Month: February 1957

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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.”

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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.

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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.”

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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?

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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.”

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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….”

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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.

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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.”