Month: May 1957

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.

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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.

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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.

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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”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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?

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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.”