitution, whether we agree with his belief or not.

_______

Roman Catholic circles this week welcomed the news that the Chinese communists had finally released the Rev. Fulgence Gross from house arrest in Shanghai. The 53-year-old Franciscan missionary from Omaha, Nebraska, was arrested in 1951 on spy charges in connection with the Korean War. Most of the six years imprisonment resulting from his so-called conviction were spent in a Chinese prison. However, nearly one year ago, he and others arrested with him were transferred to house arrest. Father Gross said the Chinese Reds had assured him he might leave the country, and that he hoped to return soon to the U.S. His trial and imprisonment behind him, Father Gross preferred not to discuss them; not yet, at least. But he said he and the others were well fed and permitted to see each other at all times.

Of the five other Americans remaining under house arrest in Shanghai, four are also Catholic missionaries. And there is no word when they are to be set free. They are the Reverends John Houle of Glendale, California; Charles McCarthy of San Francisco, California; Joseph McCormack of Ossining, New York and John Wagner of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

_______

Plans were made this week by the Methodist Church’s Board of Social and Economic Relations for a large scale national conference on race relations. Tentative plans are to hold the conference probably late in 1959, although the specific time and place remain to be selected. Concerning the subject, Dr. Clarence La Rue of Columbus, Ohio, termed race relations the outstanding problems confronting the church. Dr. La Rue, who is chairman of the board’s committee on race relations, pointed out that significant gains have been made in recent years.

_______

New York: Thirty-five major denominations and communions of Protestant churches join today in nationwide services called “One Great Hour of Sharing.” The services are held with special offerings made to support overseas relief and reconstruction programs of the various churches. This is the ninth year in which the Protestant denominations have cooperated through Church World Service in programs to aid the needy abroad. At the same time, the Roman Catholic churches are holding similar services in response to an appeal of what is called the “Bishop’s Relief Fund.” And most Jewish communities are engaged in their appeal for the “Emergency Rescue Fund” of the United Jewish Appeal.

_______

Washington: Religious leaders are planning to appeal to Secretary of Agriculture Benson to cut the red tape that hampers private relief agencies from distributing surplus U.S. food to families abroad. Spokesmen for Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish overseas relief organizations will meet with Benson on Monday, tomorrow, to present a joint plea. They will also ask him to make available additional types of surplus foods from government storage bins to provide better balanced diets for millions of undernourished people.

_______

Vatican City: Pope Pius says the great work of building a united Europe is possible only if strong religious forces enliven its member nations. The pope, a long-time advocate of European integration, told a group of West Germans that the state is no end unto itself, because all authority springs for the Creator. Well, without intending to argue with the pontiff, the question does present itself: What about such authority as that exercised by Hitler?

_______

All of us have heard, read, thought about the current mess being aired to the point of exhaustion that apparently exists in the Teamsters’ Union, an AFL, and now also a CIO affiliate. Numerous friends of mine, knowing my own affiliation with the AFT, an AFL affiliate, have asked my opinion. I have no opinion on the guilt or innocence of Mr. Beck. That is a matter that should be tried in a court of law according to due process. If he has not been criminal, he certainly has been either negligent or stupid, and therefore unfit to head a great labor organization. Some have said, “Well, if he is guilty, that is no worse than some corporation executives have done.” Maybe so, but a wrong is wrong, whether committed by a member of a labor union or one who belongs to the National Association of Manufacturers.

In Washington, church leaders are resorting to the weapon of political action in an effort to save the U.S. foreign aid program from being cut sharply by the Congress. The governing board of the National Council of Churches has appealed to half-a-million local ministers across the country explain the church position on foreign aid to their congregations and to urge members to write their congressman.

_______

Milwaukee, Wisconsin: A Catholic chaplain says parents must prepare their children to hold marriage together and stabilize family life. The Rev. Alexander Sigur says parents must, as he puts it, “provide the pattern of character integrity, personality fulfillment, individual and family stability which radiates far more effectively than all other education.” Of course this is true of not only Catholic parents; some Protestant ones well could heed his suggestions. For all children have a right to expect more from their parents than many are getting. Parental selfishness must bear the blame for much so-called juvenile delinquency of today, delinquency in the form of normal family life deprivation as well as delinquency in the form of behavior of young people.

_______

Washington: An organization of Catholic bishops says the number of Catholic Negroes in the U.S. has almost doubled in the past quarter century. The organization says there are now 530,000 Negroes among the 16 million Negro population who are members; while of the nearly 400,000 American Indians, some 110,000 are Catholic.

_______

Chicago: A Methodist bishop charges that there is rigorous isolationism based on color in top educational and artistic circles. Bishop Lloyd C. Wicke, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, criticized both cultural and religious leaders for what he called discrimination attitudes in artistic and education circles. He also said there is color discrimination in Pittsburgh’s 120-member symphony orchestra.

_______

Rome, Italy: Italian Protestants have scored a major victory in their years-long battle against police restrictions. A decision by the constitutional court has upheld their right to perform religious ceremonies without giving advance notice to police. It ruled the prior notification order is unconstitutional as applied to religious functions.

_______

Washington: The world president of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church has appealed to members throughout the world to pray on March 30 for Christians being persecuted in Colombia, South America. The president, R.R. Figuhr, charges that severe and prolonged persecution had been directed against Protestant Christians in Columbia over a period of years. In recent months, he says, this has increased in both severity and extent.

_______

Washington: The government’s Social Security Administration says more than half the U.S. clergymen have been given Social Security coverage. But the agency warns that April 15 is the deadline for those still out. An administration spokesman says estimates of clergymen in the U.S. vary from 164,000 to 200,000, and about 100,000 have decided to go into the program.

_______

Many Protestant churches throughout the U.S. begin today a week of special emphasis on the ministry of the churches to the homeless, hungry, and destitute persons of foreign lands. On next Sunday, March 31, special offerings will be made in response to this year’s “One Great Hour of Sharing.” The $11.5 million appeal is sponsored by the Department of Church World Service of the National Council of Churches. Through this service, 35 denominations and communions cooperate in ministries of compassion to those in distress overseas.

_______

Philadelphia: A Chicago Baptist minister has urged his fellow members to move together against segregation and discrimination. The Rev. Dr. J.J. Jackson added, “In a time like this, every believer is challenged.” He was among the speakers at the Philadelphia Baptist Association, which marked its 250^th anniversary.

_______

A two-day session of exploring “the current Jewish revival” will be held in New York City today and Monday. Leaders of the three branches of Judaism – Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform – will take part.

_______

Vatican City: Pope Pius is reported in excellent health following his latest routine medical checkup. The pope was examined on Wednesday by Swiss specialist Paul Niehans. On Thursday, the pope appointed Monsignor Joseph McGeough, a native of New York City, as the Vatican’s first diplomatic representative to Ethiopia. Monsignor McGeough has been attached to the Vatican Secretariat of State since 1938.

_______

Knoxville, Tennessee. The Rev. Robert H. Manning, rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church of Mt. Prospect, Chicago, declared this week that conversion is more than a change of mind, that it involves the whole orientation and resetting of the personality; whether the change is sudden or gradual, it must be lifelong. Such a statement is refreshing, for so many people apparently believe that this thing called conversion is something that takes place in an instant, and that the person, presumably previously the worst of scoundrels, becomes through relatively little effort of his own, a veritable saint. Such notions are the sheerest of nonsense. The most that can happen instantaneously is a change of mind as to direction. The rest is up to the individual. And for most of us this rest involves a long, long struggle toward an ever-higher plane of living. But, the good Reverend [Manning] goes on, this conversion is, contrary to the usual assumption, something that involves the amendment of life by God. This, too, is mere gibberish. If such were true, then all one would have to do would be to sit and wait until God acted, and if no action was forthcoming, then the responsibility for lack of it would be upon the divinity.

_______

Catholic-Protestant sources of tension and conflict were dealt with in a recent article in America, a Jesuit weekly publication. The contents were too controversial to be cleared for broadcast over CBS’s Church of the Air radio show, but they involved three major elements.

One was the matter of birth control. Some Protestants look upon this as a positive virtue, while the Catholic Church views this practice as contrary to natural law. Another major difference is the attitude toward parochial schools. The right to educate his child in a Catholic school is an undisputed one of the Catholic parent, but, Catholics complain, Protestants often misunderstand the parochial school and regard it as a divisive influence in American society. The third source of misunderstanding, according to the publication, is the matter of censorship. The Legion of Decency and the National Office for Decent Literature do not regard themselves as censors. Rather, the magazine insists, they publish moral appraisals of movies and books. But they are looked upon by Protestants as intolerant. And, what is more, Protestants often feel impelled to go see a movie just because Catholics have condemned it.

Father Davis, writer of the article of protest, prescribes that Protestants and Catholics get together and talk over not merely their differences, but also the vast areas of agreement on matters of common concern. And he thinks that Catholics should take the initiative in this.

Well, a quick appraisal of the record on these three items seems justified at this point. As a Protestant affiliate, this reporter takes the attitude that is probably shared by most that birth control is a matter of individual decisions and that there is little if any religious or moral significance attached to it. However, he reserves to the Catholic the right to take a different view as long as he, too makes it an individual affair and does not attempt to impose his views on others against their will and judgment. But Protestants themselves ordinarily do not understand completely the official attitude the Catholic Church has taken in the matter, but assume that it is opposed to such control in any form, which is not true.

Our ignorance of our Catholic colleagues is profound also with respect to parochial church schools. And often we fail to keep in mind that Protestants too maintain church schools to which children are sent, though mainly these are beyond the high school level. Church schools of all faiths have done much to give variety and richness to our educational pattern, and nobody can seriously question the probable force for good they have been in emphasizing religious and moral aspects of education which the public schools, by their vary nature cannot or should not do. But the good father is less complete in his insistence that the Legion of Decency has not engaged in censorship. Movies have been banned many times because of pressure exerted by the legion and members of the Catholic Church, following the legion’s lead and recommendations. “The Miracle,” “Martin Luther,” and others readily come to mind. Both Protestants and Jews themselves have not been blameless in this matter. For example, some years ago Jews tried to prevent presentation of the picture “Oliver Twist” because it portrayed a leading character, a Jew, in an unflattering role. Nobody questions the right of the Catholic Legion of Decency to appraise the moral tone of movies and books to let the public know what its attitude is. But, when it tries, and sometimes succeeds, in bringing pressure on communication media to prevent those who do not agree with its appraisals from seeing movies or having access to purchase of books it would ban, it is going beyond the bounds of its right in our scheme of things. Most Americans do not want censorship, whether it comes from a church-affiliated organization, or from any other pressure group in the community.

_______

A short lesson in theology came to my attention this week that contains enough food for serious thought that I should like to see what you think of it. It goes like this: “On six days a week we live in an ordered solar system where cause and effect are operative. On Sundays thousands go to church and enter a world of make-believe, where axes float, asses talk with their masters, gods become men and men become gods, people walk on water, the dead come to life, and virgins have babies.” Why is it that we want to think about, but definitely not to think through our religious beliefs? Do we not dare subject such beliefs to the same rigid scrutiny we give to more mundane and secular affairs? Perhaps it is this inability or unwillingness of so many of us to do so that is making Christianity lose perhaps the biggest opportunity in its history, namely to apply its inherent qualities realistically to the social and moral needs of an industrialized society. Instead of doing this, we become even more emotional and subjective, and the cult of religiosity becomes a fetish with many, and the Peale-Graham-Sheen axis gains in popularity for the unthinking mass that wants to feel rather than think. Was it not the Master himself who said that “In that day many will say here he is or there he is,” but believe them not. And from the same source came the assurance that if ye know the truth, the truth shall make ye free. How many of us are objectively seeking truth, and how many of us mistake simply what we want to believe as truth?

_______

Which leads to a final item, an excerpt from Bertrand Russell, whom few would call orthodox in religion. He says,

“The skepticism that I advocate amounts only to this: 1. That when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; 2. That when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and 3. That when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend judgment. These propositions may seem mild, yet if accepted, the would revolutionize human life.”

A viewpoint on the matter of values in education came into the news this week, with a resolution sponsored by Rep. David Givens of Fayette County and 28 others who urged Tennessee schools to put more stress on what they called fundamental and less on frills in Tennessee colleges and high schools. This resolution criticized state colleges for giving credit in such subjects as social dancing, tumbling, and the fundamental and techniques of soccer and speedball. Nothing was said about ping pong and tiddlywinks. Perhaps this was an inadvertent omission.

_______

And along the same line comes an excerpt by President Edwin S. Burdell of Cooper Union, New York, which says:

“Our American democracy has fought shy of elite groups, whether by birth, wealth, or brains. We have promoted an egalitarianism which runs the risk of defeating our efforts to meet our more pressing needs. Our teachers are paid less than our factory workers, and their station in life financially is rated not much above that of the common … salesman. Occasionally waves of anti-intellectualism threaten to stifle the exploration of the unknown, whether physical or social…. The recent fad of applying the term “egghead” to anyone who displays … intellectual ability seems to imply distrust of the intellectual as a sort of misfit in a mass of conformity…. The development of potential brain power of intellectually superior men and women is our greatest need….

“The crux of the problem is how to discover those most talented youths and to motivate them to seek the education … needed to cope with the increasingly complex situation [of the world we live in]. If society is to survive, it must be as much concerned with the man of brains and integrity as it is with enlightenment of the masses of mankind.”

Thus ends the words of the good doctor, but he is saying what many teachers have thought but feared to say in recent years. They have been dismayed as they have seen such panaceas as social promotions, life adjustment curricula, and other such nonsense prescribed as cure-alls for educational ills, and many times they have had to administer the medicine when they had little faith in its healing qualities. Educational theorists have been more concerned with educational problems than they have with the problems of education, and there is a vast difference. If the moral tone of the social order is to be improved through education, it is about time that more reason and less rationalization is utilized in developing and carrying out educational programs. As far as I know, nobody has as yet announced discovery of a process that will transmute zircons into diamonds, but diamonds can be polished by the proper process.

_______

Frederick May Elliot, writing in The Christian Register for December 1956 contributes the following thought-provoking comments:

“’Man,’ wrote Prof. Harlow Shapely recently, ‘is a stubborn adherent to official dogma, and official dogma is more powerful in religion than in any other area of human concern. This may be natural, because religion is more vitally concerned with the deepest emotional life than any other element in human experience, but it is nonetheless regrettable….

“It is now more than a hundred years since William Ellery Channing laid down the principles for a religious education that would be consistent with a liberal point of view in religion…. But it is only comparatively recently that anything like a majority of religious people has made his principles a basis for practice in our churches.

“But a few are on the road to that victorious outcome. And nothing is more deeply heartening today than the response of an entire generation of young parents to the program of religious education which owes much of its initial impulse to Channing. Out of this breakthrough may well come the greatest onward surge that liberal religion has known from the beginning of its history.

“Here is, as I see it, the chief contribution which our churches can make to the advancement of mankind…. We can demonstrate that religion is the ally and not the enemy, of progress in thought; that the mind of man is mightier than its own inertia; that the barriers can be thrown down in the name of faith. That is our opportunity today.”

He was talking about the Unitarian religious philosophy. Few other denominations, including my own, have been bold and imaginative enough to do this.

_______

All of us have read recently of the racial tensions and outbreaks at Clinton, Tennessee, Montgomery, Alabama, and other places throughout the South as a result of integration efforts in schools, on buses, etc. Whatever view one takes toward integration, he probably, in theory at least, deplores mob violence, whether it is in attacking a minister who is escorting colored children to school, or dynamiting the home of an integrationist.

This week a new, or at least a little different, instance of violence occurred in Birmingham, Alabama, when a 29-year-old clerk, a white man who has been a frequent speaker at integration rallies was set upon by a group of hoodlums, all white. His car was wrecked, and stones and other missiles, as well as angry and unprintable words were hurled at him. Not only that, but he was fined $30 in court for gunning his car in a burst of speed to get away from the mob before possible fatal violence was done to his person. As a result of his experience, he says that he thinks it best he leave the state to avoid more trouble. He, quite naturally, feels that he wishes to, in his words, “tell the world” what is going on throughout the deep South regarding the racial situation. Washington announced that he would be permitted to submit a report to a U.S. Senate subcommittee regarding what happened and is happening.

Not only is the whole episode disgraceful, but worse, it seemed to be something of a symbol of the atmosphere through the area. Wonder if those doing the attacking do not go into their churches for worship and sing, “We are not divided, all one body we”? If so, how academic can you get about religion?

_______

To many, perhaps most, of us, children are the most wonderful things in the world. And at least some of us so cherish congenial home and family life where children are, that no sacrifice seems too great to be with them. This week, a statement of “Beatitudes for Parents” came to my attention that seems worth passing on. It goes like this:

Blessed are the parents who make their place with spilled milk and with mud, for such is the kingdom of childhood.

Blessed is the parent who engages not in the comparison of his child with others, for precious unto each is the rhythm of his own growth.

Blessed are the fathers and mothers who have learned laughter, for it is the music of the child’s world.

Blessed and wise are those parents who understand the goodness of time, for they make it not a sword that kills growth but a shield to protect.

Blessed and mature are they who without anger can say no, for comforting to the child is the security of firm decisions.

Blessed is the gift of consistency, for it is heart’s ease in childhood.

Blessed are they who accept the awkwardness of growth, for they are aware of the constant perilous choice between marred furnishing and damaged personalities.

Blessed are the teachable, for knowledge brings understanding and understanding brings love.

Blessed are the men and women who, in the midst of the unpromising mundane, give love, for they bestow the greatest of all gifts to each other, to their children, and in an ever-widening circle, to their fellow men.

Christianity’s season of penitence and prayers begins this coming Tuesday. It is the period of Lent, the 40 days (excluding Sundays) preceding Easter and the resurrection of Christ after his crucifixion. Traditionally, some of the days immediately preceding Lent are a time of high merriment. The name of the festivities, Mardi Gras, comes from the French term for the religious festival, Shrove Tuesday. “Mardi Gras” is literally “Fat Tuesday,” and that goes back to the ancient French housewives who made last-minute efforts to use up the fats that would be forbidden by the church in Lent. Shrove Tuesday’s real meaning is as the day of confession preparatory to Lent. Lent begins the next day, on Ash Wednesday, which gets its name from the ashes that used to be put on the heads of public penitents. Now the Roman Catholic Church puts the symbol on the foreheads of its faithful.

_______

Today in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the U.S. celebration of the 500^th anniversary of the Moravians begins. Throughout the world, the yearlong celebration is observing a global chain of prayer for peace. This has been arranged so that on every day of the year, one Moravian church will be praying from midnight to midnight for the peace of the world, the continuance of the Christian church, and the growth of the Moravian movement. The Moravian mission in Western Tibet began the chain in January. It will move eastward in Europe through Czechoslovakia, the birthplace of the church in 1457, on to California, and then end in Dutch Guiana in South America. A Moravian bishop is credited with editing the first Protestant hymnal in 1501. The church also was the first Protestant denomination to reach international scope. In the U.S., Pennsylvania has most of the nation’s 50,000 Moravians. Bethlehem is the seat of the Northern body, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the head of the Southern division.

_______

Yesterday, the Vatican City and many other places throughout the year marked a double event. It was the birthday of Pope Pius and the anniversary of his election as supreme pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church in 1939. The main celebration to honor the pope will be a solemn pontifical Mass on March 12, the anniversary of his coronation.

_______

The head of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations says the official family of American Reform Judaism now has 540 “liberal temples” in the U.S. and Canada. Dr. Maurice Eisendrath adds that four new congregations were admitted in the first two months of this year. Eleven more congregations are applying for membership. Dr. Eisendrath states that at least 23 more would be awaiting admission if funds were sufficient. He says new housing areas and suburban developments have meant requests from all parts of the U.S. and Canada for aid in establishing new Jewish temples and religious schools.

_______

In Knoxville, Tennessee, a regional meeting of the Women’s Society of Christian Service of the Methodist Church has been told that the failure of the church to take a positive stand on social issues such as integration has permitted hoodlum elements in many communities to take over. The speaker was Bishop Richard C. Raines of Indianapolis. He said: “The church must be the conscience of the community. When the church only reflects the moral code of its members and fails to shine the piercing light of God’s judgment on human conduct it ceases to be the salt of the earth.” He emphasized that Methodists and other Protestants are in “dire danger” of permitting our churches to become museums. He listed four facets of integration as follows:

• Every person should have the right to work where he is capable;
• Every man should have the right to educate his children in public schools without artificial barriers;
• Every man should have the right to live where he can afford to live and should be accepted by the community as long as he is a good citizen. Christians, above all, should take the lead in stopping rock-throwings and bombings;
• The church should quickly cease to be the most segregated group in our society.

_______

Albany, New York: The New York State Council of Churches is against lowering the age at which a man can marry without his parents’ consent from 21 to 18. Speaking for the council, the Rev. Robert Withers told a legislative committee that lowering the age would lead to hasty and ill-considered marriages. He said too many young peoples had the erroneous idea that all sorts of problems could be solved by early marriage. Albany attorney Charles Tobin, representing the Roman Catholic Welfare Committee, said his group has not yet taken a stand on the question.

_______

Augusta, Maine: Roman Catholic lay leaders have threatened to shut down Augusta’s parochial schools unless the city provides the pupils with transportation. Such a move would compel the public schools to absorb 900 children now in Catholic schools. The city council refused bus transportation for parochial pupils even though it was approved last year in a referendum election.

_______

New York: The controversy over whether religious broadcasts should pay for radio and television time or should get it free will be an important topic at a meeting in New York next week. The meeting is that of the Broadcasting and Film Commission of the National Council of Churches. The national council took a stand last year that the broadcasting industry should furnish time for religious programs. It is difficult to see how such a stand could be justified if the religious programs are sectarian. If the government is prohibited from sponsoring one religion over another, then how can religious groups expect to use government force, indirectly, to compel private industry to do so?

_______

Chicago: The official newspaper of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Chicago has added fuel to the row over the film “Martin Luther.” The newspaper, New World, called it a hate-provoking movie. The newspaper censured the film especially for suppressing what it called the coarseness and violence which many historians say marked Luther’s character. The Catholic editorial caused television station WGN-TV to cancel a showing of the film. A Protestant group has protested to the Federal Communications Commission because of the ban.

_______

Williamsburg, Virginia: The General Board of the National Council of Churches had commended all church groups and individuals who are working to relieve racial tensions in the South. No names were mentioned in the resolution.

_______

Vatican City: Pope Pius’ pronunciation of the use of anesthetics this week appears to have settled a controversy that has agitated some Roman Catholics for many years. The pope declared that a doctor may give an aesthetic with a clear conscience when it is medically indicated, even if he knows it may shorten the patient’s life.

_______

With the controversy over Israel and her role in the Middle East continually in the headlines these days, a facet of the problem has made little in the way of news. That is the issue of the Jewish vote in this country, hinging perhaps on the position the U.S. takes on the matter of Israel’s withdrawal from Egypt. It is impossible to say just how much Jews vote as Jews. Many analyses of the so-called Jewish vote indicate that, other things being equal, Jews vote as they do for many reasons, only one of which is or may be a religious or socio-cultural bias. However, the Jews of the world have every right to be group conscious, in view of the perennial persecution to which they have been subjected, especially in Nazi Germany in recent years. But there is little doubt that the Middle East controversy could well crystallize a Jewish vote, just as did the impact of the Irish question produce an Irish vote during and immediately after World War I.

None with a memory of the bitter anti-British sentiments with which political candidates bought votes in the great Irish American communities was surprised when Mayor Wagner of New York scorned the visiting King Saud of Arabia, and refused him a municipal welcome in New York. Averell Harriman, governor of New York, backed Wagner in that position in all respects, and few were surprised. Whatever the motives of the mayor and the governor may have been, practical politicians counted their action as likely to hold or win them friends and votes among the very large Jewish community of New York City. Doubtless also how vividly the current dispute over Israel will be reflected in future U.S. elections. It may depend to a considerable extent on whether the United Nations, with U.S. support, takes a position that can be interpreted as penalizing Israel and how severe those penalties may be. If the Israeli have their backs up and the U.N. must hit hard to put them down, the blow may leave a big and perhaps ugly scar on the face of U.S. domestic politics. Fortunately, at this particular moment, it looks as if that eventuality may have been avoided.

_______

Four weeks ago I quoted some excerpts from and recommended the reading of an article entitled “What do You Mean ‘Religious Emphasis Week’?,” by Dr. Leland Miles of Hanover College, Indiana. The article appeared in the winter 1956 Issue of the A.A.U.P. Bulletin. Both organization and publication tend toward the conservative side in education, and both are as American as the name of the organization indicates.

The viewpoint of Dr. Miles, as set forth in the article, is that in most cases, so-called religious emphasis weeks are largely occasions where only Christian (usually Protestant) representatives are brought before the student body, with a result that, instead of stimulating thought and clarifying convictions, they constitute largely mutual admiration societies that merely confirm prejudices. He suggests that it would be an “exhilarating way to spend a real religious emphasis week … to have representatives of the world’s major religions appear before the student body.”

Your reactions to his suggestion have been about what I had expected and even hoped, for they were both for and against the idea. Had they been all one of the other, it would have been disturbing, for unanimity breeds stagnation, and stagnation is not conducive to thought, growth, or progress. What was surprising was that some of your reactions opposing the idea were based on the fear, expressed or implied, that to bring such representatives before college young people might lessen their faith in Christianity. Does that mean that our faith is so fragile we dare not submit it to open competition in the marketplace with contrasting thought systems in the field of religion? Do we believe in free enterprise only in the world of material objects, not in the realm of ideas?

Whether one agrees or disagrees with Dr. Miles’ suggestion is, within itself, relatively unimportant. What is important is the stubborn fact that in the world of today, bigotry and intolerance are twin luxuries we can no longer afford. We who believe in Christianity are a minority group in the 2.3 billion people that make up humanity of this planet.

The most important ingredient in the peace we hope to forge is a better understanding among people of diverse cultures. Iron curtains raised by the fearful will not bring that understanding about. It will be brought about only by creating an atmosphere that will permit the greatest possible exchange of differing viewpoints. And one can understand a philosophy that conflicts with his own without embracing that philosophy. To assume otherwise would be as ridiculous as to say that because I know the nature of electricity I cannot avoid electrocuting myself. Any religion, including Christianity, will live only so long as it gives purpose and meaning to the lives of people. When it no longer does this, it will perish, and all the great walls erected by the timid cannot prevent its decline. We may not like the idea, but it can be documented by the whole history of human experience.

Do you have sense enough to know what you want to read? What you consider to be fit to read? Apparently a number of city governing boards in the state and elsewhere do not think so. It begins to look as if there might even be competition among the municipalities to see which can surpass the others in telling the public that you can or cannot read this or that. The news this week revealed that Nashville has banned six magazines which even passed the Knoxville censors. Among them was the January issue of Modern Man, a magazine which I had never seen. However, I rushed right down, secured a copy of it, and looked through it. There is hardly anything in it that one may not see in his daily newspaper, on a roadside billboard, or any other public means of display. It is not only disturbing, but a matter of curiosity, to speculate as to why it is that community do-gooders and busybodies get it into their noodles that they and they only know what literature is; that they feel they can set themselves up as superior beings to dictate to us, the common herd, what is fit for us to read. It is not only undemocratic, but irritating. We have laws against obscenity, against salacious literature. If a magazine or other publisher violates these laws, he should be punished. Matters of this sort properly belong in a court of law, and should not be left up to private individuals and groups, acting under sanction of spineless or unthinking governing boards, to be the censors of literate morality. Wonder if they ever heard of the First Amendment to the federal Constitution?

_______

Closely related to the above item is a matter now pending in the Tennessee state legislature, namely, a bill sponsored by the Tennessee Press Association, that would make meetings of public commissions, boards, etc., open to the public. These commissions and boards are transacting your and my business, but apparently many of them do not wish us to know what they are doing. As one reads the statements of opponents of the measures he can, if he has imagination, visualize their smallness of stature. Is it not rather anomalous that such a bill should be needed or thought to be needed? This reporter is not talking here without benefit of some experience in the matter, for rather wide experience with boards and agencies of various types from the federal to the local level has given him firsthand knowledge of how school boards, city councils, Washington bureaus, and other similar bodies feel that their own domain is their personal empire, and what they do should be a matter of them and them only to know about. There is a moral element involved here. The people have a right to know. It was rather refreshing to live some five or six years in a state where meetings of all public agencies were open at all times to the public, and none of the dire things the timid legislators at Nashville who oppose the “right to know” bill fear happened there. Your and my duty with respect to government is to exert our influence to the end of making it better, more constructive, and cleaner. We cannot do this without information as to what is going on, and we cannot get that information unless representatives of the public are permitted to be present and report upon the transaction of public business. It is as simple as that.

_______

One comforting item in the week’s news should set the minds of school people at rest, and should make a lot of people red-faced. For years now school teachers and school administrators have been insisting that there is a critical shortage of classrooms in the nation’s schools. Under consideration by a House committee now is an administration bill seeking to provide $1.3 billion over the next four years in federal aid for school construction. Now comes the spokesman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, testifying before that House committee, who reveals that there is really no shortage of classrooms at all. Thomas A. Ballantine of Louisville, Kentucky, chairman of the Chamber of Commerce Committee on Education said, “No critical national shortage in classrooms has been or can be demonstrated to exist.” In fact, instead of a shortage, he has discovered a 14,000 surplus. And that should settle that issue, once and for all.

_______

It is not my desire to ride the same horse to the point of destruction, but a number of times I have made reference to the need from both the standpoints of safety and of aesthetics to do something to regulate billboard nuisance on the projected 41,000 miles of federal highways. From Washington this week comes news that the billboard lobby is hot after Rep. Cliff Davis of Tennessee who has introduced in the House a companion bill to the one Senator Neuberger sponsored in the Senate to permit use of federal aid in buying up advertising options along these highways. Even union representatives, sign painters and electricians, are putting heat on him. I happen to be a card-carrying member of the AFL, but the welfare of the public comes before the welfare of the union, regardless of what Mr. Wilson once said in another connection. Why not write Rep. Davis and let him know how you feel about the matter? Incidentally, the AAA has for the first time in its history, backed the pending bills, and it represents over 5 million motorists.

_______

Of course you know that the United Nations is being urged to impose diplomatic, economic, and perhaps other sanctions against Israel because of her refusal to relinquish Gaza and the Gulf of Aqaba unless or until she receives U.N. guarantees that there will be no further raids on the part of the Arabs of Israeli territory. Without any comment upon the rightness or wrongness of her position, few would disagree with the president who said that two wrongs do not make a right, that because Egypt violated her pledge in the U.N. Charter and raided Israel is no excuse for Israel to violate her pledge in the U.N. Charter to settle her differences with other nations by peaceful means. However, any serious or concerned move to impose the same kind of sanctions against Russia for her rape of Hungary is noticeable only for its lack. Veritably, in our world of today, the way of the small transgressor is hard.

_______

The women’s segment of a county political organization in a neighboring county this week used as its theme “Recognizing Americanism Month,” apparently meaning February. (No mention was made about the other 11 months.) However, this reflects again how enamored some of us can get about slogans and words that mean everything or nothing. As a matter of fact, many of us have become so bored with “ism” words these last few years that we avoid them entirely. The word “Americanism” is one that has been bandied about all too much, and it is about time we either tried to define it or omit its use altogether. A few years ago some of us hoped that some cases then in the courts would force a judicial definition, but we were naive, and such was not forthcoming.

Anyway, the news item mentioned goes on to say that the speaker discussed George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and others. But after all, what is Americanism? Well, it may be the heroes at Valley Forge, or at least the courage they displayed; a Mexican boy carrying the American flag in a Colorado pageant; the Negro fighting within the framework of our constitutional system for the rights that bigoted fellow-citizens of his would deny him. It is not only the George Washingtons and Abraham Lincolns, though we honor them as great; it is the Italian miner in the coal pits. Not only those whose ancestors came over in 1620; but the Hungarian refugees who aspire to become good American citizens. America is made up of all races, all creeds, all nationalities; it is composed of people who came here centuries ago, and of the ones who arrived yesterday. It is composed of not only the George Pullmans and the Andrew Carnegies, but also of the Eugene Debs and Norman Thomases; it is the beleaguered farmer of the dust bowl seeking government assistance in order to retain his homestead for his family, and it is those who resign from office because of conflicts of interest over family contracts with the government. Taken together, it is all of us who make up America. Here we have learned to reconcile our differences without conflict, to be tolerant of those whose convictions are in conflict with our own; to recognize that within the framework of our Constitution and laws under it, we have formed a society that transcends old world loyalties and traditions. It is to this Constitution that all of us owe loyalty, and anyone who respects it and abides by it is to be respected for his Americanism, regardless of his place of origin, religious or political belief, or social or economic status.

Some months ago I reported and commented on the hazards to highway safety of unsightly billboards, and the danger that, unless something is done soon by federal and state governments, the 41,000 miles of super highways to be built will become so many miles of billboard jungle. Since then much has appeared in the papers on this subject, as well as over radio and television media. There is more than safety involved, for as the late Ogden Nash wrote some years ago:

I think that I shall never see

A billboard lovely as a tree,

Perhaps unless the billboards fall

I’ll never see a tree at all.

This may be humor, but it is desperate humor. Senator Neuberger, of Oregon, has just introduced in the U.S. Senate a bill, which, if enacted, would permit the use of federal funds by the states to buy up advertising options to 500 feet of land adjoining the proposed highway system. This is a bill that Congress should enact, and the states should take advantage of. Ours can be a land of beauty, and there is no reason why your and my tax dollars should be spent to build highways that are to become narrow avenues through dangerous and unsightly commercial advertisements. Senator Neuberger puts it this way: “It’s the motorists money which makes the billboard site of value. If the highways were not there, the signboard would be worth less than a continental dollar. The highway, paid for by the motorist, makes valuable the signboard which the motorist is forced to look at while traveling through the land.” But the senator knows what he is up against. The billboard lobby accused it opponents, at the federal level, of violating state rights. At the state level, it accuses them of “robbing widows and orphans of the money they get for renting the land for billboards.” They also have, he says, a unique definition of “free enterprise,” which according to them is an improvement on God…. “If you look at lakes and trees and mountains as you drive along the highways, you go to sleep, but if you look at billboards advertising a brand of whiskey or cigarettes, … you stay awake.” How maudlinly commercial can you get?

_______

The Union Presbytery, of the Presbyterian Church USA, has called for complete integration of public schools in Tennessee, and has condemned the governor’s recently enacted segregation laws as an invitation to the lawless. Meeting in Knoxville, the presbytery also asked both governor and legislature to reconsider their action on these laws, and to take steps to eliminate “all forms of racial segregation as denial of the fatherhood of God to all men, of the brotherhood of man, and of the dignity and worth of the individual.” It also urged upon the general assembly the adoption of a program that would “assist all Christians in preparing their communities psychologically and spiritually for carrying out the full implications of the Supreme Court’s decision.” It emphasized, “We believe that delay in carrying out the intent of the … decision can only postpone our dealings with a problem which we are bound by law and conscience to face and solve.”

_______

Another important piece of legislation now in the congressional hopper is the proposals regarding civil rights, proposals designed to safeguard those fundamental freedoms that distinguish a free society from a dictatorial one. Southern (so-called) Democrats have given notice they will filibuster the bills to death, or failing in that, will form a third party. During the forthcoming debate we shall hear invocations of the shades of Jefferson, shouting about state rights, condemnation of the Supreme Court, and in short, all the tricks in the politician’s bag to befuddle and confuse the issue and to wear down supporters of the measure.

Much of the oratory will probably be centered around the meaning of the Bill of Rights and later amendments at the time they were added to the Constitution. There is no doubt about the meaning of the First Amendment, guaranteeing freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion. Many will argue that the 14th Amendment was designed to permit a mixture of races in the public schools. But much of the argument will be a matter of semantics. On the broad principles of free government under due process of law there is no appreciable dispute. But perhaps the most significant problem in the field of civil liberties today is to obtain as clear and widely agreed-upon definition of the basic principles as applied to contemporary conditions as possible.

It is a commonplace that each generation since Jefferson has been compelled to redefine constitutional right and guarantees in accordance with its own conscience and the conditions confronting it. Many of those who signed the Declaration in 1776 that said all men are created equal and had certain unalienable rights were slave owners; and the modifying definitions which they gave to that statement in order to perpetuate chattel slavery had to be wholly revised at a later age. This task of redefinition is unending. It is peculiarly difficult today as we seek to apply principle formulated in the simple and mainly agrarian society of the 18^th century to political, social, and economic conditions which have been so vastly transformed since that day. The very idea of civil liberty implies a sound reconciliation of the conflicting claims of the diversified individual, the pluralistic community, and the unitary state. The measures before the Senate would attempt such a reconciliation through a broadening of the definition of civil rights to make it conform to today’s realities.

_______

A student editorial in a current issue of a local college newspaper is of such penetrating discernment that its comments seem worth passing on to you, insofar as time will allow. It says:

“On our campus now there are a number of free-thinking liberals who frequently come under heavy criticism for their ‘different’ type of thinking. The ultra-conservative true-blue believers in the great American myth … are in the forefront of the challengers.

“The liberals here, always quick to tell their classes what is fact and what is opinion, are in the minority and therefore subject to dark threats by the pseudo-intellectuals. They are accused of being former members of a John Reed Club, donating money to the Reds in the Spanish Civil War, teaching evolution, and beating their wives. All accusations, even if true, would have some degree of merit. It is interesting to note the source of this criticism, which is, by the way, much more prevalent than most instructors and students realize. Without naming specific groups, the criticism generally originates among religious fanatics, chauvinistic individuals, persons who parrot the catchy phrases of essentially narrow-minded clods, and the apathetic leaders of useless groups.

“To what do they object? Basically they are objecting to a type of thought that will ultimately destroy them; they are objecting to the potential destruction of blind faith based on fallacies; they are objecting to theories that may prove they are not the superior beings and God is not always on their side.

“The manner of criticism employed is insidious, born in the darkness and spread subtly. It occasionally gains momentum, until it reaches the point that certain factions outside the campus are leveling remarks in high places against the freethinkers here. Generally it travels by word of mouth from person to person, group to group.

“The irony of this is that the liberal instructors remain unconcerned, serenely confident that one day they will be average, not extraordinary. They are not perturbed when people disagree with them, but they do object to answers based on what is safest to say.

“This problem of criticism is one that has plagued liberals since Adam and Eve hiked out of the garden; it may go on ad infinitum. Nevertheless, we would like to put in a plug, here and now, for the very few instructors and even fewer students among us who are inclined to think for themselves.

“We feel those thinkers are the ultimate hope for man; that they are worth hearing simply because they are honest. Contrary to being atheistic, or even agnostic, and communistic, they take a long look at humanity and being optimistic, try to show the way. They will be around when the diplomatic liars, the militaristic nonentities, the superior race fanatics, and the dishonest leaders have long since passed into an ignoble place in history, or forgotten altogether.”

Everyone gets around to thinking, at least at times, about how wealthy America is. And that brings immediately to mind the alleged store of gold at Fort Knox. However, the wealth of a country is not necessarily measured in terms of how much bullion it has stored away in the ground from whence it came. It is just as important to know how that wealth is distributed. For India is a rich country for some people, but for the masses, it is poverty-stricken. Moreover, a nation’s wealth can better be measured in terms of how well its families – the men, women, and children – are fed, clothed, and housed. Putting the two together, for they belong together (i.e., distribution of wealth and general welfare), one cannot help but think that the bankers and finance companies have about convinced the American public that people can get out of debt by borrowing money. Stock prices have risen 77 percent since 1952; the interest on home loans now is 7 percent as a rule rather than as an exception, with a reported large bonus in each case for handling the debt at all. Farmer income is down 23 percent. The so-called tight money policy seems to be benefiting only those who already have plenty of it, while those needing better food, clothing, and housing can expect less and less of these things. Is there not a moral as well as a financial consideration involved here? Public officials are quick and frequent to parade their religious affiliations with or without provocation, from the president down. Wonder if they read not only the stock market quotations but also if they analyze what is happening to those who need most. Seems like someone said once somewhere that “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me.”

_______

A quotable quote comes from Dr. J. Edward Carothers of the Methodist Church in Schenectady, New York, who writes, “One of the mysteries of life in the church is the laziness of people when it comes to trying new hymns. It is a spiritual laziness which shows how far the soul has moved in the direction of dullness. In the jukebox world there are new tunes and songs by the bushel. In that world there is an attitude of hopeful watching and waiting for something better, more exciting, strange, and new. It is often unrewarded but it persists as an attitude. Churches can be horribly dull and inflexible, especially when it comes to singing hymns. People who have been going to church every Sunday for fifty years may not know more than a few hymns and then not be able to sing even so much as a stanza without a hymnal.” Is that true with you in your church?

_______

It has been interesting to note and think about reactions to the idea quoted on this program last week that a revolution on the college campus during Religious Emphasis Week might be a wholesome development. But where there is no controversy there is not likely to be any thought. In connection with the idea of revolution, it seems apropos here to cite an outstanding American, one Mr. Justice Louis Brandeis, who said, “Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change.” (Though the revolution suggested last week was in the realm of religious procedure.) Mr. Brandeis goes on, “They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty. To courageous, self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of popular government, no danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present, unless the incidence of evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for free discussion.”

_______

Jung said there are four main ways one may view reality or the dominant phase of the universe to denote which we commonly use the word symbol of “God.” These four ways are sense experience, reason, feeling, and insight by intuition. Because some people incline to some of these four more than others, intelligent people have different emphasis in religion. It would seem to be more nearly counsel of perfection to suggest that people become mature in religion by developing and integrating all four.

_______

This last item is approached with considerable temerity, for it is accepted for once at least, that Freud was right when he said that “Crowds never thirsted after truth; they demand illusions and cannot do without them.” And, it may be added, they are likely to destroy those who take their illusions away from them. However, it cannot but be observed how many Americans go around saying things about themselves, and believing them, that are either not true, or not nearly as true as they wish you to think they are. All of this is brought about by reading an article in Mad magazine about a radio announcer who worked the all-night shift, and who got into the habit of saying just what he thought. His employers promptly fired him, but his audience demanded his return and he was re-hired just as promptly. Newspaper reporters, sensing a human-interest story, interviewed the announcer and got his evaluation of people who speak their minds versus those who do not. He responded:

“The average person today thinks in certain prescribed patterns. People … have a genuine fear of stepping out and thinking on their own. ‘Creeping meatballism’ is this rejection of individuality. It’s conformity. The American brags about being a great individualist, when actually he’s the world’s least individual person. The idea of thinking individually has become a big joke. Old Thomas J. Watson of I.B.M. came up with the idea for a sign which just said, “Think.” And today, it’s a gag. This is the result of “creeping meatballism.” The guy who has been taken in by the “meatball” philosophy is the guy who really believes that contemporary people are slim … and they’re so much fun to be with … because they drink Pepsi-Cola….

“Couple of years ago, we had horsepower competition. Now there’s fin competition. Today … the car with the highest and longest fin is the car everybody’s interested in…

“Today, everything has a badge. Take men’s suits. I go into Macy’s basement, where they sell cheap men’s clothing…. And they have this big rack of men’s suits, and it says “Custom Brand.” And I say, “Custom-designed suits? Whom are they designed for?” “Custom-designed means designed for an individual. But the salesman says, “They’re designed for us … the basement.” That means, it’s impossible in today’s world to buy a standard rack suit. All suits are custom-designed. Even if they’re designed for the rack, and they fit the hangers beautifully….

“I was listening the other day to an ad, and the guy was saying the car he was selling was designed like a jet plane. And I said to myself, “A jet plane is a beautiful thing. Sounds great.” Until I suddenly thought: What relationship does a jet plane have with a car that spends most of its time banging into fire hydrants on 59^th Street, or piddling along at eight miles an hour in cross-town traffic? Why, it shouldn’t look like a jet plane at all. It should look like one of those rubber-bumpered things they have in amusement parks. That’s the ideal car for traffic. What possible advantage would a jet plane have for guy on Clark Street in Chicago? It would be like designing a house to look like a Spanish galleon. Everybody likes the looks of those so you might as well live in one.

But, the announcer concluded:

“Every one of us, I don’t care who he is, has a certain amount of desire to be individual within him. Because, no matter how many refrigerators you buy from Betty Furness, no matter how many custom suits you buy, no matter how many cars with fins you buy, you’re still an individual.

“Once a guy starts thinking, once he starts laughing at T.V. commercials, once he starts getting a hoot out of movie trailers, once he begins to realize that just because a movie is wider or higher or longer doesn’t make it a better movie, once a guy starts doing that, he’s beginning to make the transition from a conformist to an individual. He begins to have eyes that see, ears that hear, and mind that understands.”

_______

The Evangelical and Reformed Church has set for itself a three-point plan for enlisting the finest U.S. young people for full-time, life-time service. It wants, among other things, to recruit at least 700 more candidates for church-related vocations. The church’s president, the Rev. Dr. James Wagner of Philadelphia, also told the Cincinnati assembly the coming merger of the Evangelical, Reformed, and Congregational Churches will strengthen Far Eastern missionaries.

_______

The opening sermon at the Third World Assembly of the Lutheran Church will be delivered by Hungary’s once imprisoned Lutheran leader, Bishop Lajos Ordass. The assembly is to be held in Minneapolis in August. The secretary general of the 70-million-member World Lutheran Federation, Dr. Carl Lundquist of Lindsborg, Kansas, has described the Hungarian cleric as “a completely unshaken man.” Bishop Ordass is also reported in full function again as head of the 500,000 Hungarian Lutherans.

_______

The U.S. legation in Budapest is reported to have asked Roman Catholic Josef Cardinal Mindszenty to make no public statements while in asylum in the legation. The official Hungarian communist newspaper, has accused the prelate of issuing orders to suspend what the paper terms 18 “democratically-minded priests.” So far as is known, Cardinal Mindszenty has been able to send out only one message since he entered the U.S. legation as a refugee during the Hungarian uprising against Russia. That was a “thank you” note to President Eisenhower.

_______

A Roman Catholic agency says only 23 foreign Roman Catholic missionaries, of almost 6,000 at one time, are still in Red China. The organization, International Fides, adds that seven of the remaining 23 are in jail or under house arrest. Fides states that five of the seven are Americans: the Reverends Fulgence Gross of Omaha, Nebraska; John Wagner, of Pittsburgh; Charles McCarthy, of San Francisco; John Houle, of Glendale California; and Joseph McCormick of Ossining, New York.

_______

The Rabbinical Council of America has heard from its head that U.S. Orthodox rabbis should foster closer spiritual and cultural ties with Israel. Rabbi Solomon Sharfman of NYC has told the council’s Ninth Annual Midwinter Meeting that U.S. rabbis should be sent to an Israeli seminary for post-graduate studies. He adds they could be shining beacons of spiritual regeneration in U.S. Orthodox communities. The Atlantic City, New Jersey, meeting also heard an appeal from Ireland’s chief rabbi, Dr. Immanuel Jakobovits, who wants the rabbinical council and U.S. Jews to supply social workers and religious counselors to revitalize Jewish life in Western Europe.

_______

Washington: Laymen in the nation’s Protestant and Catholic churches are now taking on jobs that once were left to the clergy or left undone. They are planning budgets, conducting fund drives, leading youth organizations, visiting the sick, writing and editing church publications, and providing free counseling services. Federal Judge Luther W. Youngdahl, who was named Layman of the Year in 1955 by the Washington Federation of Churches, says the activity of laymen is the most significant spiritual advance in American churches in many years.

_______

The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano warns Hungarian collaborationist priests that they face automatic excommunication unless they give up church posts assigned to them by the puppet regime in Budapest. The newspaper says the Hungarian communist regime is atheistic and says religious persecution is rampant again in the country.

_______

Cleveland, Ohio: A national conference of the Presbyterian Church in the United States has been held during the week at Cleveland. The groups deliberated methods for increasing the present benevolence budget to $25 million in 1958, and to $50 million by 1962. A formula was used under which 50 cents should be contributed for national and world missions for every $1.00 contributed to a local church.

_______

London: Radio Moscow says restoration work will begin this summer on the inner walls of the famous St. Basil’s Church in Red Square. Mural paintings in the church date back to the 17^th century. Restoration work outside was during 1954 and 1955. Inside restoration, says Radio Moscow, should be completed in 1959.

Representatives of 5 million Lutherans in North America heard a number of addresses and made some explanations at Atlantic City, New Jersey, this week. The National Lutheran Council, a grouping of eight Lutheran denominations, urged a stop to the swing toward schools. The council stated such a movement is weakening the public school system, which it termed the chief instrument of general education for children. No cases were mentioned in the declaration, but in earlier debate some delegates charged Roman Catholics and some Protestants are boosting church-run schools, and opposing adequate financing for public schools. Among Protestant churches maintaining parochial schools in some communities is the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, which operates in some council projects. The council has urged too that the government make clear that long-term responsibility for refugees rests on the nation as a whole. It disclosed a lawsuit is threatened in California about two church-sponsored, Iron Curtain refugees. The group also has called for quickened efforts to rid America of what it terms this “sin of racial discrimination.” It went on to voice concern about a watering down of identities in the U.S Armed Forces and about cancellation of a showing of the film “Martin Luther” by a Chicago television station, WGN-TV (which was mentioned last Sunday on this program).

_______

Detailed plans were given this week to 500 officials of the Congregational Christian Church about their denomination’s coming merger with the Evangelical and Reformed Church. The new group, to be called the “United Church of Christ,” will be formed in Cleveland. The information was related at Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania, by the Rev. Dr. Fred Hoskins, of New York. He has stated to the church’s Mission Council that the Uniting General Synod will find the United Church of Christ exhibiting four marks of the true church: preaching of the word; right administration of the sacraments; essential oneness; and missions.

The opening address at the Uniting Session will be by a world church leader, Bishop Leslie Newborn of the United Church of South India. This new denomination has spearheaded the worldwide Christian movement through merger of Congregational, Presbyterian, Methodist, Anglican, and Baptist churches in South India. The Congregational Christians heard one of their prominent laymen declare too many men come to church dinners to a get a $1.50 dinner for 50¢. But Arthur Snell of Nashville, Tennessee, who is president of his church’s Southeastern Laymen’s Convention, has declared, “Live-wire men with a program can literally make over the churches of America.”

_______

In Hungary, the restored communist government has withdrawn a decree that permitted all Hungarian children to have religious teaching in schools. The regulation had been issued by the present education minister, after the anti-Soviet rebellion was crushed. In Poland, a drive is underway to foster non-religious schools and organizations. This aims to counter the increase in church influence which results from a recent agreement that restored religious teachings in communist-dominated Poland.

_______

Vatican City: Pope Pius will state the Catholic Church’s stand on the latest methods of anesthesia at an international gathering of doctors later this month. He will give his views in an audience on February 24 to participants in a world symposium of surgeons and anesthetists. The pontiff is expected to pay special attention to the problem of whether it is permissible to deprive incurable patients of consciousness for long periods.

_______

San Jose, Costa Rica: The archbishop of San Jose has ordered the excommunication of any Roman Catholic family heads who send their children to Protestant or other non-Catholic schools. The order, by Monsignor Ruben Odio [Herrera], warned that excommunication would be automatic. It came as a surprise to many since Costa Rica has always been noted for religious tolerance and complete absence of any anti-Protestant laws or discrimination.

_______

Washington: A British agnostic questions whether Americans are worshiping God or an idol called “The American Way of Life.” Professor D.W. Brogan of Cambridge University, who made a nine-month tour of the U.S. last year, writes in a magazine article that a great deal of what passes for religion in America is essentially political rather than spiritual in character. He says there is a marked identification of religion with Americanism.

_______

New York: The National Council of Churches has issued a 12-point program by which local church groups can rid their congregations and communities of racial segregation. The federation of 30 American churches declares that Christians must not rest until segregation is banished from every area of American life.

_______

Again Atlantic City, New Jersey: An official of the National Lutheran Council predicts that racial tensions will heighten during 1957 and bring a showdown between federal and state authorities over segregation in public schools. Dr. Robert Van Deusen told the council at its annual meeting that this year may prove to be the high-water mark in bitterness and violence on the one hand, and the establishment of the supremacy of federal authority over state control on the other. He also forecast progress toward racial integration in church life will be made during this year.

_______

The Church World Service has announced a goal of $11.5 million in 1957 to aid homeless, hungry, and destitute persons abroad. Harper Sibley, chairman of Church World Service, in announcing the goal, says it’s the highest in the history of the churches, and that the major areas of need overseas include Hungary, Austria, India, Pakistan, and the Near East.

_______

Minneapolis, Minnesota: A synodical committee of the United Lutheran Church has reinstated a young minister who was unfrocked a year ago. The committee says it is convinced that the Rev. Victor K. Wrigley, pastor of the Gethsemane Lutheran Church of Brookfield, Wisconsin, is no longer a heretic. He was unfrocked on charges that he denied the virgin birth and other basic church doctrines. In appealing for reinstatement, the Rev. Wrigley told the committee that, in his words, “The birth of Christ is miraculous and my faith must include the virgin birth….”

_______

Boston: Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam of Washington is reported recovering satisfactorily at the New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston. Bishop Oxnam underwent surgery for removal of gallstone last Wednesday.

_______

Many, perhaps most, colleges have adopted the practice in recent years of having annually what is called “Religious Emphasis Week,” at which time a week of services, student/faculty/clergymen so-called panel discussions are held, the idea being to stimulate students to take a greater interest in religion as a part of their educational development. The materials that follow are taken from an article entitled “What Do You Mean ‘Religious Emphasis Week’?” that appeared in the winter bulletin of the American Association of University Professors. Program time will permit only excerpts, but these indicate an approach to religion that is rarely, if ever, found on a college campus during a week of so-called religious emphasis. The article itself is by Leland Miles of Hanover College. He says:

“To begin with, any fair definition of ‘religious’ must certainly take account of many noble religions in addition to Christianity. Yet how many church related colleges will feature … as part of Religious Emphasis Week, a symposium on the world’s major religions? How many denominational institutions are planning to invite a Moslem, a Hindu, a Buddhist, and a Jew to their campus on this occasion? Indeed, how many such colleges are even planning to invite a Roman Catholic, a Unitarian, or a Humanist? …. It may be objected … that Humanism is not a religion. (But) what more exhilarating way to spend a real Religious Emphasis Week than to have representatives of the world’s major religions, including Humanism, state their cases before a student body jury? …

“But, alas! It would be difficult to arrange such a program. For one thing, there are not too many Christian clergymen who are eager to debate with the ‘enemy’….

“The intellectual timidity of many clergymen is not, however, the only reason that true Religious Emphasis Weeks are difficult to organize. Another factor is the attitude of college administrations and religious departments, especially in some of the church-related colleges. This attitude seems to be that the best way of producing young Christians is to have a faculty which is 100 percent Christian in viewpoint, and a Religious Emphasis Week dogmatically presents Christianity as the only true way. Now, Christianity may indeed be the true way. But if it is, surely it can stand on its own feet against all competition, without the fearful protection given it on most denominational campuses.

“Where did we acquire the mischievous notion that young people can be molded into zealous believers only if all others on the campus, students and faculty alike, are also true believers? Actually, the reverse may be true. Two of the shrewdest modern defenders of Christianity, T.S. Eliot and C.S. Lewis, were bred in an atmosphere of pagan pessimism. Conversely, some of the least effective defenders of the faith will be found among students (some of them pre-ministerial students) who have been gently saturated for four years with a saccharine, provincial type of teaching which sticks its head in the sand and pretends that only one religion exists.”

Or looking at it another way, the author goes on:

“For example, suppose, this winter, that American college students were suddenly to put genuine religious emphasis into effect in the classroom. The result would necessarily be a new and revolutionary demonstration of earnestness in the performance of classwork – a new and startling display of that industry, energy, and thoroughness characteristic of Christ, and therefore characteristic of all those who, loving him, seek to imitate his personality. Is it not incongruous that Christian students – even leaders in student Christian organizations – are guilty of careless work in the classroom…. As a professor I have seen … the spectacle of Christian students, including pre-ministerial students, coming to class day after day and performing indifferent, nonchalant work. What can we say but that they betray a total ignorance of Christ’s personality and their obligation to imitate it?

“As for faculty members, what would a genuine Christian emphasis in the classroom mean for them? Surely it would mean that every professor would henceforth ponder deeply the relation of his secular field to Christian thought. Indeed, the development of such relationship would seem to be the principal reason for the existence of the small church-related college as a distinctive education. The biologist at a secular institution has no obligation except to teach biology, including organic evolution; but the biologist of a church-related college, if he is doing his job fully, cannot escape his responsibility for taking account not only of Darwin, but also of Genesis. The Mosaic account of creation, somehow rejected or somehow inferred, must permit the acceptance of an account of man’s rise out of a finny, furry past.

“Many professors … have perverted the concept of Christian … emphasis almost beyond repair. They assume that it means trapping students in a classroom and lambasting the helpless victims with thinly-disguised sermons. Other instructors have decided that Christian emphasis means diligently searching for all poems which contain biblical morals, then proclaiming such poems ‘great literature.’ On that basis, Eddie Guest would be the world’s greatest poet. Yet how adventurous a real Christian teaching of literature can be! …

“… What would happen this winter if college students suddenly put Christian emphasis into effect in their fraternities and sororities? The first result would surely be a new and revolutionary emphasis on brotherhoods of the spirit, and the wholesale abolition of those entrance requirements which in many fraternities hold at arm’s length anyone whose skin chemicals exist in different proportions than in the white race….

“To these suggestions the reaction of both staff and students will, I suspect, be one of despair and alarm. ‘Oh heavens, we couldn’t do that!’, they will cry. ‘Why, it would mean a complete overthrow of the existing order of things. It would mean – well, revolution.’

“Well, what’s wrong with revolutions, anyway? They’re quite in style these days. The last few years have seen the communist coup d’ état in Czechoslovakia, the revolt in Algeria, and the overthrow of Argentina’s Peron. A campus revolution would certainly be appropriate to the revolutionary atmosphere of the times. In fact, it would even be appropriate to Christianity. The Nazarene’s teachings have always been dynamite.”

Harvard University has begun a five-year study to develop mental health training for future clergymen. Heading the study will be Dr. Hans Hofmann, now of Princeton Theological Seminary and trained in both psychology and theology. Dr. Hofmann is ordained in the Reformed Church of Switzerland. His project will be to direct creation of a curriculum in mental health for Protestant theological seminaries. Harvard says similar studies are planned in Loyola University, a Roman Catholic institution in Chicago, and Yeshiva University, a Jewish institution in New York City.

_______

The American Jewish Committee plans to break ground this year for its Institute of Human Relations in New York City. The $1.5 million building will be dedicated to brotherhood.

_______

The largest Methodist church in Minneapolis has accepted a small Negro Methodist congregation as fellow worshipers. Almost 70 members of the Border Methodist Church have been received into the Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church, one of Minneapolis’ most exclusive congregations. The small church’s building is to be demolished to make way for a redevelopment project. But the pews, baptismal font, and other furnishings have been donated to other churches and religious institutions. The Border Church minister, the Rev. Dr. Charles Sexton, has been named to a position in the Minneapolis Methodist district. Hennepin’s senior minister, the Rev. Dr. Chester Pennington, says a missionary in India wrote him that such news is invaluable in that part of the world.

_______

An Associated Press writer well-versed in Soviet and satellite nation history says a major diplomatic crisis is likely to develop sooner or later because Josef Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary is in refuge in the U.S. legation in Budapest. Foreign news analyst Thomas Whitney says the Soviet puppet regime in Hungary may demand that the U.S. turn over the Catholic prelate, and the U.S. is likely to refuse. He adds that other possibilities include an offer of “safe conduct” to the cardinal to go to the Vatican. If Mindszenty should accept, and then be arrested, the incident no doubt would arouse great protest in the U.S. The Hungarian cardinal occupies the rooms of U.S. Minister Edward Wailes in the legation building. He holds occasional masses for legation personnel. And so far the Hungarian communists have apparently not objected to his staying there.

_______

Washington: Religious leaders say that America’s church boom is concentrated heavily in suburbs and small towns. By contrast, they say, churches in big cities and in rural areas have been suffering a steady decline in membership. Officials of major denominations have made a study of the uneven impact of the back-to-church movement and have come up with some facts. Most of the church building of recent years has been in the suburban areas, yet they cannot keep pace with the demand. During the same period, rural churches have been closing at the rate of nearly one thousand a year. And many of those Protestant churches in particular are disappearing from the centers of cities. There are only two left in downtown St. Louis and only three in Cleveland, for example.

_______

Again Washington: The Kresge Foundation of Detroit has contributed $1.5 million to help build a new Methodist theological seminary in Washington. The grant is contingent upon the church raising a similar amount to match it. Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam says construction of the seminary, which will be located on the campus of American University, is scheduled to begin in April, with its opening set for the fall of 1958.

_______

Kenilworth, England: An English preacher has doubled his congregation by retelling the New Testament in the jargon of science fiction. The Rev. John Thompson says he even uses stage props, including hydrogen-filled spaceships which shoot up to the church roof to add drama to his narration. Sounds come from a tape recorder he takes with him. Says the Rev. Thompson, “I think our belief in incarnation lends itself very well to explanation in terms of space travel.”

_______

A Methodist bishop from the South says U.S. churches must apply Christianity to the problem of racial segregation or quit trying to win foreign converts. The warning has come from Bishop William Watkins of Louisville, Kentucky. He also told a meeting of Cumberland Presbyterian ministers at Bethel College, McKenzie, Tennessee, that the decision cannot be long delayed.

_______

Many people are more distressed now that at any previous time of the Cold War. With Nehru’s visit here and reliance on the United Nations and the moral force of world opinion, it looked for a short time as if peace might be worked out under a real United Nations police force, that force acting like real [?] policemen. But now the policy is announced of the mailed fist of the U.S. in the East – the old balance of power again. The British and the French moved out of the East. Now it appears that the U.S. is going to move in, and there is little less likelihood of war with us there than there was when Britain and France were there. The problems of the have-nots cannot be solved by guns. It is wrong to kill people because you do not like their government and all the double talk of statesmen cannot change that. How long is the world going on talking in 17^th, 18^th, and 19^th century terms in a 20^th century that has already seen three of our B-52 Stratofortresses encircle the globe in 45 hours? That just puts all of us within less than 24 hours distance from anyone who may wish to bomb us. It is about time we brought our thinking up to cope with the realities or our present day bombers.

_______

Recently the Chicago Tribune‘s station, WGN-TV, canceled at a late hour the showing of the film “Martin Luther.” This brought a strong protest from groups who believe in both freedom of religion and freedom of communication. It was alleged that pressure from the Catholic Church was responsible for the ban, but a spokesman of the church, Monsignor E.M. Burke, chancellor of the Chicago Diocese, denied this. However, air wavelengths belong to the people, and this means to all the people. They are licensed to private corporations to be used in the public interest. Anyone has a right to protest a presentation, to refrain from viewing it and to attempt to persuade others not to see it. But it is obnoxious to freedom of communication, on which our democratic system rests, to have any group seek to impose a general censorship on material of which it disapproves according to the special standards of that group.

_______

And in the same connection, a more highly publicized controversy arose when Cardinal Spellman made one of his rare appearances in the pulpit of St. Patrick’s Cathedral to back up the Catholic Legion of Decency’s condemnation of the film “Baby Doll” and to warn Roman Catholics against seeing it “under pain of sin.” This reporter did not see the picture, but a good friend of his did, and her succinct evaluation of it was that it was not so much risqué as it was stupid. While still another critic made the comment to this reporter that if sex were objectionable, then the Ten Commandments should have been banned, but the public, including the Catholic Church lapped that one up. I wonder why it is that when approaching such matters relating to religion, so many of us are willing to accept uncritically something bearing a religious label, without looking under that label to see whether it is religious in name only. But to examine (publicly, at least) such things is not even considered ethical. I know because of the reaction several months ago to my comments on the picture entitled “A Man Called Peter.”

_______

One very wholesome proposal, apparently with administrative backing, now pending in the Tennessee legislature is a bill that would require that all meetings of public boards, commissions, and legislative bodies in the state be open to the public. Americans are notoriously suspicious of the transaction of public affairs in a secretive manner. However, school boards and other bodies have been just as notorious in trying to conduct their business secretly. This time, with the backing of the Tennessee Press Association, it looks as if positive action may result. Those who oppose it will be the ones who have a “Father Knows Best” complex, an attitude that those who believe in the true democratic process will reject summarily.

_______

All of us have seen, heard, and read about the reluctance, and, in one or two cases, the downright refusal, of certain labor leaders to testify before a congressional investigating committee regarding possibility of racketeering in the ranks of organized labor. As a matter of fact, the present convention of AFL-CIO leaders, meeting in Miami Beach, Florida, has put this matter of testifying as the first order of business. Nobody knows what the decision will be, but there is a moral principle involved in the matter (and I say this as a member of an AFL affiliate). What labor does or does not do is a matter of public concern, for organized labor has grown until its structure, organization, and functioning can mean good or ill for the whole country. It is just as unfair for labor to refuse to divulge information which Congress legitimately needs to know as it is for management to do so. Both labor and management will prosper and will be entrenched in public support only so long as the public has confidence in them. Both have a responsibility to the public in seeing that their houses are in order, and refusal to talk about this very important matter is no way to build public confidence.

_______

An interesting case of vacations in reverse cropped up this week in Virginia, a case of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. E. Claiborne Robins, president of a pharmaceutical firm, has practiced shutting down his plant from time to time in order that his workers may all take off to New York, Miami, or elsewhere, for a round of play. This week, he and Mrs. Robins departed via airplane for Acapulco, Mexico, on a two-week vacation. In breaking the news to their president, the employees handed Mr. Robins two checks: one drawn on the Bank of Good Times for a good vacation, the other, a real one, for $4,200, compliments of the employees.

_______

Ladies and gentlemen, it has been suggested to me that it might be indiscreet for me to include this last item on this program. That item is the fact that Rep. Harry Lee Senter of Kingsport, representing Sullivan County in the state legislature, has introduced in the House a bill that would prohibit public schoolteachers from encouraging integration on school grounds, and would make violations of this grounds for dismissal. In commenting upon it, Senter said, “We don’t believe that the question of integration or segregation should be made a part of the curriculum.”

This is not a fit subject for legislation. Teachers have no right to use their special position in the schoolroom to promote their own pet ideas, whether those ideas include segregation, or the relative merits of last year’s bird nests. They do, however, have an obligation to discuss frankly and fearlessly any social or other problem confronting the community. It would be difficult to conceive a more ubiquitous social problem than that posed by court decisions on segregation. Students of all ages are asking what are the facts? What do they mean? Teachers have an obligation to help students answer these questions. Moreover, it is the thesis of this reporter that teachers have a right to state their convictions about any subject, but do not have any right to try to impose those convictions upon their pupils. This right exists, not for the benefit of the teacher, but for the benefit of the community, including the pupils. In a democracy, no problem is solved merely by sticking our heads in the sand, or in gagging people from talking about that problem. Gag rule is a trapping of dictatorship, not a democracy. Academic freedom exists for the teacher because through it only can he encourage and promote the study of controversial issues. Democracy rests basically on the discovery of truth and upon popular acceptance of policies based on the facts. It is hard to subscribe to the theory that ignorance about anything is better than knowledge about it. Perhaps the sponsor of this legislation should read John 8:32, which is as follows: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

Muskegon, Michigan: For the first time in nearly a century, no Dutch Reformed churches in the Muskegon area will have sermons delivered in the Dutch language. The final sermon in Dutch was given last Monday. The Rev. Alkema explained that “It is apparent younger generations are content with religious services in English and apparently have little interest in Dutch rites.” And I might, as a sociologist, point out that once a church has given up its different language from that of the country in which it is located, it has taken about the last step in becoming assimilated, in this case of religion, into the main stream of American churches.

_______

Warsaw, Poland: Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, the Catholic primate of Poland, has conferred on church-state problems with communist Premier Cyrankiewicz. The meeting was believed to be the first time the cardinal has discussed religious problems with a government leader since Titoist Gomulka took over as Communist Party boss last October. The Polish news agency says the cardinal and premier discussed the appointment of candidates to clerical posts and the introduction of religious teaching in schools, which the new regime is permitting.

And in connection, further, with Poland, Cardinal Wyszynski has urged all Polish citizens to get out and vote today. As one statement put it, “Catholics as citizens are urged to fulfill the duty of their conscience and take part in the election.” This urging was brought about partly because of the widespread fear in Poland that many people would abstain from voting, thus weakening Gomulka’s stand against home-grown Stalinists and in his dealings with Moscow. Informed Catholics say that the church recognizes that if Gomulka is not given support of the country in today’s election, this very limited and restricted experiment in democracy will give tough Stalinists an argument that they need to try to return to power.

_______

Vatican City: Pope Pius has been pronounced in perfect physical condition by examining physicians. The pontiff will be 81 years old in March. The examining physician was Professor Antonio Gasparrini, one of the physicians who treated the pope during his grave illness during the winter of 1955.

_______

Again Vatican City: The pope has been presented with the first copy of the 1957 Annuary. The book, bound in white parchment, was presented to the pope by the assistant pro-secretary of state of the Vatican, Monsignor Angelo Dell’acqua.

_______

Washington: A church leader says one of America’s most pressing religious problems is finding a Christian path through the pitfalls of prosperity. The Rev. Cameron P. Hall, of the National Council of Churches, says that for the first time in history a whole nation is subject to the temptations that Christ had in mind when he warned that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter to enter the kingdom of heaven. One danger, says Hall, is that we may become so blessed with material possessions that we crowd out other values in life. Wonder if he has examined the financial status of schoolteachers? But then we are in a minority in a sea of prosperity.

_______

Buck Hills, Pennsylvania: The Rev. Dr. Earl R. Brown has retired as secretary of national missions of the Methodist Board of Missions. Dr. Brown served in the past 12 years. The new secretary is Dr. W. Vernon Middleton.

_______

Atlantic City, New Jersey: A Methodist church official charges that the Roman Catholic Church is trying to pressure some Methodist colleges into dropping study of the Bible. In an annual report to the Methodist Board of Education, the Rev. Myron F. Wick, of Nashville, Tennessee, director of the Department of Secondary and Higher Education of the board, declared attempts in his words, “represent, apparently, a steady but calculated probing for timorous sects among all Protestant schools and colleges.” He said the alleged interference is centered on Protestant colleges attended by Catholics. The Rev. Wick does not document his statement, at least as reported by United Press. But if it is true, then probably Catholics are somewhat like us Methodists: they would prefer that everybody studied their Bible.

_______

One of the obsessions of the present time, in some circles, educational and political, for example, is a bewailing of the alleged dearth of physical scientists and engineers. So, their logic goes, our colleges and secondary schools are not turning out enough young men and women who wish and plan to go into the physical and chemical laboratories of the nation, sufficient enough in numbers to keep pace with what is happening among our potential enemies, particularly the Soviet Union. The next step in their so-called logic is that we must offer greater rewards in the field of natural science so as to attract greater numbers to teach it and to promote it. The net and end result of such logic is to make every endeavor, through higher salaries, greater headlines, etc., to enlarge our activity in science.

No informed person would disparage the amazing work of science, nor decry the benefits it has brought to the human race in terms of more food, more light and heat, greater speed of travel and communication, wonder medicines, better understanding of diseases, and so on, ad infinitum. However, the concern of the present seems to be mainly in the field of nuclear devices related to the armaments race. And, again, no informed person would desire to see our own country so outdistanced in the field of security that we should stand no chance of survival if attacked.

But the very spectacle and emphasis upon a single area of our existence causes thoughtful men and women to ponder the unbalanced perspective nuclear zealots have of the world in which we live. Many of us think that we have a greater scarcity of equipped people in the human sciences than in the physical. To put it bluntly: We have the hydrogen bomb, but we do not know what to do with it. We live in a world in which the greatest industrial nation (our own) is presented with a proposed budget of $72 billion, 53 percent of which is allocated for military spending. If to this, you add the interest on the national debt, which is mostly for past wars, and the amount to be spent, we hope, in debt retirement, plus all other charges relating to our past conflicts and their by-products (for example veterans’ administration), we come out with the startling and discouraging fact that only some 10 percent or 15 percent at most will be spent for purposes unrelated to past or possible future wars.

What has happened and is happening to our system of values when persons in high places see nothing in the future but continued emphasis on bigger, if not better, weapons of destruction, with corresponding relatively less emphasis on seeking ways and means to avoid destruction? Science is a wonderful instrument, but science cannot tell us what is good or bad, right or wrong. Science can give us a knowledge of germs and the possibility of germ warfare, but it cannot and does not tell us whether to use this knowledge for the destruction or the salvation of mankind. Science, in short, can arrive at truth, but it cannot tell us what to do with the truths it discovers.

How, where, and when to use the results of science rests entirely upon the values that we as a people hold. Our values include not only knowledge but also feelings, beliefs. I cannot prove to you that a college education will make one a better citizen, but I believe that it will. Otherwise I would not be trying to teach. I do not know that people are happier and better off in a democracy than they are in a dictatorship. But I believe they are because democracy as an abstraction and a process rates high on my scale of values. Hence, I am constantly trying better to understand it and to promote its better functioning. And one could go on and on, citing intangible but very real things that go to make up life; things that rest not on science, but upon our cultural conditioning, our beliefs, our customs, our mores.

And it is just these things that are not inculcated by science, but by the social sciences, the humanities, and other subject fields not included in the realm of natural science.

Do we have an over-supply of people seeking ways and means to help avert war? Persons who try to promote understanding among the peoples of the earth? People who believe that international understanding and peace are not only possible, but attainable? People who look at the stark realities of the present day and are appalled that so much time, space, and attention are given to those movements leading to international suicide and so little to those leading to a peaceful world?

Our real problem today, among us as well as among peoples everywhere, is the promotion of values that would impel us to use the benefits of science for the welfare, not the destruction, of mankind. These values rest on feeling, and sometimes, perhaps upon fancy. Feeling and fancy take the stark and ugly realities of life and shape them into beautiful forms, dress them in beautiful garments, and cause hope to displace despair, discipline to take the place of sorrow.

If we look upon life only with the cold eye of scientific objectivity, there is little inducement for us to want to continue it. We come into this world causing pain. Our first cry is a protest. Our childhood is a history of wanting to do the things we are not permitted to do, and being forced to do the things we do not want to do. We have to go to bed when we are not sleepy and get up when we are sleepy. Life, looked at in this way, is all contrariety and frustration. But if we crown reason and scientific truth with feeling, the scene changes. Birth is a precious pearl bought at great price. The first cry of a baby is a paean of victory. The whole life of the child is a poem, its separate parts written in different meters always to be concluded and never dull, and through it all runs the motif of aspiration and achievement. Life of the adult becomes a sacred trust – talents that must not be buried, lights that must not be hidden under a bushel. Life is a romance greater than the pen of man has ever portrayed or the test tube in the laboratory can ever demonstrate. Feeling can inform us that life is a stage on which we always play the leading role: and we ourselves sit in at the performance, and are at once the most critical and appreciative of all the audience.

Values rest in the hearts of men. We recognize anew the truth that great visions come to humble men. These men were out under the stars close by nature, or amid the busy hum of machinery in the roar of a great city. They are not befuddled or beclouded by ships and commerce, tariffs and trade agreements, spheres of influence, oil and colonies – though these make very loud noises. They are men who try to think their way through the morass of today’s immensely complicated world; to see it in terms of people rather than machines; to regard machines and weapons of destruction as means to an end (i.e., peace eventually) rather than ends in themselves.

We need today wise men who are willing to travel over the barren wastes of materialism, under the scorching suns of pressure groups with their selfish interests, and over the frozen mountain passes of derision, and to hold on to those values that the experience of the race has proved to be good. The wise men of this type carry the burden of the foolish. We hold in grateful memory the men who followed a star; a Socrates drinking the hemlock, Jesus on the cross, Paul in chains, Stephen praying for his tormentors, John on Patmos, Savonarola at the stake, and thousands of those who are unknown and nameless, but put human values first and adjusted all other things to them.

The world needs natural scientists today, yes. But more than that, it needs people who do not permit their outlook – and hopes – for the future to become lost in the trees of the scientific moment, but who can stand off and see the forest of humanity that needs to understand itself, and value the best of itself. The whole problem may be illustrated by the young Tennessean who is reported to have said that “When I went to school they learned me to figger but not to read. Now as I drive down the road and see the mileposts, I can tell how fur but not whur to.” It is about time we not only knew how far, but where we are going.

Throughout the South generally, and here in Tennessee particularly, the critical issue of human rights was the subject of violent action, gubernatorial recommendations, legislative proposals, and considerable vocal gas from many sources. Bombs endangered the lives of citizens in Alabama, destroying property in the process. It reached the point where a leading pro-segregation newspaper commented acidly that “It is no longer a question of integration; it is a question of whether Alabama is a safe place for citizens to live.” At least four Negro churches were damaged in the explosions, but the local authorities spurned the governor’s offer to send in detachments of the National Guard to assist in maintaining order. Apparently the city fathers are not overly concerned about the safety of lives of their citizens.

_______

The governor of Tennessee on Thursday of this week delivered his own brand of interposition in the segregation issue, which after all did not amount to proposals to do anything new. The major theme of his position is that authority should be given local boards to assign pupils to whatever schools they wish – authority which good legal advisor, outside of the state government, ­point out the boards already have. One phase of his recommendations, if carried out, could conceivably create a three-headed school system instead of the twin-headed one we now have; namely, create a system of schools for Negroes only, one for whites only, and a third for integrated schools. This obviously could create more confusion than clarification of the issue, and is a stalling tactic, designed to appear all things to all people.

Regardless of the innocuous nature of the recommendations, members of the legislature are prepared not only to take them seriously, but also to go beyond them and try, by state statute, to nail down segregation – at least for the next two years. Commenting upon both the governor’s recommendations and the vocal explosions of certain members of the legislature, the Knoxville News Sentinel comments quite appropriately that the proper steps for the legislature to do on the subject is exactly nothing. Whatever it does will probably only lay the basis for further litigation in the courts, stall the issue for two years, and the next general assembly will be confronted with the same problem in aggravated form.

Out of all this welter of proposals, charges, and counter-charges stands one amazing fact: the lack of ability or willingness to meet probably the most crucial social and moral problem of our time, and to deal with it in a realistic, rational, informed manner.

Closely related to the issue of segregation is the movement on the part of some Tennessee legislative members to enact legislation restricting the operation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, an organization that has spearheaded efforts to bring about school integration. Present proposals would require this organization to submit to public officials membership and financial records and would make it a misdemeanor to instigate a lawsuit in which the NAACP is not a direct party.

Well, perhaps the legislators should require this of all organizations of all kinds in the state. Certainly it should do that for all if it does it for one. It might be enlightening to them also to read the First Amendment to our federal Constitution, which guarantees the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition government for a redress of grievances. Sometimes it may be that the courts are the final resort of presenting such petitions without hope of achieving the desires of the petitioners. This is the same amendment, too, that protects religious freedom. Freedom is indivisible, and tampering with one cannot but help weaken others.

_______

Well, it would seem as if Tennessee is committed to mediocrity in higher education. For several years now, Memphis State College has contended for elevation to “university” status. This year, they have seemingly made it, via the side door. The main proposal was to have it called the “University at Memphis.” This week, a so-called compromise arrangement would continue the college under control of the State Board of Education, but would give it the title of “Memphis State University.” The original plan would have made it an integral part of the University and place it under the control of the board of trustees of the university. Tennessee does not now have and never has had a first-class state university. The question boils down to whether it would be better to concentrate on developing a great institution in the present university, or dividing what is already mediocrity between two so-called universities. Proponents of raising Memphis State insist that it means no more expenditure than would otherwise be entailed. If it is not going to be improved – and improvement would cost money – then why call it a “university”? There is no magic in the mere name. But opponents of the plan are not fooled, for once having gotten her nose under the tent, future legislation will be sought to divide funds between Knoxville and Memphis instead of as at present among the several state colleges. If a mere legislative act would create a better institution, the conclusion is obvious that all state schools of higher learning should be dubbed “university,” which in the light of the ability of the state to support education is ridiculous. Probably more Tennesseans than ever, desiring graduate training of real university caliber, will now be compelled to go beyond the confines of the state to get it.

_______

A magazine of national circulation points out in its current issue that no pope in modern history has, in it’s words, “so persistently cultivated the universality of the Roman Catholic Church” as has the present Pope Pius XII. Within the year just ended the 80-year old pontiff received about a million people in audiences (including people of all faiths) and delivered more than 200 speeches and radio talks, and many more minor addresses.

Among the varied activities of His Holiness are such things as lecturing before 700 gynecologists on the subject of painless childbirth; speaking to racing drivers and members of an automobile club on politeness; receiving such notables as Germany’s evangelical Lutheran Bishop Otto Dibelius, and our own Atomic Energy Commissioner Lewis Strauss; workers of Lombardy; the Roman nobility; 360 U.S. servicemen from NATO; and officials of the U.S. Office of Public Information. Included also among those who came to see him was Baptist ex-president Harry S. Truman. He spoke to the Seventh International Astronautical Congress, to whom he said that their efforts to explore the universe were legitimate before the deity.

The British Catholic Historian, Christopher Dawson sums up this activity on the part of the pope by saying that “Never perhaps in the history of the Church have the peoples come to Rome in such numbers and from so many different regions…. We seem to see the beginnings of a new Pentecostal dispensation by which all men hear in their own tongues the wonderful works of God.”

Washington: The Episcopal Church in Washington is trying an experiment in what it calls “advangelism.” The idea, adopted by the Episcopal Diocese is an attempt to sell the services of the church to the public through a series of paid advertisements in local papers. The ads will run weekly at least through Easter. Episcopal leaders want to test a theory that churches, like business firms, can profit by professionally drafted ads.

_______

Vatican City: Pope Pius has said that he believes Catholic parents have a right to expect a positive attitude toward religion from teachers in state-run schools with compulsory attendance. The pope recently told 130 teachers from Munich, Germany, that “It would be a violation of man’s elementary rights to force parents by law to entrust their children to a school whose teachers take a cool, negative, even hostile stand toward religious and moral convictions.”

Well, at the risk of being accused of what the pontiff abhors, this reporter considers the position unsound. Obviously, what the pope means by “religion” is his “religion.” It is highly unlikely that he would endorse a positive attitude toward Islam, Mormonism, even Protestantism, to say nothing of Unitarianism. Yet, we teachers in state-run schools must serve all alike, indiscriminately. All of us would probably subscribe to the idea that the public schools should favor morality, but then there are all sorts of definitions of moral. Public school teachers, in America at least, have no business mixing public school instruction with religion. It is reported, for example, that some teachers inquire of their students on Mondays which of them went to church or Sunday school the day before, and then proceed to give merit ratings of some kind to those who did. This too, is out of the sphere of the rightful scope of the teacher. Whether a child goes to church or not is a matter for him and his parents to decide, and certainly one who does not should not be made to feel embarrassed, or be penalized by the public school teacher. Doubtless such teachers do this from the sincerest of motives, but separation of church and state is vital to our American principles, and this was clarified without any question in the famous McCollum case in Illinois a few years ago. While I am a Methodist, I do not want any public school teacher trying to make Methodists, or any other kind of religious affiliate, out of my children. It simply is none of their affair – to put it bluntly.

_______

Chicago: Youth and Christianity are called the most effective opponents of communism. Dr. Robert Cook, president of the Youth-for-Christ International, told a mid-winter convention of 150 regional directors of the group that no government can forever squelch or contain the religious drives of its people. He predicted a religious awakening in Russia and said once it hits it will fan its way through all of communism.

_______

Berlin, Germany: The world-wide Catholic students organization, Pax Romana, has concluded a five-day board meeting in West Berlin with a resolution to step up aid for Hungarian refugees. Board members from 24 nations took part in the meeting.

_______

Evanston, Illinois: The Council of the National Methodist Student Commission says it wants to continue exploration of merger possibilities with other denominational student groups. The council said, however, the Methodist Student Movement must remain faithful to its responsibility to the Methodist Church. This apparently, is like saying, “Go ahead and merge, but let them come to you; don’t go toward them.”

_______

Washington: It is announced that Pope Pius has created a new Diocese of Gary in Northwestern Indiana and named Monsignor Andrew Grutka, of Fort Wayne, as its bishop. The pope also made the Most Rev. Leo Pursley of Ft. Wayne, bishop of Fort Wayne; the Most Rev. Robert J. Joyce of Burlington, Vermont, bishop of his diocese; the Most Rev. Thomas J. McDonough, of St Augustine, Florida, bishop of Savannah, Georgia; and the Very Rev. Hillary B. Hacker, of St. Paul, Minnesota, bishop of Bismarck, North Dakota.

_______

And along the same topic, Mexican Roman Catholics hope the pope will name one of their number to the College of Cardinals when a new consistory is held. Mexico’s 30 million people are estimated to be 90 percent Roman Catholic. But Mexico is said to have been denied a cardinal because of differences between church and state in the revolution earlier this century.

_______

A U.S. newsman has relayed hope for the early release of 10 Americans, including some missionaries from Red China. William Worthy of the Baltimore Afro-American has broadcast from Red China that Premier Chou En-Lai has dropped hints about early parole for some U.S. prisoners because of good behavior. Worthy adds that even without such time off, three of the 10, a Lutheran missionary, a Franciscan priest, and a Jesuit priest, are due to have their sentences end in May, June, and July, respectively. The Baltimore newsman says that so far as can be learned in Red China the general charge against the Americans is espionage.

_______

A recent compilation of suggestions for pastors and parishioners to consider this year includes some practical, as well as churchly, matters. The list is composed of ideas from worshipers and from letters from ministers and church members to other persons and to church journals. One item is the recommendation that people avoid condemning another’s religion unless they are sure they know more about it than he does. Another is the suggestion that churches put more hooks in cloakrooms, so worshipers do not have to sit on their coats. On the church etiquette side is the plea that hymnbooks be placed gently in pew racks after the service, and not with a clatter right at or before the benediction. Many clergy and worshipers would also be glad to hear the offering plates referred to as such, not as collection plates.

_______

A Southern rabbi says racial tensions in the South are undermining the U.S. doctrines of freedom of thought and freedom of speech. The Rev. Jacob Rothschild of Atlanta made the statement in a sermon at New York City’s Central Synagogue. He has added that vague and not-so-vague threats of economic boycott and physical violence have been directed against persons who seek a peaceful solution. Or, worse still, he says, against those who dare to counsel compliance with the Supreme Court desegregation decision because it is the law of the land. Dr. Rothschild also states the right to speak freely and openly is curtailed if what one says disagrees with the popular point of view. Well, there was once an itinerant carpenter’s son who got into trouble for the same reason. But it would seem that in the field of religion, or upon matters having religious implications, at least, people who call themselves religious should be tolerant enough of opposing viewpoints not to stifle the mere expression of such differences. However, there is little doubt but what the good doctor says is true, for Rothschild has for 10 years been spiritual leader of Atlanta’s Hebrew Benevolence Congregation and is a long-time resident and community worker in the South.

_______

Today begins another Christmas – this one, the observance of the Nativity by Orthodox Christians. The services date back more than 1,500 years and depend on the Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian one held to by other Christian denominations. The colorful services have humble origins. For example, some Serbian Orthodox Christians burn a Yule log. And in the chancels of their churches they place straw, to remind them that the Christ child was born in a stable. And today, for other Christians, it is the Feast of the Epiphany. This service marks the worship of the baby Jesus by the Three Wise Men.

_______

For the past few weeks, even months, newspapers and other media of communication have been full of news regarding racial problems attendant upon attempted or proposed integration of public schools. This reporter has deliberately stayed away from comment upon them because there did not seem to be much he could add to what was already being said. However, this past week, two columns in as many days have been devoted to the race question by Dr. Charles Allen, of Atlanta. In one he raises the question, “Is one race inferior?” He goes on to point out that some white people insist on maintaining racial segregation because of:

1. Economic reasons: They fear to compete in the labor market and in any other kind of market with members of the colored race;
2. Fear of Negro control of local government: Parenthetically, this would assume that Negroes vote as Negroes first and citizens second, while studies show that the reverse is true;
3. Desire to maintain a servant race of people;
4. People with inferiority complexes derive some compensation by thinking that colored people are inferior to them because of color or other racial traits;
5. Resistance to any social change. One perturbing thing about social change for all of us is that it requires us to reappraise ourselves in the light of changed circumstances, and we don’t like that;
6. Some believe the Negro race is, as a race, actually inferior to the whites and thus they do not want to live on an equal level with them;
7. Some people insist upon segregation because they fear intermarriage. How many sins of prejudice has this old myth been used to cover!
8. Some want segregation not necessarily because of prejudice but because they sincerely believe the two races are better off apart.

Well, there is the list Dr. Allen presents. It is as good a one perhaps as could be compiled. Most of us could think of other reasons. The point is: Are these reasons valid and worthy? Examine your own hearts and answer that question honestly.

In presenting what he calls the “Case for the Negroes,” Dr. Allen lists some four reasons why Negroes do not like segregation.

1. They resent restrictions that segregation imposes on them. Many of them prefer to live in Negro communities, but simply do not like to be told where they can or cannot live;
2. Some want integration because they have not fared well under segregation and hope for better education, jobs, etc., if segregation is abolished;
3. Some oppose segregation because it presupposes inferiority, and they strongly believe they are not inferior;
4. Some Negroes want integration because they actually feel inferior and want to escape from this feeling through the integration process.

Of course Dr. Allen is a white man telling us what the Negro wants, how he feels, and why he feels that way. One of the unfortunate lacks in the welter of arguments over integration is that about all who have written or talked have been white people. All too few Negroes have spoken out comprehensively and clearly as to what they want. However, because Dr. Allen has lived in the South for many years, his circle of acquaintances includes many people of both racial groups.

_______

This reporter was told, rather pointedly, about a year ago, that the matter of segregation did not involve any religious element, and that it would be better to avoid it on this program. To that, my only reply is it depends upon how you define religion. If by “religion” you mean something sacred embalmed between the lids of a book that you take out on Sundays or other special days and treasure it, and then put it back until another such day and forget about your religion on the days in between, and in your relationships with other people, then segregation probably has no religious implications for you. But if your definition of religion embraces the idea that religion should be concerned about people as such – their rights, their responsibilities, their opportunities, their right to respect because they are God’s creatures – then it is difficult to see how segregation could be viewed as a non-religious, academic subject. The Nazarene was not concerned about one’s race, nationality, socioeconomic status, or anything else. His only concern was the need of the persons with whom he came in contact, and he truly exemplified what Paul had in mind when he said, “God hath made of one blood all nations of men.” It is difficult to see how any other conception squares with realities.