Year: 1958

The House Education Committee of the Louisiana House of Representatives this week ordered the president and the deans of the state university to appear before it and explain why it is that 59 faculty members of the university oppose segregation in the public schools. The vote to do this was taken by the whole House, wherein the vote was 70-0 to put the university officials on the stand to explain this subversive attitude of certain members of the faculty.

Time here does not permit any extended examination of the nature of a university, but certainly it is of fundamental importance that such an institution be dedicated to the untrammeled examination of all points of view about basic issues in the contemporary world. Freedom of thought is indispensable to such an examination. Moreover, in our scheme of things, respect for law and order is one of the basic precepts that should be taught, whether we like a particular law or decision or not. It would be passing strange if, in a university as large as Louisiana State, some members of the faculty did not personally subscribe to segregation while some oppose it. Problems are not solved in a democracy by sticking our heads in the sand or by repressing ideas that are unpalatable to some. Academic freedom exists not for the benefit of the teacher, but that society itself may profit from the examination of all sides of all issues to the end that individuals can develop sound understanding and form valid and informed ideas about problems affecting society. Apparently the politicians in the Louisiana legislature have never heard of, or are conveniently forgetting the idea that “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

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And along the same line, the state of South Carolina is concerning itself not only with rooting out faculty members in the public schools and colleges who oppose segregation; it is stretching its pressure to private colleges also. Two private Negro colleges have been singled out for special attention. On May 7, Governor Timmerman was instrumental in having the board of trustees of Benedict College in Columbia dismiss three faculty members: Dr. Lewis Smith, Dr. J. Spencer Kennard, and Mrs. Marion Davis. This dismissal climaxed a year of wrangling which began when the good governor accused six professors of “disloyalty,” a handy term that may mean anything its user wishes it to mean, and called for a legislative investigation. In the process of this investigation, Allen University last September was denied accreditation. More than 85 percent of the graduates of Allen University and Benedict College are education majors, and loss of accreditation means that they cannot secure teaching jobs in South Carolina public schools.

Thus, not only freedom of thought is suppressed, but also the aspiring Negro student becomes a victim of a vicious cycle. He cannot get a better job unless he secures better training, and now the graduates of those (and doubtless other Southern schools) cannot get better jobs even with that training, because the white supremacists that hold the power of accreditation are using this power to hold in line those with whom they do not agree. One ironical aspect of the matter is that those individuals who do these ridiculous things call themselves “Democrats,” when a more appropriate label would be “Hitlerites.”

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Even at least one federal agency is getting into the act of suppressing criticism. Cyrus W. Eaton, a noted industrialist, made the following statement on a public program: “… Scores of agencies are nowadays engaged in investigation, in snooping, in informing, in creeping up on people…. The scientist is conscious that the FBI is breathing down the back of his neck all the time, scaring him…. [and this despite the fact that] there are no communists in this country to speak of except in the minds of those on the payroll of the FBI.” J. Edgar Hoover and members of Congress are sure that, somehow, Mr. Eaton is disloyal, dangerous, perhaps even worse. Honest and sincere men will agree with or take issue with Mr. Eaton in his statement. But the FBI apparently agrees with him entirely, for it has called for an investigation of such a dangerous individual, thus proving itself guilty of Mr. Eaton’s charge.

Very much in the news currently is the revelation that Mr. Sherman Adams, Assistant to the President, and alleged by some to have been the acting president the last five years, had his hotel bills paid by and received gifts from a business man. The record indicates that Mr. Adams, in turn, interceded with federal agencies on his friend’s behalf, agencies with which that friend was having difficulty. Protestations by White House spokesmen that such intercession does not indicate that pressure was brought on these agencies are not convincing. This reporter served in a Washington bureau long enough to know that simply a call from a congressman, or an official of the White House staff, is enough to constitute pressure on that bureau or agency, and that goes, whether such calls were made with innocent or guilty intent.

Some of us have long memories. We remember the mink coats and deep freezes of a former administration and were disgusted. There is no differences between the mink coats of the Truman era and the vicuna coat of the present one. Both are stench in the nostrils of decent and honest men, and party affiliation has nothing to do with justifying one or condemning the other. Is this the end product of the great moral crusade we heard Eisenhower preach so much about in the campaign of 1952? And what about the statement of the Man of Galilee who, 2000 years ago, said that “Ye cannot serve two masters”?

The Southern Baptist Convention, meeting at Houston, took up a challenge from its president to help promote world peace and good will. Some 8,000 delegates also adopted a proposal made by Representative Brooks Hays of Arkansas, the convention president. The delegates authorized the appointment of a committee which will report back within a year on what Southern Baptists can do to promote peace and good will in the world. Hays was reelected to a second one-year term as head of the Southern Baptists, who number almost 9 million. In his presidential address, he defended the convention’s Christian Life Commission. The commission has been criticized by some denominational members for its activity on race relations and other social issues.

A feature of the convention’s opening session was a pageant heralding the five-year Baptist Jubilee Advance Program, which will run from 1958 – 1964. The final year will mark the 150th anniversary of organized Baptist work on a national scale in North America.

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Meanwhile, it was announced in Salt Lake City that a new three-state Southern Baptist Convention will be organized in September 1959. It will be formed by the Southern Baptist churches in Utah, Idaho, and Nevada. Some of these churches have been until now in the Southern Baptist Arizona Convention and others in the denomination’s California Convention.

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Figures just published in the official Catholic Directory reveal that Catholics in the United States and its territories increased by nearly 1.5 million last year. The new total represents an increase of almost 10 million persons in the last 10 years. Enrollment in Catholic colleges and universities showed an increase for the fifth successive year. A new high of 13,500 Catholic educational institutions of all types were reported. The largest archdiocese in the country, Chicago, has close to 2 million Catholics. The largest diocese is Brooklyn, though part of it became the diocese of Rockville Center last year.

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At Plymouth, Massachusetts, Congregationalists reenacted historical events of more than 300 years ago. They signed a new Mayflower Compact dedicating themselves to the Pilgrim spirit. This pact was signed outside the renovated Fort Meeting House, the original Pilgrim church at Plymouth. Then they gathered in 10 basement Bible meetings similar to those held by Pilgrims in Holland before coming to North America. By prearrangement, the local sheriff and five deputies broke up the meetings and arrested the leaders. Bibles were confiscated in the reenactment of the persecution Pilgrims suffered before reaching the New World.

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Since his prize-winning performance in Moscow, Van Cliburn’s exploits at the piano have become known to all America. But few have heard about his musical sidelines. One of them is choir singing. Mr. Cliburn, who won the Stalin Prize a few weeks ago, sang in the choir for [Billy] Graham’s New York meeting last summer. The 23-year old Mr. Cliburn is a Texan who moved to New York to continue his musical education. In New York he has been active as a member of the Calvary Baptist Church across the street from Carnegie Hall. Recently he gave a new Steinway piano to the church. And he has written several hymns and short pieces for the congregation. He has also composed a choral setting for a psalm which has been performed over a New York radio station.

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A Jewish leader told the American Jewish Congress at Miami Beach, Florida, that differences among the three great faiths in America are healthy for our democracy. The Jewish leader, Leo Pfeffer, said these differences should not be avoided. But a Protestant authority, Dr. George Williams, told the congress that conflicts could be eliminated with more interfaith cooperation. Dr. Williams said barriers between the faiths could be cut down eventually. Mr. Pfeffer is director of the Commission on Law and Social Action of the congress. Dr. Williams is professor of ecclesiastical history at Harvard University. During discussion of church-state relations, Dr. Williams said the biblical history of Israel should be as important a subject for public schools as the glory of Athens and Rome. Dr. Williams said the history of Israel could be taught without violating any constitutional principle.

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While this was going on, a Catholic priest at Richmond, Virginia, declared that the tremendous gap which once separated Catholic and Protestant thinking has narrowed significantly. He is Father Gustave Weigal, professor of ecclesiology at Woodstock Maryland, College. Father Weigel spoke at the 48th annual meeting of the Catholic Press Association. He admitted there is still a gap and will always be one as long as Protestants are Protestants and Catholics are Catholics, but he said the shrinking of the gap allows us to see each other without distortion. He attributed the better understanding to changes in Protestant and Catholic attitudes as well as to other forces.

Catholic editors at the meeting were told they must help the church in its relations with the civil and social order. Monsignor Francis J. Lally, editor of The Boston Pilot, said the Catholic press plays its part in this way: it brings the teachings of the church in contact with the realities of human living.

The association made its annual awards to newspapers and magazines. Four papers won double awards. They were The Catholic Free Press, Worcester, Massachusetts; The Boston Pilot; The Tidings, Los Angeles; and The Catholic Week, Birmingham, Alabama. Top magazine winners were The Critic, Jubilee, and St. Joseph Magazine. John J. Daly, editor of The Catholic Virginian, published at Richmond, was elected president of the association.

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Protestant welfare leaders met in Chicago for the annual Church Conference of Social Work. The meeting was sponsored by the National Council of Churches’ department of social welfare. Held at the same time was the annual session of the National Conference on Social Welfare. The National Conference conferred on Dr. Leonard W. Mayo a citation honoring him for his leadership in church welfare work. Dr. Mayo is chairman of the National Council’s social welfare department. Plans were announced at the Chicago meeting for a national all-Protestant conference on health and social welfare agencies in 1961. It will be the first of its kind on a Protestant-wide level.

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A Christian turned the first sod for a new Jewish temple in Benton, Illinois. Fred G. Harrison, president of the Bank of Herrin, Illinois, was given the honor because he had donated a four-acre site for the New United Hebrew Temple of Southern Illinois. Mr. Harrison, a Baptist, said he gave the land because he felt it was a good cause and because he had so many Jewish friends.

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Here are some briefs from the wires of Religious News Service:

In Boston, some 5,000 men sat down for the eighth annual Protestant Laymen’s Communion Breakfast. They marched to the huge breakfast in the mechanics building after attending communion services in six Boston Protestant churches.

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In Minneapolis, the executive council of the Augustana Lutheran Church recommended that the denomination ask for a study to determine the effect of American movies on the minds of foreign audiences. The study would be made by the National Council of Churches.

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The Capuchin Monastery of St. Bonaventure in Detroit will open its doors to the public on June 13 for the first time in its history. Permission for the Diamond Jubilee Open House was granted by the Vatican.

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In Washington, major airlines asked the Civil Aeronautics Board to permit a joint airline meeting to discuss passenger fare discounts. Most of the airlines apparently opposed the discount idea. Only one truck line has offered a reduced rate to clergymen since such discounts were authorized by Congress in 1956. (Parenthetically, it might be observed that this reporter included that item on this program at the time and raised a question as to whether such discounts under congressional authorization did not violate the First Amendment. He still raises that question.)

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Central Hall, a London Methodist Church, is pictured on the new three-cent and eight-cent United Nations stamp. The church had an important role in early U.N. history. The first U.N. General Assembly met in the 2,500 seat auditorium of Central Hall.

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And now the news from abroad:

In Vatican City, Pope Pius endorsed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He said it is necessary if the West is to be alert against an enemy that, in his words, goes around like a roaring lion seeking whom it can devour. In a separate speech the pontiff upheld a nation’s right to wage a defensive war. In defending itself against aggression, said the pope, a country may use all things necessary for prompt and strong action. But he noted that the Catholic Church rejects the idea that war is necessary.

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In Sydney, Australia, a Methodist evangelist just back from a visit to the U.S. said American church life is vital, evangelical, healthy, and dedicated; which we are, of course; pleasant sounding adjectives that lend themselves to almost any interpretation one wishes to put on them. However, the good Rev. Harold Hawkins is convinced that more enthusiasm characterizes the U.S. church than is true of those in Australia.

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From Berlin comes a report that East German communist authorities imprisoned three Protestant clergymen and the wife of one of the ministers. The Evangelical Church in Germany said the arrests marked a new wave of anti-church activity by the Reds. A year ago, church leaders said, seven Protestant pastors were in prison in East Germany. Now there are 24.

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And in Winnipeg, Canada, a goal of 1,000 overseas missionaries was announced by the Christian and Missionary Alliance. The Rev. H.L. Turner of New York, alliance president, told the organization’s annual international general council that there now are 822 alliance missionaries. The aim is to reach the 1,000 goal before the end of 1960. The work of this interdenominational agency is carried on in 138 languages in Africa, Asia, South America, the Near East, and a number of island territories.

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This next item comes under the anything-can-and-probably-will-happen department. Church groups sometimes have to struggle along with inexperienced officers. In Dayton, Ohio, the Sunshine Circle of the Third Street Baptist Church chose a new secretary and told her that one of the secretary’s jobs was to record the minutes of every meeting. At the next session, the secretary was called on for the minutes. The young lady arose from her seat and announced: “Minutes of the last meeting: 20 minutes, six seconds.” Then she sat down.

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Ladies and gentlemen: Last Friday, across the river from Washington, in Arlington Cemetery, there gathered the military, political, and judicial great to pay homage to America’s unknown dead. There are now three graves there instead of the one that has been there since World War I. The two recent ones represent those Americans who gave their lives in World War II and the Korean War. John Dudley Chamberlain, Jr., news editor, has composed some lines which he imputes to the first unknown soldier addressing the newcomers. These lines are:

“Come friends, lie down beside me here where spring breezes whisper soft and guards walk overhead to keep us safe. For 40 years I’ve lain alone, so tell me please, how goes the world since then? Did the Princeton sage achieve his goal of peace and justice for all men? Were our lives well spent, or did we sacrifice in vain? And tell me, friends, how came you here? How did you die? If you fell as I, alone, unknown upon some bloody field, then tell me this: How came the wars in which you fought? Whither eternal peace for which I died?”

American and the world have no valid and defensible answer to these questions.

 

 

An interfaith team of five religious leaders will leave New York next Tuesday to confer with top church and political leaders in Europe and the Middle East. Soviet Russia is on the itinerary. The National Conference of Christians and Jews is sponsoring the trip. The conference said the team will discuss with foreign leaders the problems affecting religious groups throughout the world. This is the first time such an interfaith team has entered the Soviet Union.

Members of the group are Dr. John Sutherland Bonnell, pastor of New York’s Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church; Dean Leonidas C. Contos of Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Los Angeles; Dr. Samuel L. Gandy, dean of Dillard University Chapel in New Orleans; Rabbi Irving Lehrman of Temple Emanu-el in Miami Beach; and Roy J. McCorkel, director of the conference’s Commission on Religious Organizations.

A conference spokesman said the group has been kept small intentionally. The leaders hope to encourage an intimate exchange of ideas between the foreign and American religious leaders. The Americans will try to get authoritative viewpoints on the relationship between politics and morality on issues facing the world today. The team will visit Moscow, London, Prague, Vienna, Istanbul, Belgrade, Budapest, Rome, Geneva, Paris, and cities in Egypt and Israel.

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Seminary development was in the news during the week. In New York, Union Theological Seminary, largest interdenominational seminary in the world, announced a $16 million program. Charles C. Parlin, chairman of Union’s development committee, said the program is a long-range one designed to meet the needs of its increased enrollment. Before World War II the largest student body the seminary ever had in one year totaled 314. Today, 669 students are preparing for service all over the world. The seminary hopes to modernize facilities, increase faculty salaries, develop advanced studies and internships, provide student scholarships, and build new student residences, offices, lecture, and seminar rooms.

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At Notre Dame University in Indiana, a cornerstone was laid for the new $3 million theological seminary scheduled to open on the campus next fall. The Rev. Theodore J. Mehling celebrated a solemn High Mass prior to the blessing of the cornerstone. Father Mehling is provincial of the Holy Cross Fathers who operate Notre Dame University. He said the new building will provide residence and training facilities for 200 seminarians, as well as 28 rooms for faculty members, student priests and semi-retired religious workers. Funds for the seminary were raised through a nationwide appeal. Earlier this year the university announced a $66 million development program.

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The American Jewish Congress, meeting at Miami Beach, heard a warning that Jewish existence as a people is in danger in the Western world. Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress, told 1,500 delegates that the danger lies in a lack of challenge. Through the centuries, he said, Jews have reacted constructively and heroically when threatened. Conversely, he said, we have not been conditioned to maintain Jewish solidarity and identity in normal times. Dr. Goldman said that because of the lack of challenge, a process of disintegration is at work, especially among the younger generation. Sidney Hollander of Baltimore, convention chairman, declared that recent bombings of Jewish schools and synagogues in the South stemmed from lawless resistance to school integration. He said there must be a reversal of the policy of the Southern states of organizing massive resistance to the nation’s desegregation policy.

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Ten thousand women gathered at St. Louis this week for the fifth quadrennial national assembly of the Women’s Society of Christian Service. The WSCS is the Methodist women’s group. Delegates represented 31,000 local chapters, as well as larger area groupings. Dr. Walter G. Muelder, dean of Boston University School of Theology told the women they now have tremendous social, cultural, and religious power. Women must use it, he said, as a trust. Dean Muelder said that at the very time when economic opportunity tends to entice the woman away from home and church, both these institutions need her ministry with a greater sense of vocation than ever. The Methodist women also heard a plea that they work for measures that will combat crime and delinquency in the United States.

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In Los Angeles, Protestants welcomed a group of 82 White Russians, who arrived from Hong Kong on their way to new homes in Brazil. The Russians have lived in China since 1919. They are “old believers,” members of a Russian Orthodox sect. The 82 who arrived in California are the vanguard of 192 White Russians to be resettled in Brazil. Another 500 are expected to follow at a later date. Transportation for members of the sect was arranged by the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration with the help of a $100,000 allotment from Church World Service, a relief agency of the National Council of Churches.

The bearded Russian men, their wives and children, were to sail for Brazil from Los Angeles with 60 tons of farm supplies contributed by American Protestants through Church World Service. A 6,000-acre tract of almost virgin land will replace farms seized by the Chinese communists from the old believers in 1951 and 1952.

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In Washington, a congressional conference committee agreed not to raise second-class mail rates for religious and other non-profit periodicals (which may or may not be legal.) The conference committee voted, however, to increase third-class rates for other printed matter sent by non-profit organizations. This hike will be only one-fourth of a cent per piece, and it won’t take effect until July 1, 1960.

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Here are some briefs from the words of Religious News Service:

In New York the Jewish Theological Seminary of America established a new institute of ethics named after former Sen. Herbert H. Lehman. One quarter of the projected $1 million endowment already has been raised.

In Dallas, Texas, 300 white Protestant ministers issued a statement declaring enforced segregation morally and spiritually wrong. The ministers urged school boards in the area to make their desegregation plans public as soon as possible.

In Chicago, Dr. Ruh Edwin Espy, a National Council of Churches official warned that the world’s people must learn to live closer with one another. Dr. Espy sees world population growth to 6 or 7 billion by the year 2000 (He must be seeing things, for this is a doubtful projection). [In fact, world population was over 6 billion in the year 2000.]

When the Syrian Orthodox Youth Organization meets in Pittsburgh in July, the young delegates will get occasional breaks from the routine of convention business, but they will be religious breaks. Planners of the convention have arranged for the delegates to relax by listening to informal 10-minute talks by religious leaders. Sounds like the postman taking a walk on his day off.

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And now for some foreign news items:

In Portugal, a 15-ton statute to our Lady of Fatima was unveiled in front of the Basilica of Our Lady of Fatima. The shrine commemorates the appearance of the Virgin to the three shepherd children of Fatima in 1917. The statue was donated by American Catholics, and was carved by an American Dominican priest, Father Thomas McGlynn.

In the new city of Jerusalem, a towering new structure was dedicated as the supreme religious center for the entire Orthodox Jewish world. It is a seven-story building on the highest hill in the new city, and will serve as the seat of the chief rabbinate of Israel. It will house also a new Orthodox research and information center, a rabbinical library and a liaison office for Jewish religious foundations throughout the world.

And in Ruschlikon, Switzerland, European Baptist leaders urged revitalization of the Baptist conception of the priesthood of all believers. Baptists from 17 countries met for a conference on evangelism sponsored by the European Baptist Federation. Dr. Joel Sorenson of Stockholm was chairman. He said the consensus of the delegates’ report was that the Baptist idea of the priesthood of all believers must be revitalized through good neighborly contacts and adequate programs for laymen.

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Dr. Charles Allen, Atlanta pastor, in his syndicated column this week passed along some excellent suggestions under the title of what he calls “The Race Issue.” Taking his text from Galatians and calling it an expression of the “climate of freedom,” he goes on to urge:

1. We must grant to our opponents the same freedom that we demand for ourselves.
2. The freedom of the pulpit must be maintained. There was a time when heretics were burned. Now, he says, they are sometimes fired. So long as a minister is loyal to truth, he should be encouraged to speak his honest convictions on vital matters.
3. Let us quit calling our opponents names. Good, honest men differ on important matters. Name-calling is unbecoming. Someone has said that “Labels are libels,” and few people should want to be libelous.
4. In this controversy over race relations, only reason and tolerance will win in the long run. Force in any form, threats, intimidation, coercion, have not the ghost of a chance of winning. Force may win a skirmish but it will lose the war.

Can you think of four better guiding principles in trying to forge our way through the mass of tis so’s and tain’t so’s about this subject?

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Two final items of a local nature that may or may not have any particular religious and/or moral significance.

It has been an amusing and not un-educational experience of reading the local paper “The Tempest in a Teapot” regarding the wearing of shorts, as reflected in letters to the editor. However, the letter of May 14 contained a statement that was rather nettling. The “Old-Time Reader” closes his letter by saying that “God meant for people to wear clothes.” It is difficult to be patient with people who are sure that they know what the intent or purpose of the deity was or is on any subject. The immediate reaction this reporter had to that sentence was this: “If God had intended people to wear clothes, is it not reasonable to assume that they would have been born fully clothed?” which makes the whole thing ridiculous. Emotionally inclined people, particularly the blood and thunder type, are sure they know God’s purpose on every subject. Those of us who try to make up our mind on the basis of evidence take no stock in such nonsense.

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The last item is this. This program has emphasized rather heavily and frequently the traditional and imperative practice of separation of church and state as a part of our social scheme of things. Yesterday I attended a political convention in Jonesboro, where the (self-phrased) “platforms” of candidates were read. One candidate, who later was nominated for an important office, included in his platform statement, not only the fact that he affiliated with a particular religious denomination, but went on to nauseous lengths to describe how long he had been so affiliated, the various posts he had held in the church, that he had been Sunday school teacher, superintendent, etc., etc., etc. Conceding, that it may be perfectly proper for a candidate to indicated that he is church-affiliated, it not only is in poor taste but also a violation of our principle of church-state separation to make such an obvious bid for votes on the basis of a religious appeal. There is no necessary relationship between church membership and good citizenship or good performance of a public official. That candidate maybe secured some votes by this appeal. It may be also that he lost at least one by so doing.

 

 

More than a thousand teachers and community leaders will attend 38 human relations workshops this summer. The workshops will be held at leading colleges and universities throughout the country, with the help of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. The conference also will give $30,000 in scholarships for the program. The money will help pay the expenses of those taking part. Details on the program were announced at New York by Dr. John L. McMahon, national chairman of the conference’s commission on educational organizations. Dr. McMahon is president of Our Lady of the Lake College in San Antonio, Texas. The workshops will last from 2-6 weeks. They will train teachers and community workers in how to deal with interracial and inter-religious problems. Since 1941 the conference has aided more than 340 workshops in every part of the country, with more than 13,000 educators and other community leaders taking part in the sessions.

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Mrs. May Roper Coker of Hartsville, South Carolina, is the reigning American Mother of the Year for 1958. Her selection was announced in New York by Mrs. Daniel A. Poling, president of the American Mother’s Committee. Mrs. Coker was chosen for her success as a mother, her religious and spiritual integrity, her constant practice of the golden rule, and her sense of civic and international understanding. She has reared three daughters of her own and five step-children. Besides taking part in numerous civic, business, and cultural affairs, she is an active member of First Baptist Church in Hartsville and a Sunday school teacher.

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The National Council for Jewish Education held its 82nd annual conference at Atlantic City, New Jersey. All-faith support for Jewish religious schools was urged by Dr. Samuel Dinin, dean of the University of Judaism at Los Angeles. Dr. Dinin said better schools result in better communities and therefore deserve support from all residents of the community.

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Catholic mother of the year is Mrs. Leo Stupfel of McMinnville, Oregon. She was chosen by the Family Life Bureau of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. The bureau cited Mrs. Stupfel for her ability to devote time to her church and community and still be an extraordinary success as a Christian mother. Mrs. Stupfel is a member of St. James Church in McMinnville. She has eight children, four of whom are active in religious life.

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At Rye, New York, businessmen were urged to concern themselves not so much with profits as with spiritual production. The advice came from Alfred H. Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Mr. Williams spoke at the 17th annual conference of the Laymen’s Movement for a Christian World. He said the time has come for business to set new goals – the goals of broadening and deepening the lives of each individual within our large business organizations.

J.C. Penney, chairman of the board of the J.C. Penney Company, was another speaker. He declared that our challenge and purpose are to discover and translate the Sermon on the Mount into business conduct. The Laymen’s Movement is a nonsectarian association of individuals pledged to bring Christian principles into their everyday affairs.

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Plans have been announced for a multi-million dollar center in Washington to commemorate the religious heritage of America and its free institutions. The proposal was disclosed by the organization, Religious Heritage of America, at the conclusion of the 8th annual Washington Pilgrimage of American Churchmen. The intercreedal center would give recognition to the contribution of all religious groups. It would include an auditorium, a chapel, a library, and a museum where documents relating to religious freedom could be enshrined. A committee was named to survey sites in the capital and to plan an architects’ competition for a suitable design. Sponsors of the project acknowledged that it might take 10 years or more to raise the necessary funds. But they said it would fill an obvious need in the capital, which now has no shrine to the nation’s religious heritage.

Several awards were presented during the Washington Pilgrimage. Dr. Joseph R. Sizoo, a theologian at George Washington University, was honored as Clergy Churchman of the Year. Cecil B. DeMille, noted Hollywood producer, was cited as Lay Churchman of the Year. And Dr. Georgia Harkness of the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, was given the Churchwoman of the Year award.

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The United States Steel Foundation announced in New York it had made $631,000 in grants to 415 church-related institutions of higher learning. The 415 were among 621 liberal arts colleges, science and engineering institutions, public and private universities, and medical schools included in the foundation’s Aid to Education program. Roger M. Blough, chairman of the foundation’s board of trustees, said the grants were intended to help maintain the vigor of educational institutions.

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At Melrose, Minnesota, a Catholic nun was honored on completion of her 60th year of teaching in Saint Boniface schools. She is Sister Celsa, a Benedictine nun who just passed her 80th birthday. For all but two of the 60 years she has been at St. Boniface, she has taught first grade. The National Education Association called her career a record for service in the same school. Sister Celsa says she’ll keep on teaching as long as her superiors let her do so.

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At Honolulu, three American Quakers and a Methodist were given 60-day jail sentences, which were suspended, for defying Federal Judge John Wiig, who warned them they would be jailed again if they made another attempt to set sail for the nuclear proving grounds. The men said after the court hearing they were undecided about their next move. They were taken to court after the Coast Guard stopped their 30-foot ketch, the Golden Rule, a half hour out of Honolulu Harbor. By sailing for the weapons testing area, they violated orders from the Atomic Energy Commission and the Navy, putting the testing grounds off limits. The Golden Rule was a protest against the continuation of nuclear weapons tests. The journey was sponsored by an organization called Non-Violent Action Against Nuclear Weapons. The crew of four included George Willoughby, executive secretary of the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors. Spokesman for the group in court was Lieutenant Commander Albert Smith Bigelow. He told the judge, “It would have been contempt for God if I hadn’t done my best to stop those nuclear atrocities. They are contemptuous crimes against all mankind.”

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More than a million persons were served by the U.S.A. and the United Presbyterian Church social agencies in 1957. The figure was reported at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, by John Park Lee, executive secretary of the National Presbyterian Health and Welfare Council. He spoke at a conference of Presbyterian community and neighborhood house workers. Mr. Lee said 362 social welfare agencies of the two Presbyterian groups served 1,068,000 persons last year. More than half were served by 121 community centers and neighborhood houses. The two Presbyterian denominations will merge at the end of this month to form the New United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.

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In Berlin, East German communist newspapers sharply attacked the synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany. The communists criticized the Protestant organization for failing to condemn West German atomic armament at its recent meeting. The Evangelical Synod adopted a resolution condemning atomic war. But the leaders were split on atom bomb production. Some argued situations were conceivable in which defense with equal weapons is justifiable.

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As the communists protested, seven prominent West German Catholic theologians issued a declaration upholding a country’s right to use atomic weapons if necessary for its defense. The statement, however, noted the devastating effects of atomic weapons and said a state must be prepared to make big sacrifices to preserve peace.

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Major churches around the world were in the news during the week. In the Philippines, Catholic officials announced that the new Cathedral of Manila will be solemnly inaugurated on December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. The big Romanesque structure replaces an old one destroyed in World War II. American troops turned guns on the old building to dislodge Japanese suicide squads who made a last-ditch stand there.

In London, Queen Elizabeth II headed an overflow congregation at services marking the reopening of the east end of famous St. Paul’s Cathedral. The east end of the American structure was almost completely destroyed by Nazi bombs during the war. It has now been restored.

And in Quebec, Catholic Archbishop Maurice Roy celebrated a solemn Pontifical Mass opening an anniversary celebration. It is the 300th anniversary of the famous shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre in the tiny village of the same name 25 miles from Quebec City. Three million pilgrims are expected at the shrine during the five-month celebration.

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Yesterday, I perforce, watched the Armed Services parade in Johnson City. I say perforce, because I was waiting for a person to keep an appointment with me, and since he was late, I waited. I found myself in a place where it was almost impossible not to see the parade that was going by. It sadly lacked coordination and continuity.

But these are not important points about it. The major sensation that coursed through my consciousness as I watched the guns, tanks, uniformed persons go by was: What a graphic commentary upon the stupidity of man, who insists upon calling himself civilized. There was nothing civilized about the affair. My next reaction was to wonder how much all this equipment, these uniforms, and other expense of the show, a small one that was repeated many times over not only across the country but around the world, would do toward providing food, shelter, clothing, education, and medicine, for hungry, forlorn and destitute people, of whom there are entirely too many in this world. Yet, here we were making a showy parade out of the fact that mankind is so unwilling to profit by the lessons of history that he goes on kidding himself that by getting ready for war he can have peace.

No loyal citizen would question but what such trappings are a necessary evil of our present nationalistic system of things. But the discouraging and distressing thing about it all is that nobody in responsible place seems to be thinking about changing the system so that, in the foreseeable future, such grisly reminders of man’s inhumanity to man would no longer be necessary. Not only that, but those of us who would change the system, peacefully, substituting law and order where we now have nothing but the code of the jungle, are looked at askance, as if were were trying to destroy the country, when in reality we would save it from its own folly.

Peace has been established in ever-enlarged areas only to the extent that so-called sovereignty is wrapped in the orderly process of law. Such must be applied on a world-wide basis if a just and durable peace is to come about. We may not like the idea of world government, but an increasing number of us would much prefer world government to world suicide. There does not seem to be any alternative middle ground.

There are those who say world government is fine but we are not ready for it. The same thing was said about the formation of our own federation in 1788, but it has endured to prove the doubters wrong. One way to be defeated unnecessarily is to insist before beginning that something cannot be done. It is far more constructive and productive to seek, instead, ways and means by which it can be done, for be done it must if we are to survive.

 

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Last week I reported briefly on criticism emanating from the Associated Church Press meeting in Chicago to the effect that religious papers are not aggressive enough in espousing great social issues. There is more news of the same vein in this week’s news. Fear was expressed at the meeting that the church press may be relinquishing moral leadership to the secular press because of its reluctance to discuss realistically the big issues. And Dr. Harold E. Frey, editor of The Christian Century, said religious publications ought to stick their necks out more on vital public questions.

In New York, meanwhile, two secular dailies and the United Press Association received awards of merit for distinguished coverage of local, national, and international religious activities. The papers are the Detroit Free Press and the Medford, Oregon, Mail Tribune. They were honored by the National Religious Publicity Council at its annual meeting. And in Washington, Louis W. Cassels, religion editor of the United Press, was named to receive the 1958 Faith and Freedom Award in American Journalism, which will be presented May 3 at a banquet highlighting the ninth annual pilgrimage of American churchmen.

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Dr. Douglas Horton, dean of Harvard Divinity School has announced the first professor in Catholic studies ever established at the school. Harvard’s Protestant Divinity School is 139 years old. Dr. Horton said Christopher Dawson, distinguished British Catholic historian and author, will become the first Chauncey Stillman Guest Professor of Roman Catholic Theological Studies. The new professorship is designed to attract to the Divinity School distinguished educators who can contribute to a wider understanding of the Catholic Church. Dr. Horton also announced appointment of another Englishman, Robert Henry Slater, to the newly-created professorship of world religions. Slater is theology professor at McGill University’s Montreal Diocesan Theological College.

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The Methodist Council of Bishops has called for a revised U.S. foreign policy in which the idealism of the American people is dominant. The appeal was issued in a message to the church from the meeting of the bishops of Miami Beach, Florida. The Methodist prelates urged a foreign policy that would not be based primarily on security and defense. They warned that the war for the minds of men will not be won so long as blind politicians demand tariff walls, envision fortress America, and call for more devastating weapons. It is no wonder, the bishops say, that the communist wins the exploited people. He tells them that he is out to abolish the exploitation of man by man. But, instead of telling the world that we give economic aid because we want a peaceful world, we advise them that such aid is in our national interest and to maintain our own security. The bishops went on to propose that the government seek advice from teachers, philosophers, preachers, missionaries, labor leaders, musicians, and artists, as well as business men and military leaders, when world-wide policies are being drafted.

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Two Catholic organizations warned during the week against over-emphasis on science and technology as a result of the age of satellites. Meeting at Detroit, the American Catholic Philosophical Association said much emphasis would constitute a danger to our way of life. At Buffalo, the Catholic Library Association urged educators to keep a proper balance between physical science and the humanities despite current pressures for more scientists.

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Bells made from the cones of Nike rocket boosters rang out at the opening ceremonies of a unique chapel near Carrizozo, New Mexico. The chapel was built entirely from scrap materials available at the isolated Red Canyon Rocket Range, plus stone cut from the walls of Red Canyon. Army rocket men began work on the chapel last December. Among their materials were old telephone poles and rails salvaged from the Southern Pacific Railroad. Col. John. J. McCarthy, head of the camp, said the chapel bells really have an excellent tone. The metal cones have been tempered by the extreme heat of exploding gases driving the Nike rockets skyward.

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In Washington, Monsignor Wm. J. McDonald was installed as rector of the Catholic University of America. Edward Cardinal Mooney, archbishop of Detroit, presided over the colorful ceremony. James Francis Cardinal McIntyre of Los Angeles and nearly 40 archbishops and bishops of the Catholic Church attended. In his inaugural address, the new rector expressed hope that the questioning now going on in American education will goad us into improvement.

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The oldest Baptist church in this country was rededicated at Providence, Rhode Island, after completion of restoration work. The church is First Baptist of Providence, built in 1775. Its restoration was made possible by a $0.5 million gift from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. This church, often called the Meetinghouse, has long been the scene of baccalaureate and commencement services for Brown University students. Baptist leaders from throughout the country took part in the dedicatory ceremonies.

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The American Jewish Yearbook, just published in New York, reports that enrollment of pupils in Jewish day and Sunday schools has doubled in the last 10 years. In 1947, there were 231,000 students in Jewish schools; by last year, the book says, the figure has grown to 490,000. The growth occurred during a period when the Jewish population increased by only 15-20 percent. Of the 5.25 million Jews in this country now, some 3 million are formally affiliated with an Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform congregation. An estimated 4 million, the yearbook says, are regarded as basically within the synagogue. The book estimated world Jewish population at 12,350,000.

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Two major U.S. Baptist leaders arrived in Moscow to worship with and confer with Russian Baptists. They were representative Brooks Hays of Arkansas, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and Dr. Clarence W. Cranford, president of the American Baptist Convention. They were met at Moscow Airport by Dr. Jakov Zhidkov, president of the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians, the Baptist group in the Soviet Union. Dr. Zhidkov was in the U.S. in 1956 as the guest of major American Baptist bodies.

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In Karachi, Pakistan’s President Iskander Mirza said several hundred thousand Christian farmers will get land from the government. President Mirza gave the assurance to Dr. R. Norris Wilson, executive director of Church World Service, relief agency of the National Council of Churches. Many Christian farmers in Pakistan were dispossessed 10 years ago when some 8 million Moslems left India and poured into newly created Pakistan. President Mirza said his government is aware of the injustice of the dispossession and is determined to right the wrong. He said Christian farmers will be eligible for land now available for resettlement. The Pakistani leader expressed thanks to Dr. Wilson for relief and rehabilitation work sponsored by American church agencies in his country.

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Some of you will be surprised at this next item; at least at its source, if not its subject. It is an article entitled “Segregation in the Churches,” by Dr. Wesley Shrader, associate professor of pastoral theology at Yale Divinity School. The article appears in the current, May, issue of Esquire magazine.

“… Here is the most striking irony of the twentieth century: that the church of Jesus Christ has become the primary instrument for the perpetuation of segregated life. This is more dramatically (though not exclusively) seen in the South where the Christian church openly represents the greatest bulwark of segregated power. The church will undoubtedly be the last bastion to fall – if, indeed, it will ever fall.”

Going on to report upon his interviews with representative spokesmen of various so-called Christian groups – Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and others – together with citing articles and other published statements on the subject, Dr. Shrader concludes his article with this paragraph:

“What is the future of the Christian church in the South? Are these tiny gains destined to set the pattern for better things to come? Or will the church in truth continue to boast about their large congregations, their extravagant church buildings and their overstuffed treasuries while denying a place of service and worship to a brother in Christ because of the color of his skin? Will segregation’s divisive wedge mar the life and honor of the church throughout the length and span of this generation? Time will tell.”

Here is a profound indictment of the very institution that should exhibit the least traces of distinction between because of the accident of race. “Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of these, ye have done it unto me.” Do segregationists really believe that? Or is merely words that they parrot? Apparently the latter. Anyway, don’t miss the article in the May issue of Esquire magazine.

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A correspondent sends me this incident: He says he met two men and “I thought they were a couple of Methodist bishops. They were talking about conversion and redemption. I moved in and found that they were bankers talking about bonds.”

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This week your reporter read carefully a radio broadcast address by Dr. Harold Scott, pastor of the First Unitarian Society of Salt Lake City, Utah. The script made sense. After pointing out that prayer in some form has been a characteristic of most peoples of all time, primitive and modern, he goes on to observe that Hebrews composed prayers that in their day were of much literary merit, but which reflect a conception of deity that today the science of religion must regard as superstition. The main theme is that Jehovah is taking care of the Jews and cares little about anyone else.

The Roman Missal and the Episcopal Prayer Book, he goes on, both have prayers for many occasions; some of which are of high literary merit, but embody so much of superstition that they are not usable by moderns in religion.

In most Protestant churches, the prayer is by the minister, is impromptu, and is likely to consist of fervid outpouring of pious phases which if written down would have no literary merit and would make little sense – just a loose series of religious sounding words.

Orthodox Jews funeral prayers make a direct appeal to God on behalf of the dead, presumably on the theory that God can be induced to changed his mind as to the treatment of the dead.

It is typical of Americans, he says, with more than a modicum of truth, that when they pray they ask for materials benefits. They will take a chance on anything to get hold of property. But of course this is nonsense, for goods are produced only by the application of labor to land. God does not run a department store. If you want more wages, praying won’t give them to you. Better join a labor union.

Prayer he emphasizes, to the rational person, whether Christian, Jew, or what have you, embodies:

1. An outpouring of thanksgiving for the good, the true, and the beautiful. This serves to sharpen our search for value, meaning, and appreciation.
2. It addresses itself to the pitiable state of mankind and voices aspirations that man can climb up out of hate, suspicion, fear, superstition, want, and misery.
3. The expression of a deep longing for more than life has thus far yielded. It should voice the aching sense of unfulfillment as we observe the great gulf between what we are and what we want to be.

Well, as Dr. Scott, observes, prayer may be many other things, but it is certainly these.

More than 10 years have passed since a Bedouin shepherd stumbled over the first cave hiding place of the Dead Sea Scrolls, considered by biblical archeologists as the find of the century. Since their discovery, many of the 2000-year old leather and copper documents have been thoroughly examined by scholars and technologists. These scholars have tried to answer tentatively the absorbing question of whether the scrolls actually shed any new light on Christianity. Archaeologist Frank Moore Cross, Jr., and Old Testament scholar and author of the recently-published book on the scrolls, “The Ancient Library of Qumran,” gives a qualified affirmative answer. Cross, who is the first to concede that his book is incomplete, says the light is not exactly shed, but rather is case by reflection. Most scholars agree that the scrolls were not the work of the early Christians, but rather a Jewish sect known as Essenes. This sect inhabited the Qumran community shortly before and shortly after the birth of Christ. Cross points out that the importance of the scrolls lies in the fact that the Essenes were an apocalyptic sect, or believers in the imminent triumph of righteousness on the ashes of the evil world. The primitive Christian church was also apocalyptic.

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Some question has been raised as to whether Samuel Cardinal Stritch will keep his American citizenship while serving in a high office in the Vatican. The cardinal, who has headed the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago for 18 years, is en route to the Vatican to become pro-prefect of the Church’s congregation for the propagation of the faith. The citizenship issue was raised by the National Association of Evangelicals, an association of 41 small denominations. It refers to itself as the Conservative Protestant Wing. At its annual convention, held in Chicago, the group said an American loses citizenship by accepting office in a foreign state. Delegates approved a resolution calling for an investigation to determine whether Cardinal Stritch is affected.

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A revision of the traditional church policy at Harvard University is being sought by a group of faculty members. A spokesman for the group explained that its petition to Harvard President Nathan Pusey was tempered, but otherwise declined to say what kind of revision is desired. At issue is whether Memorial Church in Harvard Yard should be used for services of faiths other than Christian. The controversy stems from a lengthy article which appeared recently in the undergraduate daily newspaper, The Harvard Crimson. The article charged that the university preacher refused to allow a Jewish student to be married in the church. Several letters were received as a result and an unidentified Harvard official said the Jewish student had not been denied the right. The spokesman noted, however, that the student was encouraged to be married by a Protestant minister with a rabbi present, and that the ceremony was performed in that manner. Harvard President Pusey takes the stand that the university’s historic tradition has been a Christian one. He says that while Memorial Church is not regarded as affiliated with any one denomination, it has always been thought of as a house of Christian worship.

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This reporter habitually avoids movies in order to avoid disappointment, but so much has been said and written that it seems pertinent to pass on to you an evaluation of the “Bridge Over the River Kwai,” prepared by Dr. Harold Scott of Salt Lake City. He says, “We saw a preview of the film, ‘The Bridge Over the River Kawi.’ We recommend you see the showing. It was strange to see Alec Guinness in a serious role but he was adequate. This is a serious picture showing (1) the irrationality of war, (2) the futility of principles held to be absolute in the face of pragmatic propositions, and (3) the violence done human personality by the slave code of the military whereby a man must obey another man instead of his own intelligence and conscience.”

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In Washington, the White House confirmed that President and Mrs. Eisenhower had contributed $1,000 toward a mural that was dedicated Easter Sunday in a Washington Negro church. Mrs. Eisenhower made the gift by check to Elder Solomon Lightfoot Michaux, a Negro evangelist whose congregation recently dedicated a $350,000 building called the Temple of Freedom Under God.

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The National Catholic Educational Association, meeting in Philadelphia, urged greater lay participation in the operation of Catholic schools. One resolution adopted at the meeting asked Catholic educators to explore the possibility of increased use of the laity for advisory boards, on citizen’s committees, and individually in the areas of special knowledge. The resolution suggested enlistment of lay volunteers as teacher aides, library assistants, and study hall supervisors. This, the Catholic educators said, would help relieve teaching loads and teacher shortages. (Parenthetically, it might be observed that it is also likely to relieve the quality of work that goes on in the school.)

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At Miami Beach, Florida, the Methodist Council of Bishops declared an amendment to the constitution of the Methodist Church adopted and in full effect. The amendment is the one voted by the Methodist General Conference in 1957 to set up a procedure for gradual dissolution of the denomination’s all-Negro central jurisdiction. It provides a system of permitting Negro churches voluntarily to transfer into the five white geographical jurisdictions. The bishops said the amendment has been approved by nearly all of the 127 annual conferences that have voted on it so far. Membership in the Methodist Church was reported at an all-time high of 9,566,000, an increase of nearly 150,000 over 1957.

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In Chicago this week the religious press was chided for failing to speak out forcefully on social issues and for not assuming a prophetic role in Christian journalism. The criticism came from Dr. Edwin T. Dahlberg, president of the National Council of Churches, and Milburn P. Akers, editor of the Chicago Sun-Times. They addressed U.S. and Canadian editors attending the annual meeting of the Associated Church Press. The organization is made up of Protestant and Orthodox publications. Mr. Akers expressed disappointment that many church publications avoided comment on great social issues. Dr. Dahlberg agreed, saying it is a great mistake to make church papers into mere program publications. The greatest opportunity of the religious press, he said, is that of adopting a prophetic role in society. Dr. Dahlberg said the religious press must deliberately educate and strengthen the conscience of the nation and be the voice of that conscience.

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Membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints increased by more than 70,000 last year. There are now close to 1.5 million Mormons. The figures were reported at the denomination’s annual conference at Salt Lake City. The report showed the Mormons have almost 13,000 missionaries, roughly half of them full-time. President David O. McKay told 8,000 delegates at the Salt Lake City conference that civilization is threatened by man’s failure to match progress in science and invention with progress in character and spirituality.

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After a long boom period, church construction is beginning to fall off, apparently because of the business recession. In Washington, the Departments of Commerce and Labor estimated new church starts in March totaled $61 million. That is $3 million less than the February level and $2 million below March of a year ago. Normally, March brings an increase in all kinds of construction.

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In Rome, the Vatican art gallery disclosed it is starting a new department dedicated exclusively to modern art. Up to now, the gallery has had nothing more recent than a painting of King George IV of England, done between 1820 and 1830. A number of works already have been donated to the new department.

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Newspapers reaching Hong Kong from the mainland indicate that communist leaders in China have started a witch-hunt for so-called rightists in the Chinese Protestant churches. One newspaper reported that the Red leaders had convened a meeting of Protestants from all parts of Kwangtung Province. According to the communist account, the meeting was used to unmask nine Protestant pastors. The clergymen were accused of collaborating with imperialists and engaging in activities aimed at overthrowing the Communist Party. Another paper described a similar unmasking of two Protestant leaders in Kansu Province. The papers did not say what happened to the accused men.

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Some details of the constitution for the New United Church of Christ were disclosed at Cleveland this week. The co-chairmen of a special commission drafting the chapter said it will guarantee the freedom of local congregations to own and manage property. The congregation also will be guaranteed the right to call ministers and choose their own form of worship and standards of membership. Ministers will be free to accept or reject calls to churches. The United Church was formed last June by merger of the general council of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical Reformed Church. It is being governed by a basis of union until the constitution is approved. The charter will define the organization and work of the new church’s general synod and describe the relationships between the synod and its local churches and agencies.

Meanwhile, the new denomination made an offer of what it called inter-communion, recognition, and fellowship to all Christian bodies who accept Christ. It asked other Christian bodies to adopt the practice of serving Holy Communion to all church members who proclaim their commitment to Him.

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The ethical standards of the TV industry’s advertising are about on the level of a con man. Many of the commercials are clearly fraudulent. The industry dresses up studio dopes in white jackets to impersonate a physician, then prescribes drugs wholesale without examination or diagnosis. It makes claims for tobacco, soap, toothpaste, and cosmetics that cannot be substantiated. It is highly doubtful if any TV company insists on a clearance from the American Medical Association. Better Business Bureaus are overwhelmed and the Federal Trade Commission is given too little money to police crooked business. Most Americans don’t seem to mind, but the claims of TV advertising have become incredulous and ridiculous.

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9,245 scientists of 44 countries have signed a petition to stop testing nuclear bombs by international agreement and that petition has been presented to the United Nations. The petition bears the names of 36 Nobel Prize winners, 101 of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, 35 fellows of the Royal Society of London, 216 members and correspondents of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., and leading scientists of other countries. The press of the U.S. has ignored this, but the wire services bring plenty of statements from Dr. Teller, the military and its captive, the Pentagon, assuring us there is no danger from nuclear testing and that preparation for collective homicide brings peace. How illogical, irrational, and stupid can we get?

It should be apparent to all that admirable as is the statement of the scientists, that the answer to the problem of war lies not in the scientific laboratory but in the political arena. As long as scientists of each country are trying to outdo all others in death-dealing weapons, with no international control over the use to which their discoveries will be put, we rush madly to collective suicide. But if the Russians have a Sputnik in the skies, we must have one too.

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Immanuel Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky, has borrowed some biblical language to solve a current problem. The problem was how to keep the curb in front of the church free of parked cars. A sign was erected that proved very effective. It read, “Thou shalt not park.”

 

 

During the last few weeks this program has carried items in the news on the matter of Sputniks and on the crisis in American education, and has pointed out something of the relationship between the two. This week, two articles came to my attention, putting both subjects in such pertinent focus that I shall report as many excerpts of them as can be included within the 15-minute limitation because of the secular and moral implications of the two subjects.

The first appears in the “easy chair” department of Harper’s magazine for April, and is written by guest editor, Col. E. B. Crabill, infantry officer in three wars, earning 12 decorations, and serving in many battles all over the world. He recently retired, but his training and experience make what he says of more than cursory value.

He points out that since the Korean War, American citizens have paid an annual tax bill of around $70 billion. Instead of diminishing, this bill shows every sign of increasing. He says:

“The primary excuse for this astronomical bite is that a sacrosanct monstrosity labelled ‘national defense’ – do not touch … Why should it be a sacred cow? Have the people so much confidence in the Defense Department that they think it can do no wrong? Isn’t there a possibility of a little empire-building mixed up with the real requirements? …

“What the defense setup needs is a good tough inspection. Let’s take a hard look at some of the prevailing sophisms that are responsible for this astronomical spending. Any of them could be the subject of a complete article???

1. The military leaders…are best able to determine our needs for national defense. They might be if they were able to rise above their prejudices, but they are not…. It might be possible to approach a solution by asking an admiral what the Army needs, an Army general what the Air Force needs, and an Air Force general what the Navy needs, but to ask each what his own service needs is like opening the doors of the treasury and handing him a shovel.
2. The money appropriated for military purposes is necessary for the defense of the country. It is about as necessary as it is to furnish each voter in the country with an air-conditioned Cadillac.

“The characteristic demanded by the service in their airplanes, ships, weapons, and vehicles are now so expensive that the cost of them is from two to ten times as great as that – with a small loss in comfort, efficiency, or accuracy – of a serviceable substitute…. The Russians have a heavy trench mortar that looks as though it had been machined with a sledge hammer, but it throws a lethal shell a long distance.”

3. It takes nine men in the rear to keep one man at the front. This is a great understatement. It started … far back … where animal transportation was all that was available…. Nowadays with motor and air transport, and radio and telephone communication, the proportion of rear-area personnel, instead of decreasing, has increased.
4. The officers in our services are brave, intelligent, zealous, and unselfish…. I would call this 20 percent correct. We owe our success in wars to a very small group of heroes. The rest just go along for the ride. Nor is this small group made up of more generals than privates or vice versa. It is about the same in all ranks.
5. All soldiers, sailors, and airmen contribute equally to their country’s defense and should be equally entitled to veteran’s benefits. Baloney.  If you believe this, go out some night when it is raining … dig yourself a foxhole with about four inches of water in the bottom and spend a couple of weeks there living on canned rations….

“Battles are won by a very few unusually brave men who are able to do the right thing at a critical time.… More often, they are decided by the boldness of some lieutenant or sergeant who makes a break-through which is then exploited by higher leaders….

6. Wars of the Future will be all-out wars like World Wars I and II. This is highly improbable and plays directly into the hands of the Russians who obviously have no intention of getting into an all-out war with the U.S.
7. Wars of the future will be decided by atomic bombs, airplanes, and guided missiles. Don’t you believe it. Any time she chooses to do so, Russia can march across Europe. There is nothing to stop her….
8. Atomic Weapons are so devastating that they will eliminate war as a means of settling international disagreements. Don’t believe that one either. History is replete with weapons so devastating that war would be impossible.
9. Wars are won by the nations having the best machines. This follows the old saying that God is on the side of the heaviest artillery…. History has too many instances in which a rabble poorly armed and trained but possessing high morale has defeated well-trained and well-equipped armies…”

Colonel Crabill lists nine suggestions which he calls “a better way,” only some of which can be reported here for lack of time:

1. Stop depending on guided missiles, atomic bombs, and airplanes to solve all defense problems. They probably won’t be used in small wars, and will be suicidal to use in big wars.
2. Keep ready and available in the … United States at least a dozen tough and well-trained divisions of professional soldiers that can be removed anywhere to back up decisions of the United Nations.
3. Reduce by 50 percent the personnel on duty in the Pentagon, including assistant secretaries, admirals, and generals….
4. Revise the military characteristics of war material, to eliminate requirements that make it expensive without proportionately increasing its combat value.
5. Start the pay of enlisted men at $50 a week; of officers at $6,000 a year. This would probably eliminate the draft.
6. Eliminate the corps of military police. This is an outstanding waste of good manpower.

Three other suggestions of similar nature are given. You read them in Harper’s for April, now on the newsstands. They are thought-provoking.

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This second item deals with the values that Americans as a people hold. The morality, the ideals of a people, like those of an individual, can be measured more by what a people do than what they say. We spend more for tobacco, beverages, chewing gum, than we do upon the education of our children, though every public speaker that touches upon the subject declares piously, and momentarily at least, sincerely, that our children are our most precious resource. Then we go right out and appropriate millions for highways and thousands for schools.

The following comment comes from Dr. John R. Everett, president of Hollins College, and it appears in a recent bulletin of that college (December, 1957) under the title “Hollins Herald Issue.” It goes like this, in full:

“The Sputniks seem to be doing what all the leaders in American education have failed to do. Some yet unborn historians will have a field day trying to explain a sequence of events that even now appear to be part of a grim irrational melodrama.

“Future historians who try to make sense out of our age might first take a few television commercials. In these they will find giant corporations spending millions of dollars to tell that they are first in research. Pictures of fine buildings, test tubes, sputtering electric circuits and all the rest flash on the screen to the accompaniment of ungrammatical Madison Avenue phrases. But the meaning is clear: American progress is firmly based in research and is guided by industrial statesmen who know the value of educated brains.

“Since we expect our historian to be rational, he will then wonder why a country with an extremely short tradition of learning, Russia, could surpass the United States in science. He will look around and find a number of small things like thoughtless rivalries in the defense establishment, poor coordination in program planning, use of captured scientists from Germany, congressional distrust of “eggheads,” and so on. But he will know that although these things contribute to the explanation, they are only a small part of the truth.

“In order to get further facts our historian goes into the musty files and reads literally thousands of reports made by all sorts of agencies and associations. Soon a peculiar feeling of reading in a Mickey Mouse world begins to dawn. In one set of statistics he reads that in the Commonwealth of Virginia the average college professor lost 10 percent of his purchasing power in a 15-year period (1941-1956), while industrial workers gained 197 percent in their power to buy. Going on to the president’s committee report he finds that fresh PhD’s entered college teaching at about $3,700 a year and could not expect to double their salary in their entire lifetime! And then he runs across the odd fact that railroad engineers got more income than senior scholar-teachers, and that a hip-waving, nasal-voiced guitar player got as much for one performance as a professor got for five years of teaching. There must be a reason.

“Before looking for the reasons it is necessary to see the effects. More reports are read, and the Mickey Mouse world begins to disappear. The ancient and tested laws of human behavior appear to begin working again. He finds that the production of the PhD’s increased four times in the 10 years between 1946 and 1956. But like sensible people these young scholars went into industry or some other activity that gave them a decent share of America’s production. Figures and statements of this sort begin to appear – ‘three of every four new PhD’s in chemistry who take new jobs upon graduation go outside education’s environs. Three of every five new PhD’s in physics and other physical sciences take the same path.’ All this seems quite normal to our seasoned observer of human action.

“Of course he knows that the mid-twentieth century Americans were not stupid so his next step is to find out how industry and government were dealing with the problem of helping new talent on its way through the schools. Sure enough he uncovered all sorts of foundations, corporations and individuals supplying scholarship funds. High school teachers, guidance counselors and national testing bureaus were all looking for and financing the exceptional student. There was much to be done, but a good start was underway. Indeed, it had been going on for generations; regular scholarship plans had been in operation since the colleges were founded.

“But who was teaching this crop of bright students? Some dedicated souls who would rather teach than eat well, some second- or third-rate people who could not stand the strain of business competition, some people who could never quite make up their minds about a career so they just slipped into teaching jobs? All these and more. Where was the great weight? Still with the dedicated ones, but the balance was rapidly shifting.

“The political managers of the United States took immediate and decisive action. They gave speeches and made low interest money available for dormitories and dining. This was right where it was least likely to do the most good.

“The other leaders also became decisive. One of the nation’s largest companies and one of its greatest consumers of educated manpower gave over $1 million to the cause – less than the cost of three hour-long television shows. But one should not forget that it was a good public relations gesture because over 1,000 news clippings were received and there were some 40 favorable editorials. Less enlightened leadership did not come up to this standard, but there were a number of speeches given to all kinds of audiences indicating something should be done by someone.

“Our historian was back in the Mickey Mouse world. He could find no adequate reason for a great nation with the world’s powerful economic system refusing to support its scholars and teachers. As one report stated, it was like the improvident farmer who ate up his seed corn and then wondered about next year’s crop.

“But at least the search through the libraries had not been in vain. Sputniks I and II and what came after were explained.”

 

 

 

This week, across the Holy Land, members of three great religious faiths observed ceremonies that are holy to them. Easter hymns of Christians mingled with Moslem calls to Ramadan prayers in the old city of Jerusalem. While not far away, Jews stocked up for their Passover observation. As the Way of the Cross procession began, Moslems gathered at the hallowed Dome of Rock for their usual prayers on Friday during Ramadan, the holy month of fasting. This dome is said to mark the spot where Mohamed ascended on horseback into heaven. The rock once was the sacred altar of the Jewish temple where Christ is said to have driven the money changers from the temple. At the other end of the Way of the Cross, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Christians entered the church courtyard opposite the Mosque of Amar as loudspeakers in the mosque’s minaret broadcast sermons in Arabic.

At the same time, Jews in the new city of Jerusalem prepared for Seder, the feast just after sundown which opens the week-long festival of the Passover, commemorating the emancipation of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. During the Passover week, only unleavened bread is served to remind the Jews of the haste with which their forefathers fled from Pharaoh’s bondage. Traditionally Jews change all cooking utensils. Only dishes which are kept especially for Passover are used.

To make the following comment: It is something of an anachronism that while the representatives of these great religious philosophies worship, each in his own way and in his own temple, that the land in which they worship is torn with strife and tension. One can observe without being suspected of disparagement of any one of these faiths that there is one thing common to them all: All, in one phraseology or another, subscribe to the idea which Jesus put in these words: “As ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.” Is it not both ridiculous and distressing that apparently neither one of these three takes this precept seriously in its practice. If all did, there would not be strife and tension.

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In New York an electronic computer has compiled the first complete index of a major portion of the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls. In preparation for making the index, 30,000 words from the scrolls and fragments found in the Dead Sea caves were transferred to machine punch cards. The cards were sent to New York where the computer converted the data into two reels of magnetic tape in two hours. The index will be a valuable tool for scholars seeking a more complete knowledge of the manuscript fragments. The lists prepared by the machine will enable a student to study any word of the scrolls in all its contexts. Also, by transposing prose into a series of mathematical relationships, the computer can make qualified guesses as to what words originally were written in hundreds of mutilated sections. This the machine does by analyzing words preceding and following each gap. Then it electronically scans thousands of words until it finds one that most nearly fits into the context.

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This next item comes under the “I don’t know what it means, if anything, department.” It says that the Queen Anne Christian Congregation in Seattle, Washington, used a novel method of breaking ground for its new church. More than 100 adults and children of the congregation grabbed onto six long ropes and pulled a plow through the earth of their building plot. Pitching in to help tug was the Rev. Chester Dunkin, pastor of the 52-year old parish. Unquote. You figure it out.

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An evangelical magazine published in the nation’s capital offers an interesting analysis of how Protestant ministers see themselves, theologically speaking. The magazine, Christianity Today, has published results of a survey made for it by the Opinion Research Corporation of Princeton. The ministers were asked to classify their own theological position, that is, to say whether they felt they were fundamentalist, conservative, neo-orthodox, liberal, or something else.

The largest number, 39 percent, called themselves “conservative.” Another 35 percent classified themselves as “fundamentalist.” Only 14 percent said they were “liberal,” and 12 percent, “neo-orthodox.” What, no radicals? The greatest radical of them all is the central theme of worship in all Christian churches today.

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Durham, North Carolina, was bombed with thousands of leaflets carrying invitations to attend Sunday school. This was the end of a month-long “Go to Sunday School” drive, conducted by the Edgemont Free Will Baptist Church of Durham in an effort to combat juvenile delinquency.

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Archbishop Makarios, spiritual leader of the Greek Orthodox Church in Cyprus, has given an ancient Greek manuscript of portions of the New Testament Gospels to Boston University’s Schools of Theology. This manuscript is believed to date from the 10th century. Dr. Walter G. Muelder, dean of the school, received it from Dean John Zanetos of Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral at Boston. The document will be made available for study by scholars.

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In Chicago, representatives of four merging Lutheran bodies resolved two major issues in the proposed union. They adopted resolutions concerning the ministry and control of seminaries. One measure declared that ministers ordained in the new church shall refrain from membership in secret societies or be subject to discipline. The second approved a compromise plan giving supervision of seminaries to the proposed new central church body and its constituent synods. Broad powers and duties would be assigned to a board of theological education. The four bodies are the United Lutheran, the Augustana, the Finnish Evangelical, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church. The new denominations will have a membership of about 3 million persons.

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Ground was broken at Elgin, Illinois, for a new $1.5 million headquarters building for the Church of the Brethren. It will provide space for the denomination’s central offices and will also house printing and merchandising facilities. The denomination’s general brotherhood board held a meeting at Elgin and adopted resolutions urging an end to nuclear weapons tests and more economic foreign aid.

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A nuclear test ban was also called for during the week by the Commission on Social Action of the Evangelical United Brethren Church, which held its annual meeting in Dayton, Ohio.

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And in Washington, a Quaker-sponsored petition supported by several religious pacifist groups was presented at the White House. The petition asked for cancellation of nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific as a first step toward disarmament and peace.

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While college tuition around the country continues to rise, a Catholic school in Vermont is offering a cut-rate family plan. Saint Michael’s College, Winooski, is operated by the Fathers of St. Edmund. Tuition there is $800 a year, but if a student’s brother enrolls, it costs the brother only $600. If another brother enrolls, his tuition will be only $400 a year.

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In Honolulu, USA Presbyterian officials announced the first Presbyterian church in Hawaii will be organized in a few months. In Hong Kong, a new orphanage called The Children’s Garden was dedicated this week in impressive ceremonies. The orphanage, which already houses 800 orphaned youngsters, 12 to a cottage, is sponsored by the Christian Children’s Fund. The fund is an independent agency, though it is affiliated with the National Council of Church’s division of foreign missions. American sponsors support the 800 children, write them letters, send gifts, and sometimes even visit them.

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In Toronto, the United Church of Canada reported spending $14 million to build 196 new churches and 85 manses in 1957. Dr. M.C. McDonald, secretary of the denomination’s board of home missions, said the church plans to erect 178 new churches and 59 manses this year at a cost of $13 million. In the last 10 years, 1,222 churches have been built.

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Dr. C. Oscar Johnson recently resigned from the pulpit of Third Baptist Church in St. Louis, the largest Protestant congregation in Missouri. He is former president of the American Baptist Convention, but has moved to California to join the faculty of Berkeley Baptist Divinity School, where he’ll teach evangelism and public speaking. He should find the academic climate agreeable, for the president of the seminary is his son, Dr. Ralph M. Johnson.

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Of course there is no necessary connection, but Federal Judge Robert Taylor this week came around to agreeing with the viewpoint of this program that the censor board in our neighboring country of Knox was unconstitutional. The swan song meeting of this august board, however, banned four novels and three magazines. Publication of the banning of these titles was about the best advertising they could have had. Anyway, perhaps now, restrictions of the press in Knoxville will come only as it should – when person or corporations are brought into court charged with specific violation of obscenity laws. But it is almost a certainty that the good judge’s decision left a lot of do-gooders unhappy.

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The state of California makes churches take a loyalty oath or pay taxes. This gives the conscience of the church into the hands of the state in a way not dissimilar to that which Russia exacts in Poland and elsewhere from the churches in order to let them stay in business. Three Unitarian and Universalist Churches have resisted this ridiculous requirement in the courts. And the U.S. Supreme Court has just consented to review these cases in the spring calendar – this session. Cost of this new action is about $20,000. Anyone wishing to contribute to freedom of religion can do so by mailing sums to the Fund for Religious Freedom, 2441 LeConte Avenue, Berkeley 9, California.

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In these days of mounting hypertension among the nations about whether to suspend or not to suspend nuclear tests, comes an understatement from former Secretary of Defense, Charles E. Wilson, who emphasized that “One of the serious things about this defense business is that so many Americans are getting a vested interest in it. Properties, business, jobs, votes, opportunities for promotion and advancement, bigger salaries for scientists, and all that. It is a troublesome business.”

Does this mean what the Russians have been insisting all along, that we are, deliberately or otherwise, perpetuating the Cold War as a means of trying to maintain a semblance of prosperity? If so, it is a sad commentary upon a system that can remain prosperous only by maintaining a potentiality for killing human beings.

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My comments a few weeks ago aroused various kinds of reactions from some of you listeners. With no apologies for what was said then, let me quote from a recent item of a national columnist who puts it this way: “A recent report on public education reveals that the biggest increase in enrollment in that state have been in driver education, office practice, and band. Opponents of this kind of education contend that it does not fit students for higher learning, but instead, confronts colleges with shoals of high school graduates who are unable even to read and write the English language properly.” And to that, this reporter can heartily attest. Do we believe in missions? Why not put that belief to practice in our own educational backyard?

 

Two items this week were pointed up that certainly have moral implications, even if not strictly religious ones.

All of us are doubtless familiar with the revelations brought out by the Harris Committee Investigating shenanigans in the Federal Communications Commission. You will recall that Mr. Mack was forced off the commission because it was alleged that he accepted money from a lobbyist seeking that agency’s approval of a TV channel in Miami for an airlines company. Reportorial gossip had it that he was virtually told by the White House to get out or be asked to resign, and that while he was trying to explain his innocence, Sherman Adams hung up on him. The next day, his resignation was on the president’s desk and was promptly accepted. Rumor had it still further that the White House wanted Mack to resign in order to shunt aside too much probing by the committee into activities the presidential staff may have engaged in in lobbying for friends of theirs with the various agencies. Be all that as it may, or many not, we saw the spectacle this week of one R.G. Hyde, a veteran of 30 years in the business of regulating radio and television, coming before the committee and admitting that he permitted his hotel bills to be paid by executives of radio and TV corporations while at the same time he turned in his expense account of the full $12 per diem allowed by the government for the same hotel bills and other traveling expenses.

Mr. Hyde professed to see nothing in either accepting pay twice for such bills, or for accepting favors from individuals whose businesses he was regulating. All this aroused Frederick C. Othman, in his column for March 27 to comment as follows:

“All I can say as a taxpayer who never yet asked the boss to pay bills which didn’t exist is that we’d better change the laws.… The fact that nearly all the FCC commissioners collect double on their speech-making forays doesn’t make the situation any better. The sums involved are ticky-tacky, but neither does that affect the ethics of the operation.

“These commissioners,” Mr. Othman goes on, “are top brass in the government. They’ve got fancy offices. They receive plenty of bowing and scraping and each one of them earns $20,000 a year. They shouldn’t have to stoop to chiseling on the old expense account.

“He [Mr. Hyde] said he relied on a ruling of the comptroller general in 1954, holding that it was OK for a bureaucrat to take the $12 a day, even though he didn’t have to spend it. Now we’ve got a new comptroller and he professes to see something not quite kosher in such collections….” There is more, but the issue is covered fairly well in the excerpts I have quoted.

The public has a right to know who is using his position in public office to secure favors that may not be a violation of the letter of the law, but certainly violate any true spirit of that law. Public officials should have their expenses paid by the government, and not permit themselves to be under obligation to private concerns, especially those which they are supposed to regulate. And that goes for commissioners, members of Congress of whatever party, members of the executive department, and any other public office.

Wasn’t there a lonely Galilean who, some twenty centuries ago, commented upon how difficult it is to serve two masters at the same time? The application is as true of government officials today as it was of whomever he was talking then. The public has a right to know, but whether it will or not, remains to be seen. Until or unless it is convinced that thorough job has been done of investigating all who have been suspected of such unethical practices, the presumption will be that the whole thing is pretty much of a whitewash affair.

The other item deals with government officials also; this time, state employees. Under a United Press dateline of March 27 appeared this statement:

“State employees will be asked to make the ‘traditional’ contributions to the gubernatorial campaign of Buford Ellington, the candidate backed by Gov. Frank Clement…. Employees of the State Safety Department are being asked for contributions…. The solicitation is expected to reach all departments except those financed partly with federal funds…. Contributions from workers in those departments would violate the Hatch Act, officials said…. The usual contribution asked from state employees is 10 percent of the take-home pay for one month…. Safety Commissioner Hilton Butler said the request for contributions is ‘traditional’ and is strictly on a voluntary basis.”

That is the end of the UP dispatch, but the matter received such reception in the press and on the air that, apparently, the governor felt it necessary to make his own explanation. That explanation appeared two days later, yesterday, again under a Nashville dateline from the United Press, and I quote:

“Governor Frank Clement denied yesterday that any ‘pressure’ is being put on state employees to contribute to the campaign fund for Buford Ellington, one of six candidates for governor…. At his press conference Clement said, ‘contributions are strictly on a voluntary basis.’ He said, ‘there has been no order out and there has been no pressure.’”

This reporter has been engaged in public service at federal, state, and local levels too long not to know that such voluntary matters are rarely that. One does not have to contribute, but if he fails to make such “voluntary” contributions, he may well find the road ahead pretty rocky. Was it not the Bard of Avon who said that “methinks thou dost protest too much”? Few there be who will fail to see a moral involved here, too, law or no law.

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In these days of rising prices and increasing unemployment, an anachronism within themselves, one could, if it were not such a serious matter, be more than amused at how the Republicans are, we fear, minimizing the severity of the depression, while the Democrats, equally anxious to make political capital out of a misfortune under their opponents’ administration, are, we hope, exaggerating the situation. Both sides are proposing nostrums, panaceas. Greater spending, lowering of taxes, re-creation of New Deal depression agencies, and so on ad infinitum. However, a rather curious proposal emanates from the Committee for Economic Development, an arm of the National Association of Manufacturers. It calls for a temporary, “across the board” tax cut of 20 percent if the economy in March and April drops below the February level. According to the committee, this would result in available capital for plant expansion, etc. It fails to mention that, apparently, one reason for the depression of the moment is that our plants are turning out more of certain items than the consumer can or will purchase. So it wants to go on expanding plants to turn out still more.

And to the unwary, a 20 percent tax reduction for all sounds fair, but isn’t. The need is for greater consumer purchasing power, and that comes more readily by making money available to the lower income groups. A 20 percent tax reduction would place, theoretically at least, $20 in the hands of a citizen who pays $100 in taxes, but it would place $2,000 in the hands of one who pays $10,000. Actually, if the committee wants a straight across-the-board tax cut that is both fair and which puts more money in the hands of those who need it most, i.e., the low income groups, it should recommend raising the exemption from its present $600 to, say $1,000. Both large and small taxpayer would then be given a boost of an additional $400 on which they would not have to pay an income tax. This would be getting it around to recognizing (with Burns) that “a man’s a man for a’that.” Do you suppose the committee is taking advantage of what it hopes is our inability to do simple mathematics? If so, then there might just be a moral involved there too.

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A National Council of Churches Official reported in Minneapolis on the released time religious education program throughout the United States. Mrs. Alice L. Goddard, director of weekday religious education for the council spoke at a luncheon in St. Paul. She estimated that 4 million children of all faiths are released from public schools once a week to attend religious education classes. She said classes for most of the Protestant children are conducted on an interdenominational basis. The council official added that she prefers to call released time, “shared time.” This, she said, implies for the child that it is a part of his regular workweek.

Well, to paraphrase Montague, a violation by any other name is still unconstitutional. What sins, secular at least, we commit in the name of doing good! Wonder if those in charge of released time for the 4 million ever take the First Amendment seriously, or read court decision after court decision under it which rules such released, or shared, time is illegal?

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Army Secretary Brucker appeared this week before 3,000 Presbyterian laymen in Chicago to defend the U.S. defense policy. He spoke before the 10th annual meeting of the National Council of Presbyterian Men. He said it is not un-Christian for America to arm herself with missiles and nuclear weapons in defense against godless Russia. But he warned against relying on armor alone. In the final analysis, he said, it is the power and grace of the whole armor of God to which we rightly and confidently entrust our future. There is more, but this is enough to indicate the line he took. Did you ever know any public figure advocating a policy who did not try to wrap that policy in mother love, the little red schoolhouse, the grand old flag, or divine approval? The truth is that God must be disgusted at the way the human race here is rushing to destruction by trying to develop ever more terrible weapons to kill more people in a shorter time. The idea that he is stepping in and taking sides is identical to the idea of the Greeks, e.g., during the Trojan War, where the gods stepped in and fought, on both sides, incidentally, and against each other. Probably, under the present scheme of things, there is nothing we can do at the moment but go ahead with a defense policy involving thermonuclear weapons, but let us keep out of our argument the idea that we are doing it with divine approval. Such is nonsense, and to some of us at least, sacrilege.

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Quite of another nature is the urging of a world famous missionary educator that Americans pledge a dollar a week for five years to help save a billion persons in Africa and Asia from hunger, misery, illiteracy, and communism. Dr. Frank C. Laubach, a pioneer in literacy training has spent 45 years working in Asia and Africa and has taught millions of people to read with his training methods. He said the U.S. is taking a propaganda beating in those continents from communist technical aid experts. He said communism has, in effect, 400,000 missionaries among the people there. By contrast, not more than 400 American missionaries are working to help these people improve their farming methods and living conditions. Well, maybe not, but we still have Brucker and our missile program. After we get through with using these, there’ll be not so many who survive to teach. Anyway, Dr. Lauback’s suggestion makes sense, and few there be who would not insist that it, rather than that of Brucker, has divine approval.

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Christian leaders have joined in the strongest condemnation of violence against Jewish community centers in Nashville, Tennessee, and Miami, Florida. Protestant and Catholic leaders expressed horror at the bombing of the two centers. Damage was estimated at around $36,000 at the two places. Fortunately no one was hurt in either incident. Dr. Harold E. Buell, president of the Greater Miami Council of Churches, declared the violence and apparent prejudice lying behind it damages the influence of American democracy, while the Rev. Thomas Baker, executive secretary of the Tennessee Council of Churches, asked all Nashville residents of all faiths to contribute enough money to repair the Jewish center there. More violence will follow, he warned, unless we of Nashville show by word and deed that we abhor the act and motive. Father Charles M. Williams, chancellor of Nashville Catholic Diocese, called the bombing a terrible thing. Bigotry and prejudice, he said, are to be deplored at all times.

 

 

An unusual new church, built in the shape of a huge fish, was dedicated at Stamford, Connecticut. The $1.5 million building is the new First Presbyterian Church. The fish shape was chosen because it was the symbol for Christ used by early Christians forced to hide in the catacombs to escape persecution. It is an imposing structure, 60 feet high at its highest point, and 234 feet long. On both its long sides are some 20,000 jigsaw stained glass windows in the colors of ruby, amber, emerald, amethyst, and sapphire. The thousands of inch-thick windows are embedded in the shapely sloping gray slate walls. On one side of the nave the stained glass windows depict the crucifixion; on the opposite side, the resurrection. The basic structure is of precast concrete panels held together by steel rods. Inside the 750-seat church, the lack of supporting pillars gives a feeling of soaring space. Behind the communion table is a 320-foot cross faced with wood from the Coventry Anglican Cathedral, which was bombed in World War II. More than 2,000 persons attended two separate services at the dedication. Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, clerk of the U.S.A. Presbyterian Church, delivered the dedicatory sermon at both services.

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At Youngstown, Ohio, a helicopter was used to lift the cross in place atop the city’s new Catholic cathedral. The helicopter rose from a parking lot across the street. Attached to the whirlybird by cable was the 300-pound aluminum cross. Workers stood on a scaffold on the 1330-foot church tower and guided the 20-foot cross into its socket. Bishop Emmet M. Walsh of Youngstown blessed the cross before it was lifted aloft by the helicopter.

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Many area meetings are being held around the country to acquaint Lutheran pastors, choir directors, organists, and others with a new Lutheran service book and hymnal. Lutheran officials announced at New York that advance orders from publishing houses have been received for all 635,000 copies of the first edition. The book will be distributed by publishing houses of the eight denominations belonging to the National Lutheran Council. Dr. Edgar S. Brown, executive director of the department of worship of the United Lutheran Church in America said the service book and hymnal is expected to hasten the day when more than 4 million Lutherans in the U.S. and Canada will be united in their forms of worship and their hymns.

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At Kansas City, Kansas, a commission of the American Baptist Convention recommended that the denomination locate its administrative headquarters and its agencies at New York’s Interchurch Center. The center is being built on Riverside Drive in Manhattan. The National Council of Churches and a number of denominations will occupy the center. These recommendations were made to the convention’s general council. Final action on the headquarters location will be taken in June by the convention’s annual session in Cincinnati.

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In Hastings, Nebraska, the evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society has acquired 419 housing units built 10 years ago by the federal Public Housing Administration. The cement block homes are in Hastings’ Spencer Park and are part of an 805-unit development. The society has an option to buy the remaining units. Four hundred persons now living on social security and old-age assistance will find homes in the area. This is the Lutheran organization’s most ambitious project to date. The society operates 58 homes and two hospitals in a dozen Midwest states.

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In New York, Saint Luke’s Chapel, one of the oldest church buildings, has been restored along with a block square setting in a five-year program costing $1 million. The chapel is part of Trinity Episcopal Church parish.

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At Jacksonville, Florida, a new flagship for the Presbyterian Mission Fleet in Alaska was launched. The 65-foot motor ship will carry a clergyman to isolated logging camps and fishing villages along the rugged Alaskan coast.

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At Hanover, New Hampshire, the Dartmouth College Library announced it had received as a gift a Breeches Bible once owned by Jon Alden. The Breeches Bible gets its name from the fact that this translation stated that Adam and Eve made breeches out of their fig leaves.

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In Boston, directors of the American Unitarian Association announced the nomination of Dr. Ernest W. Kuebler to succeed the late Dr. Frederick May Eliot as association president. Delegates must approve such nominations at the association’s annual meeting in May.

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In Warsaw, Poland, Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski reported he has personally supervised the distribution of $2 million worth of American relief supplies. The supplies came from U.S. Catholics through Catholic Relief Services Agency of the National Catholic Welfare Conference.

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In Jerusalem, Israel, an American Jewish leader announced that an archaeological school will be opened there in the fall of 1959. Dr. Nelson Glueck made the announcement. He is president of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute in Cincinnati. The institution is sponsoring the archaeological school. It will be a graduate institution for both Christian and Jewish scholars interested in advanced biblical and ancient Near East studies.

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At Taipei, Formosa, a visiting American church relief official said he found Formosa still badly in need of relief supplies. The official was Dr. R. Norris Wilson, executive director of Church World Service, who is touring centers in 22 countries. He said nationalist Chinese officials had stressed to him their gratitude for the aid American churches already have sent to Formosa.

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In Madrid, Spain, a noted American Catholic priest announced plans for a series of religious radio broadcasts that he expects eventually will reach as many as 2 million Spanish families. He is Father Patrick Peyton of Albany, New York, founder and leader of the Family Rosary Crusade. He has been in Spain supervising the completion of color films portraying the mysteries of the rosary. The busy priest took time out to plan a Spanish network series of family hour broadcasts to be heard every Friday evening.

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And here is a sign of the times:

In Chicago, First Immanuel Lutheran Church became concerned over rising unemployment among its Spanish-speaking members. The church held an employment clinic, bringing in state employment service representatives to brief the members on job and training opportunities.

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A quotation garnered from the news somewhere this week seems worth passing on to you in these days of investigations of labor rackets, Federal Communication Commission shenanigans, etc., apparently ad infinitum. It goes like this:

“A weak man in office is like a squirrel in a cage, laboring eternally, but to no purpose; like a turnstile, he is in everybody’s way, but stops nobody; he talks a great deal but says very little; looks into everything, but sees nothing; and has a hundred irons in the fire, but very few of them are hot, and with these few that are he burns his fingers.”

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This program has consistently taken the position that religion, any religion, should objectively seek truth, and discard that which is unbelievable or unworkable, whoever said or advocated it. In short, religion should be practical and mature. There are several identifying features of a mature religion:

1. It should be free, for growth can take place only where the human spirit is unshackled, and a mature religion will not be afraid of freedom. It will not shut up the human spirit in a prison of creeds, nor chain it to a single source of truth.
2. It will be growing as man’s understanding of the universe and himself continually expands.
3. It will go beyond indifference to a deep and abiding concern for the welfare here and now of humanity.
4. It will practice, not a passive tolerance with respect to its great sister faiths, but an active cooperation in good works and in the appropriation and assimilation of all that is best in them into itself.
5. It will give the feelings of the heart full scope and expression under the guidance of the alert and informed mind.
6. It will be concerned with society and its problems as much as it is with the individual, for it is doubtful if the individual can be saved apart from his society; it is likely that we can be saved only within its context of struggle for righteousness, justice, brotherhood, and peace.

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Doubtless many of us experienced all sorts of reactions the other day when Randolph Churchill over TV blew his top. No monitor mercifully threw a switch to save him from his folly. His profanity and obscenity went out over the whole network. Churchill is a reporter and knows that the newspaper code is that when an actress gets drunk and abuses police officers, that is news. If she is the daughter of one of the world’s greatest citizens, that is hot news. There is some question about how much if any of juvenile and domestic court proceedings should be reported, but the freedom of the press is fundamental to a democracy and no restriction should lightly be placed on it. No such question is involved in this case. In the U.S. you just can’t get drunk and bawl out police officers and get away with it. Also, the more prominent you are the more likely you are to get your picture in the paper. In the Churchill episode, however, I suspect that many of us got a kick out of a reporter being subjected to his own impertinent technique. It was a case of the interviewer being interviewed.

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The last item comes from an editorial in our own local paper in its March 18 issue. It says:

“A Jewish community center is bombed … A federal judge’s life is threatened. Thus does hatred, in alliance with cowardice and sacrilege, rise again to challenge the citizenship of Tennessee. The forces of anarchy have demonstrated there is no depth to which they will not stoop. In their depraved insanity, they have defied both God and man. They have put themselves beyond the pale…. Law-abiding citizens must react with vigor and resolve. Total resources of the state must be made available to bring the guilty to justice. United public opinion must be mobilized so that its weight may prove an unbearable burden to any who would thumb their noses at law and constituted authority…. Nashville bows in shame today. It could be our town tomorrow…. All citizens have a continuing job to do. By respect and example, they must do their part to uphold that which is right. And they must labor in the knowledge that flouting of the law in a small way makes it easier to flout it in a large way. They must never forget, either, that one concession to the enemies of the law may open the floodgates of destruction.”

This reporter is not presumptuous enough to try to improve upon that statement. He should like to add that a great American, and former president, said some years ago that a threat to the freedom of any man anywhere is a threat to the freedom of all men everywhere. That is as true of the Jewish faith in the Nashville bombing as it is of the Christian or any other faith anywhere. A threat to one is a threat to all.

 

 

Since the dawn of the Sputnik age, we Americans have been flailing around in a tizzy about the status of education in this country, revealing to the world that we are sure that something is wrong, but revealing equally as clearly we are not sure what. Like we do so often in a crisis, scapegoats are sought and panaceas are proposed. From one salient view, the spectacle is ridiculous; from another, it is tragic.

In St. Louis some time ago, a superintendent of schools in Iowa charged the public with being to blame for the mess education is in. The public, equally generous with blame, is saying it is the fault of the schools. Politicians, with their usual balanced view, are trying to place the blame, either on whichever side will lose them the fewest votes, or taking a neutralist stand and talking about setting up a National Academy of Science. An ex-governor of this state made a speech the other day in East Tennessee during which he proposed setting up a State Science Academy, to be supported by state funds, to be located at Oak Ridge, and to be supervised by the state university. Local school systems are scrambling around, trying to do something (just what is not evident from available reports) but perhaps they are mistaking action with progress. One near here a few weeks ago announced a drastic overhaul of its systemic procedure, then announced the next day that it was nothing new; that it was simply an expansion of plans long in the making. But this announcement convinced few people. Most of us probably recognized that system was suffering from an acute cause of Sputnikitis.

Several basic facts must be considered, along with some theory. A great American once defined education as the debt the existing generation owes to the next one. Most of us can accept this as axiomatic. If we do, then the next assumption is that our children deserve the best from this generation that we can possibly give them in the way of an education that will better enable them to live effectively in the topsy-turvy world we shall bequeath them. Virtually all are agreed upon this. The only question is “What is the best education?”

In the first place, there is no royal shortcut to learning. Learning is a laborious, never-ending task, and while there is no virtue in doing things the hard way for the sake of doing something in a difficult manner, the sugar-coated, everything-should-always-be-interesting-to-every-student, notion is not only silly; it results in much purposeless activity that is about as realistic in today’s world as the proverbial Alice in Wonderland. Yet, that is what the educationists have been spouting so long that this reporter, who taught during the worst delirium tremens of the progressive education age, has long since become disgusted with such nonsense and tried to avoid coming in contact with it. Any education that is worth anything involves disciplining both mind and muscle, and whether we like it or not, a generation of American young people have been nurtured within the schoolroom, when they should have been matured in that room. It is not their fault; it is the fault of those who mistook fancy for fact; who confused interest with intrinsic merit; who insisted that it did not really matter what scripture a teacher taught as long as he had been baptized in the right religion – which meant the type miscalled “progressive.”

In the second place, while money will not work educational miracles in and by itself, it can cure the teacher shortage, about which there is so much wringing of hands, but far too little plunking down dollars. Young people in college today look at the world pretty realistically. They see a world in which their social order is a closely-geared economic one, in which money is the entree to those material things which they have learned – rightly or wrongly – are necessary for satisfactory living. When they see that teaching, as an occupation (It has not yet, maybe never will, reach the dignity of a profession), fades into the financial background when compared with other occupations, they are attracted toward the shining light of adequate remuneration for their lifetime services (Ofttimes when they would prefer teaching, if they could afford to do so).

Then, aside from the financial returns in teaching as compared with other fields, when they consider the restrictions placed upon teachers, because they are teachers, they are further discouraged. No teacher should be made to occupy a second-class citizenship status because he teaches. Certainly he should be a good citizen, which means he should have all the rights of free speech, freedom of association, freedom to think his own thoughts, and behave himself just as any other citizen, which means within the limit of the law. It is a rather curious observation, from a teacher’s viewpoint, why it is that society entrusts us teachers with the ability to develop good citizenship traits in their children, but does not permit teachers to demonstrate those same traits in their own personal behavior.

The powers that be must consider another facet of the problem of securing efficient career people in their schools, a facet that looms large in the thinking of many school teachers. That is the fact that they are subjected so long and so often to preaching and scolding: preaching about how great a service they are rendering, scolding about what they should have done that they did not, or should not have done which they did. Most of us have heard the word “dedicated” thrown at us so long that when we hear it from someone, that person’s stock takes a bigger dip with us than the stock market did in 1929. One cannot pay his grocer, butcher, and candlestick maker with dedication. All workers in every field should have a certain amount of loyalty and devotion to and interest in their work. School boards, supervisors, and administrators would do well to leave it at that if they want to get teachers and keep them.

A third, and perhaps more important consideration about our current educational tizzy is that we should not jump to the conclusion that the part is greater than the whole. So much has been written about our need to speed up science and mathematics that one would think, if he did not keep a sense of balance, that all we needed to reach an educational Eden would be to recruit (through bribery, force, or otherwise) all bright young people and put them through a rigorous course of training in the natural sciences and math. Then all would be well with our world. The stark fact is that if that were done, we would then stand less chance of maintaining any world for long at all than we do now. Surely we need good scientists, the best we can find and train; the same is true of mathematicians. But our progress in the field of invention in science, invention of material things has so outstripped our development in human relations that this is a problem with us and the rest of the world now, more so than Sputniks or missiles. We have done a good (or bad, however you look at it) job of training scientists who can invent death-dealing devices; we have made little headway toward developing a generation that can find, or has found, better ways to reduce prejudice, hatred, religious discrimination, racial friction. One can only speculate what would be accomplished within a generation if as much emphasis and prestige were put upon the development of peaceful adjustment as is now put upon launching an explorer into space. Whatever educational changes are made, they should certainly seek to improve both quantity and quality of education, in all fields of learning, from kindergarten through the university. Perhaps if equal emphasis had been placed on the humanities and the social sciences a generation or two ago that was placed on poison gas, germ warfare, fighter planes, etc., we would not be in the straits we are today.

There is a moral responsibility resting upon each and every one of us, a responsibility to provide the best this nation can afford in the way of a thorough and realistic education for young people. This will not be done unless we proceed on the basic acceptance of the fact that learning requires work on the part of both teacher and student. Neither can do the other’s work for him. It also requires the best teachers that can be provided, for what goes on in the schoolroom determines the quality, or lack of it, of our educational system. To get and hold such teachers requires not only expenditure of money, it requires respecting the right of those teachers to be human beings, not members of a third sex. And, finally, it requires balanced emphasis in all the fields of learning, not in just one or two.

Over 100 years ago, Edward [Deering] Mansfield, a careful student of education, America and elsewhere, summarized:

“If America has presented anything new to the world, it is a new form of society; if she has any thing worthy to preserve, it is the principles upon which that society is instituted: Hence, it is not a Grecian or a Roman education we need; it is not one conceived in China, Persia, or France. On the contrary, it must have all the characteristics of the American mind, fresh, original, vigorous, enterprising; embarrassed by no artificial barriers, and looking to a final conquest over the last obstacles to the process of human improvement.”

If he were writing that paragraph, in the context of today’s world, it is likely he would make few changes. Whether, in our preoccupation with the very real dangers that exist today, we will provide such a desirable kind of education, only time, and what you and I do, will tell. But American cannot afford the luxury of failure. It is too late for that.

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I read editorials and receive material through the mail reminding me that competition is the American way; that it will bring abundance. Maybe so, but the writers of this stuff appear to me to be completely insincere. They avoid competition like the plague. They want tariffs to reduce competition; price-fixing (so-called) and mis-called “fair trade” legislation; chain stores; bank consolidations; corporation mergers; uniform insurance policies; big capital-owning manufacturing subsidiaries; fewer steel, aluminum, and car companies. They even want church union. There is such a thing as being honest with yourself, as well as with the public. What they really want is competition in fields other than their own, i.e., it is good medicine for the other fellow.

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A pertinent note in connection with our preoccupation with development of scientists to the exclusion of other important fields, comes from a statement of Congressman Frank Thompson, Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, who said recently, “We have seen today a message go to Congress on education: 100 percent for science, mathematics, but nothing for the humanities. We could achieve technological superiority which is greater than anyone imagined, and still, if we do not have people educated to understand human beings, it would be an empty victory. Suppose for instance, some Soviet biologist comes forward next month with a discovery in biology as startling as was the Sputnik breakthrough. Would we then have a message asking us to educate 40,000 biologists in the next few years?”

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Our secretary of statements reiterated this week that we must negotiate, if we do at all, from a position of strength. Well, it would make a great more sense to try to negotiate from wisdom than from a strength that we do not have. It looks as though we must choose between co-existence or co-extinction, as invidious as may be the alternatives. We have good reason to doubt Russia’s sincerity, but no agreement is going to be reached by anyone anytime unless it is based on a realistic acceptance of facts.

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And while on the subject of Russia, it seems pertinent to report that the presidents of two major Baptists conventions will visit Moscow next month. They are Dr. Clarence W. Cranford, president of the American Baptist Convention and Rep. Brooks Hays of Arkansas, president of the Southern Baptist Convention. They plan to leave for the Russian capital April 15, and will spend five days as guests of Russian Baptists. Both leaders are expected to speak in Moscow’s first Baptist church.

 

More than 15,000 programs were placed on TV stations last year by the Broadcasting and Film Commission of the National Council of Churches, it was reported at the commission’s annual meeting this week in New York. Of the total, 56 were half-hour network programs presented over 140 CBS or NBC stations. In addition, the commission sponsored 260 radio programs. Dr. S. Franklin Mack, executive director, said three of the TV programs were widely acclaimed and received awards. These were the “Look Up and Live” series for teenagers, “Frontiers of Faith,” and “Off to Adventure,” a new children’s series. The “Frontiers of Faith” series is one in which segments are presented alternatively by Protestants, Catholics, and Jews.

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In Detroit, church building experts were warned not to let the church of tomorrow become a building with a spiritual vacuum. The warning came from Dr. George M. Gibson, a professor at Chicago’s McCormick Theological Seminary. Dr. Gibson spoke to several hundred architects, artists, denominational church executives, and laymen attending the 18th Joint Conference on Church Architecture, which was sponsored by the Church Architectural Guild of America and the department of church building of the National Council of Churches. Dr. Gibson warned that many churches built in the last 30 years virtually deny in their architecture what they are saying in their doctrine. He said it must not be forgotten that while the church building must be functional, its primary purpose is sacramental. But at the same meeting the executive director of the council’s church building department said that fear of building new types of churches may paralyze both thought and action. The Rev. Scott Turner Ritenour spoke at the department’s business meeting. So, it would seem, you pays your money and you takes your choice in the matter of when and if a given type church building is functional or sacramental. By the way, the medieval ecclesiastics never did agree on how many angels could dance on the point of a needle, either.

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A Jesuit sociologist this week held out high hopes for the progress of interracial brotherhood in the southern states. He is the Rev. Albert S. Foley, professor of sociology at Spring Hill College in Mobile. Spring Hill is the only racially integrated college in Alabama. Father Foley spoke at a John A. Ryan Forum presented in Chicago by the Catholic Council on Working Life. He said seeds of brotherhood, not of civil strife, are being planted in desegregated southern universities, seminaries, theological schools, and secondary schools. The priest went on to say that a whole new crop of southern minds is being reared. In them, he added, we repose the greatest hope for the well being of the region in time to come. He praised the restraint of southern Negroes, and lauded Christian Negro ministers for their leadership in Montgomery, Alabama. He also praised Methodist, Congregationalist, and Episcopal clergymen in predominantly Protestant areas of the South who, he said, have made significant steps up the road to brotherhood.

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In Atlantic City, New Jersey, the American Christian Palestine Committee called for an intercredal conference to protect the Holy Land from communist penetration. The committee, holding its annual meeting, suggested a conference of Christian, Jewish, and Moslem leaders. In its issued statement, the committee said, “It is of the utmost importance that the three faiths find a way of reconciling and jointly furthering their spiritual goals in the land sacred to all. Unless they do, they run the risk of losing the holy places to the communists.”

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More than 1,100 bishops, ministers, and church workers gathered in Washington this week for a three-day convocation on urban life in America. The conference was sponsored by the Methodist Church. The participants heard a report saying that Methodist and other Protestant denominations have a great evangelistic opportunity. The report went on to emphasize that the opportunity in so-called inner-city areas is the greatest in the last 50 years. To this inner city, the report went on, come the newest arrivals in the metropolis, the European immigrant, and more recently the newcomers from the South, both white and Negro.

Another sociological study reported at the conference concerned class-consciousness in the church. It deplored the fact that middle-class laymen monopolize leadership posts in the Methodist Church, and warned that the church is in danger of losing the interest of the poor and underprivileged because of a tendency to minister only to middle and upper income groups.

Speaking at the meeting also was Dr. James G. Ranck, a psychologist at Drew University. He cited religious divisiveness as a form of segregation in this country which astounds secularists and provides propaganda for communist Russia. He scorned what he called the alienation of Jew and Christian, the rift between Catholic and Protestant, and the ridiculous denominational fragmentation of Protestantism. He urged all religious forces in the U.S. to form a united front in proclaiming the fallacy of secularism and the primacy of moral and spiritual values. And he concluded by urging religious forces to cooperate more actively in every area of human need.

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Much the same idea was expressed in New York this week, where 3,000 men gathered for an eastern area regional meeting of the National Council for Presbyterian Men. At this meeting, Dr. Henry P. Van Dusen, president of Union Theological Seminary, urged the laymen to join in an all-out campaign for united action on the common responsibilities of all Christians, suggesting that churches and laymen cooperate in every community to set up interdenominational guilds of Christian lawyers, physicians, bankers, teachers, industrialists, and men in other occupations. Such groups, he said, could face and think through the ethical problems, the perplexities, the Christian tasks and opportunities in each profession.

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Recently returned from his second visit to the Soviet Union in the past five years, the Rev. Dr. Reuben Youngdahl of Minneapolis told of numerous talks with the Russian people who, he said, are fearful the United States will start a war. Dr. Youngdahl, minister of Mt. Olivet Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, said this week in an interview in Omaha that his talks had been encouraging in that the Russian people are no longer afraid to talk. He described them as apparently having divested themselves of what he termed “the dictator complex” so noticeable on his first trip to Russia. Dr. Youngdahl reported that Baptists in Moscow have added one more church service by popular demand, for a total of three. He also noted that 58 churches are now open in Moscow. The Minneapolis clergyman explained, “The people volunteer information now, and couldn’t be more friendly and helpful. Yet they keep asking why, if we don’t plan a war, do we build bases all around them?” Commenting on nuclear energy, Dr. Youngdahl quoted noted scientist Dr. Arthur Compton, “Science has created a world in which Christianity is imperative.” Few would disagree with that, but some of us would substitute the word “religion” for Christianity, for nobody but the bigots is so Pharisaical as to insist that there is only one religion interested in saving mankind from its own folly.

Dr. Youngdahl has asked a question that goes to the root of the problem of establishing a working peace with the communist world, a problem about which we hear little from our officials. Peace grows out of a common understanding of different viewpoints, and that cannot come about without until and unless there is mutual communication, something that neither Mr. Dulles nor Mr. Khrushchev is as concerned about as both are about Sputniks and similar engines of possible destruction. It certainly is not coming about as long as we refuse passports to American newsmen who wish to go behind the Iron Curtain to let us know what they find. This is trite, but apropos at this point, “What the people don’t know can and probably will hurt them.” And having been a bureaucrat for nearly nine years, albeit on the lowest rung of the totem pole, and knowing something of the bureaucratic mind, this reporter is all the more resentful that men of little vision are given power to tell the American people what they can and cannot hear, through censoring what will be released to the public about the workings of the government. We need more eggheads than fatheads in those places.

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Since its founding 50 years ago next Wednesday, The Christian Century, of Chicago has come to be considered one of the most outspoken voices in American Protestantism. Some have called it the conscience of American Protestantism; some have called it other things, not quite so complimentary. Certainly, on more than a few occasions, it has prodded, coaxed, and occasionally slapped the wrists of Protestant churches – no matter what the denomination.

In its 50 years of interdenominational service, the magazine has stood solidly for two things: relating the whole gospel to the whole secular world, and seeking reunion of Christians through integration of denominations.

Boasting a world circulation of 40,000 and a staff of 60 correspondents scattered around the globe, the magazine’s managing editor is a Presbyterian minister, Dr. Theodore Gill. He concedes that the publication has frequently drawn the ire of each of the denominations because its undenominational position offers the opportunity to comment independently on developments within all denominations. He recalls that many Methodists were unhappy with the magazine for a time when it questioned the tempo of their action 10 years ago in the field of race relations. Now, Dr. Gill comments, “We have been as vocal as anyone on the real strides they have made in the last two years.”

He goes on to note that many Lutherans protested when The Christian Century questioned the church’s handling of the issue of the defrocked ministers in Milwaukee two years ago. It was the magazine’s feeling, says Dr. Gill, that the ministers had failed in their pastoral responsibility to their young colleagues.

Billy Graham is the target of one of the magazine’s most recent controversial stands. Dr. Gill has this to say on the matter: “We are the only religious journal that has minimized the significance of Billy Graham’s revivalism. We consider it a serious threat to real Christian evangelism.” Pursuing the subject further, Dr. Gill calls the Graham brand of revivalism “a tissue of archaisms and irrelevancies which muffles the gospel it seeks to display.… We consider revivalism,” he goes on, “a reminding to some forgetful souls of what they have forgotten for a while. It is not evangelism, which is the penetration of the antagonistic world by the Gospel.” Well, that is Dr. Gill’s diplomatic way of taking issues with Mr. Graham. This reporter has from time to time on this program taken issue with him in other ways, but, unfortunately, not as skillfully as does the editor of The Christian Century.

The magazine has had about three editors in its first half century. Charles Clayton Morrison served from 1908-1947, and at the age of 83 he still contributes articles. Methodist minister Paul Hutchinson was the second editor. The present editor, Dr. Harold Fey, a Disciples of Christ clergyman, took over in 1956. The contents of the 50th anniversary issue are typical of this very influential religious journal. It has articles by Dr. Fey, South African novelist Alan Paton, by Morrison, one by Jewish scholar Will Herberg, and a review of a new book by the Roman Catholic philosopher, Jacques Maritain.

And as a footnote, it might be observed that the contents of this issue are indicative of its materials generally. It recognized that the religions of mankind have arisen and developed because people in all times and places have been moved by certain basic and impelling needs, fears, aspirations, desires. Such feelings, unanalyzed and usually at some dim level of awareness have motivated human beings everywhere to those activities and beliefs which make up the substance of religion. In time these activities are formalized into rituals, and the beliefs systematized into theologies, in each instance with the culture influencing further the ultimate pattern of the particular religion. It is always essential, and The Christian Century continually points that out, that we do not mistake the form for the meaning of religion. Substance is always paramount to semblance.

 

 

Washington: Some 1,200 Methodist leaders met yesterday in the nation’s capital to discuss what churches are doing, and failing to do, in the downtown areas of big cities. Their reaction: Methodists and other Protestant denominations are concentrating too much of their attention on the relatively prosperous suburbs, and too little on the blighted city areas. The surveys and reports given to the conference indicated that years ago the city areas were being occupied by European immigrants, chiefly with Roman Catholic backgrounds. But they said the newcomers today are predominantly white and Negro southern families with Protestant ties. One survey of 50 churches in such areas showed that more than half had lost membership or barely held their own while their neighborhood populations were on the increase. The conference decided that the first step would be for church members everywhere to recognize that they share the responsibility for offering a vigorous Protestant ministry to such city sections.

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New York: A federal judge is seeking an internal settlement in the dispute over the merger of two church bodies. The merger of the General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical Reform Church was arranged in 1949. Two congregations are trying to upset the merger. Federal Judge Archie Dawson suggested formation of a laymen’s committee to settle the dispute to avoid long litigation in the courts.

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Vatican City: Pope Pius told 1,000 parish priests that Rome is threatening to turn into a “mediocre, inglorious, nearly pagan” city. He cited suicide, scandal spreading, abuses of Sunday, and careless driving among the sins of the city. In his words, “This is the time for action, most urgent action.”

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Again Vatican City: Roman Catholics throughout the world began the annual observance of Lent on Ash Wednesday. Priests touched the foreheads of their parishioners with ashes to mark the opening of the period of penitence and fasting. The ashes, made from burnt palms, signify for Roman Catholics the fleeting quality of human things.

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Chicago: A National Council of Churches executive criticized the Eisenhower administration proposals to curtail federal welfare programs. Dr. William J. Villaume, executive director of the council’s social welfare department, said the administration’s 1958-59 budget amounts to a cutback in national support for human welfare. Dr. Villaume characterized this as dangerous contentment with inadequacy. He spoke to a group at the annual meeting of the National Association of Methodist Hospitals and Homes.

Methodist Bishop Richard C. Raines of Indianapolis, another speaker, called on Methodist hospitals to take the lead in extending privileges to patients and nurses without racial discrimination. He said Methodist institutions should be among the first to adjust their practices to the principles of Christian fellowship and democracy. And speaking as a Methodist, this reporter can wholeheartedly agree with that.

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A St. Paul clergyman was elected bishop of two different episcopal dioceses on the same day. He is the Rev. Daniel Corrigan, rector of St. Paul’s Church-On-the-Hill. At its annual convention the Diocese of Quincy, Illinois, elected Mr. Corrigan its new bishop. Simultaneously, the convention of the Colorado Diocese also elected Mr. Corrigan to its vacant post of suffragan bishop. The St. Paul clergyman said he was overwhelmed and promised he would make his decision soon on which election to accept.

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Atlantic City, New Jersey: A leading rabbi urged a conference of Christian, Jewish, and Moslem leaders to seek a lessening of religious tension in the Holy Land. The proposal was made by Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, Chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the Rabbinical Assembly of America. Rabbi Hertzberg spoke at the annual national conference of the American Christian Palestine Committee. He said an understanding among the three major religions is important now because of a communist threat in the Middle East. Unless the major religions make peace with one another, he said, there may soon be a red flag flying all over the holy places and there will be nothing left to differ about. The good rabbi could well have said that in that case there would be no freedom to differ about anything. Certainly the churches have a continuing obligation in this respect, but they have a more-than-usual heavy one at this time in our history when we have no clear-cut, coherent, and consistent policy with respect to the Middle East in the place where there should be one: namely in our own Department of State.

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The House of Representatives is now opening its session every day with a brief reading from Scripture – the Protestant, Christian scripture, of course. Dr. Bernard Braskamp, chaplain of the House, prefaces his opening prayer with a short reading, usually just one verse, from the Bible. Reaction from members of Congress has been so favorable that Dr. Braskamp intends to continue the practice. In doing this, he had reinstated an old custom followed by one of his predecessors, the Rev. Edward Everett Hale, who is better known today as the author of “The Man without a Country,” but he served as chaplain of the House for many years. I wonder if he will ever get around to reading that verse containing the last words of the Master, namely, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

And while on the subject of Congress, it might be observed that the House Ways and Means Committee has approved a bill to allow duty-free importation of religious works of art by churches, religious orders, and church-controlled institutions. Among the items that would be allowed in duty-free are altars, pulpits, communion tables, baptismal fonts, shrines, mosaics, and statuary.

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New York: Three American chaplains and the chief of chaplains of the Belgian Armed Forces were presented with the Four Chaplains Award. This award is given annually for service in the cause of intercredal good will. The citations were conferred by the Chaplain Alexander D. Goode Lodge of B’nai B’rith. The winner of the international award was General Fernand Cammaert of Brussels, the Chief Belgian Chaplain, who is a Catholic and was honored for his contribution in the formation of the first NATO chaplain’s conference held at The Hague in 1956. The three Americans honored were Lieutenant Colonel Meir Engel, a rabbi who is assistant post chaplain at Fort Dix, New Jersey; 1st Lt. Eugene Z. Szabo, a Hungarian Reformed Church minister on duty at Lake Charles Air Force Base in Louisiana; and Lt. John C. Condit, a Catholic priest stationed at the Pre-Flight Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida. The Four Chaplain’s Award commemorates the sacrifice of four U.S. army chaplains who went down with the transport Dorchester when it was torpedoed off Greenland in World War II. The four – two Protestants, a Catholic, and a Jew – were awarded the Silver Star for Gallantry after their deaths. A bill has been introduced into Congress to confer the Congressional Medal of Honor on them.

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Washington: If present trends continue, nearly 7 million students will be enrolled in church-related and other private and elementary secondary schools by 1965. This prediction comes from a long report on the state and non-public schools published by the U.S. Office of Education. The report says the estimated enrollment in non-public schools will be 6,845,000 by 1965. At that point, it says, one in six American grade and high school students will be in religious or other private schools. At present the ratio is one in seven. In 1900 it was one in 11.

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London: The World Council of Churches’ executive committee took an initial step this week toward establishing relations between the World Council and the Russian Orthodox Church. The committee agreed to a suggestion from Russian churchmen that World Council officials meet in August with representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate. No arrangements were announced as to where the meeting would take place. The conversation would be informal.

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In Covington, Kentucky, a Baptist pastor is building what he calls a “Garden of Hope.” It is the project of the Rev. Morris Coers, pastor of Covington Immanuel Baptist Church. A replica of Christ’s tomb has been completed on a three-acre site. In the planning stage is a carpenter’s workshop of the time of Christ, a Spanish-type mission, a so-called Chapel of Dreams, and a Wall of Memory. The wall will contain a 500-pound stone from the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem. Mr. Coers said items for the Brotherhood Garden have been contributed from 22 nations.

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Omaha, Nebraska: A speaker at the session in Omaha of the National Council of Churches’ division of Christian education offered a warning about the possible establishment of denominational schools to avoid court decisions calling for integration in public schools. Dr. Rolfe L. Hunt, executive director of the council’s department of religion and public education, said denominational schools can do more damage to American unity than has been done by racial segregation in public schools.

Dr. Minor C. Miller, a Virginia Council of Churches official, declared that weekday religious classes give children a better solid religious education than do Sunday schools. In his state, he said, less than half the children are enrolled in Sunday schools. But, he said, 95 percent of pupils who get an opportunity to participate in weekday religious classes have enrolled in them.

Such practices are curiously out of line with American traditions of separation of church and state. Virginians, and some others, are quick to resort to the portions of the Bill of Rights, with which they agree, regarding states’ rights and the matter of school segregation, especially the 10th Amendment. But they are prone to overlook the First Amendment and almost innumerable court decisions interpreting it that make it clear there should be no action on the part of government to aid or prohibit the practice of any religion. Public schools should be neither religious nor irreligious, they should be simply non-religions, do-gooders to the contrary notwithstanding.

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The thoughtful person will want to know whether his philosophy of life is well founded. He will want to know whether the statements of belief handed down to him from the past are in harmony with the facts of the universe as we know it today, or whether they were based on false concepts conceived in ignorance. The great obstacles to peace and progress today are fear, prejudice, and selfishness. Are these fears and prejudices founded on truth? Few bother even to ask, much less to investigate. The masses take for truth whatever they read, hear from the radio or pulpit, or see in the movies or on TV. The thinking person is one who wishes to know not what the masses accept as truth, not what is comforting or pleasing, but what is so. It is ofttimes difficult to know this, but the only way to do it is to question, to doubt what seems unreasonable, to investigate. It is not the easy way or the comfortable way, but it is the only way to progress, and there should be progress in religion the same as in anything else. This is the way by which the keys are discovered which unlock doors to new visions of the grandeur, the beauty, and the mystery of existence. “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,” are no idle, academic words. For without knowledge of the truth, one’s existence is in a dream-world quagmire of ignorance, and one in ignorance is also in intellectual slavery.

 

Rarely has a subject evoked such wide religious comment as the furor triggered by the Soviet Sputniks and emphasized even more boldly by the recent launching of America’s first earth satellite. Man-made flight through the heavens has definitely struck a sensitive chord in the churches, a reaction some clergymen prefer to describe as the “handwriting in the sky.” Many ministers argue that the spiritual consequences of these advances in nuclear space engineering can obviously be either helpful or detrimental. They contend that the peoples’ eyes can either be opened to fuller truth or blinded to anything but dazzling technology. One Roman Catholic clergyman put it like this: “He who lives by the Sputnik shall perish by the Sputnik.”

Just how the nation’s spiritual resources can be mobilized in the light of current and future space achievements was the subject of serious discussion this week by a group of pastors and Midwestern business leaders. The University of Chicago sponsored their conference, which had as its general topic “Religion Faces the Atomic Age.” Significantly, these church leaders are concerned over the possible effects of the new technological developments on faith. A noted Lutheran theologian of Philadelphia, the Rev. Dr. O. Frederick Nolde, sees the danger of falling into the trap of professed atheistic materialists if science is exalted over all other forms of power. It would be vain indeed, he says, to try to outdo a system by becoming like it. A Presbyterian pastor of St. Cloud, Florida, the Rev. Handel Brown, notes that the Bible relates of man’s first attempt to reach into the stratosphere. That was when people, duplicating Adam’s effort to become equal to God, began building the Tower of Babel. They said, “Let us build a tower whose top reaches into the very heavens.” The results were confusion and dismay. (Rather far-fetched analogy, one cannot but reflect.)

In olden times, some clergymen fought new scientific feats as devilish tampering with God’s order. Today’s religious leaders, however, welcome such achievements as gifts, but leaving it to man alone to decide whether they are to be used for good or evil.

When the Russian Sputniks reached outer space, the Communist Youth League promptly boasted that their satellites refuted religion. The league triumphantly chortled, “This proves how wrong were all religious organizations in speaking of heaven. We materialists create our own heaven and fill it with our own moon and stars.”

An Episcopal weekly, The Living Church, commented, “If there is a religious message to Sputnik, it would seem to be one more in a long series of historical events that reach back into Old Testament times when God has used irreligious forces to advance his purposes. If nothing else, Sputnik has humbled America.” Well, most of us would agree with the last sentence, but the idea as to what God’s purposes are and their relationship of these to Sputnik is simply one man’s speculation and wild guess. This sort of emphatic pronouncement is rather presumptuous, to say the least.

A little more realistically, the Catholic auxiliary bishop of Chicago, the Most Rev. Bernard Sheil, offers the comment that man, the alleged master of his destiny, now stands in terror before his own creation. While the United Student Christian Council sees it all as “a real threat that education may become dominated by narrow technological objectives.” And with that, many of us can emphatically agree.

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In New York, the Very Rev. James Pike, dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, agreed to accept the post of Protestant Episcopal Bishop of California. He said he decided to accept his election, keeping in mind the fact he now holds “a post I dearly love.” As dean of the New York Cathedral, Dean Pike has held one of his church’s most important posts.

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Moscow: Radio Moscow broadcast a special program commemorating the 40th anniversary of the separation of state and church in Russia. The Red broadcast said what it called “cruel and despotic power of the clergy over the life of the people” has been ended in Russia. The communists said belief in God would not die elsewhere without a struggle.

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Washington: A top staff official of the group called Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State has resigned in protest against what he calls the organization’s “current course.” Stanley Lichtenstein was head of the group’s research and press relations for nine years. He said its recent action “actually tends to undermine the constitutional principle which the organization professes to uphold.” The protest was directed especially against a recent statement urging voters to ask any Roman Catholic candidate for the presidency a series of questions on church-state relations.

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New York: The Presbyterian Church in the USA and the United Presbyterian Church of North America have approved consolidation of their mission boards in the U.S., Canada, and the West Indies. The two denominations plan full consolidation in May.

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Washington: Thousands of Protestant churches will join today in prayers for a peaceful solution of America’s racial problems. The occasion is the observance of “Race Relations Sunday” sponsored by the National Council of Churches. Without in any way disparaging the sincerity and good intentions of such prayers, it is only pertinent to observe that so far there is no evidence that God has done or is going to do anything to inject violence into such a solution. They would probably be more realistic if they spent the time, effort, and interest in working on some of those human beings who project strife into the race problems picture. The problem will be solved by promoting improvement in human relations, not by any metaphysical appeal to the supernatural.

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Washington: The leader of the world’s oldest Protestant sect is now visiting the United States. Dr. Achille Deodato, moderator of the Waldensian Church of Italy, plans to speak before several groups which have given financial support to his church, which was founded in the 12th century. Deodato says recent court decisions are beginning to give Italian Protestants the religious freedom promised to them under the Italian Constitution.

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Paris: France is preparing for a huge number of Catholic pilgrims expected to begin arriving this week for the centenary celebration of the famous Lourdes Shrine. The celebration marks the time 100 years ago when the peasant girl Bernadette said she had seen visions of the Virgin Mary. The celebration opens February 11 and will run through December 8. Officials expect from 6 – 8 million pilgrims to make the journey to the little shrine in the Pyrenees.

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Beginning one week from today, February 16, and extending through February 23, is National Brotherhood Week, the annual observance sponsored by the National Conference of Christians and Jews, from whose weekly publication, Religious News Service, much of the materials for these broadcasts is taken. The National Conference is a civic organization engaged in a nationwide program of inter-group education. It enlists Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, who, without compromise of conscience or of their distinctive and important religious differences, do work together to build better relationships among men of all religions, races, and nationalities. Its operation is civic and social, although obviously the roots of brotherhood which it seeks to build are in the moral law and in religious faith.

The National Conference was founded in 1928 by Charles Evans Hughes, Newton D. Baker, and the Rev. S. Parkes Cadman. Roger W. Straus, Carlton J.H. Hayes, and other distinguished Americans participated in its foundation and its early years of operation. This year’s observance will be carried on in the Tri-Cities under the sponsorship of local service organizations. Watch for announcements and programs in the local papers and over local radio and television outlets.

It will do any of us good, not only to find out what other religious groups believe, but also to compare those beliefs honestly with our own. Otherwise, we are likely to fall into the pit of egotism where, like the Pharisee, we thank God that we are not like other people, but assume that we are better than they. It might do us good to distinguish honestly for ourselves who is Pharisee and who is publican.

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The Christian Amendment Movement, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has announced a concentrated effort to obtain a hearing on the “Christian Amendment Bill,” which provides for recognition in the U.S. Constitution of “the authority of Jesus Christ, savior and ruler of nations.” The bill was introduced by Senator Frank Carlson of Kansas. Well, if the Senate passes such amendment, it will be proof positive that it needs a psychiatrist much more than it does a chaplain.

 

A rather curious approach to the matter of church attendance was taken this week by Dr. R. Dean Goodwin, a prominent Baptist clergyman of New York, who has concluded that it does not work to tell folks they should go to church because they ought to, or to please the pastor. He favors a joint study by all churches of the new art known as motivational research. It is his view that the churches should do what advertisers recently learned to do – namely, reach into the subconscious with their hidden persuaders to motivate those tiny springs that make people do things without realizing why.

Dr. Goodwin is a former Nebraskan who directs communications for the American Baptist Convention, and he explains the new art as one which studies people’s hidden needs and desires so they can be appealed to without knowing it. He puts it like this, and I quote, for I have no desire to place myself on such a petard as this: “If you put the same kind of coffee in three bags of difference color, women will select the brown package and swear it is the best coffee, even though it is the same coffee.”

There is more to the good doctor’s statement, but enough of it has been included to indicate the general nature of his view. Even a simple analysis of this view reflects that such a procedure would be trying to put something over on the people without their knowing what was happening to them. Furthermore, it presumes that there are not enough intrinsic merits in the religious viewpoint itself to hold the allegiance of people; we have to add a new magic ingredient of some kind, like blue cheer or headache medicine, or some of the other nostrums of soaps paraded through radio speakers and on television screens these days ad infinitum and ad nauseam. Is it not going a bit too far to adopt Madison Avenue techniques of hucksterism to something that is so fundamental, so intrinsic within itself that it is a universal phenomenon even among people who never heard of present-day psychology and subliminal advertising? How crude and asinine can we get in the name of religion? I personally don’t want to be sold a bill of goods, even in religion, where the salesman swears it is good for me. Did you ever know a salesman who told his customer that his article was bad? Then, if we could and do use it in the Protestant world, what about the Catholic, the Hebrew, the Mohammedan, and all the other religious worlds? Each insists that his brand is the best. Frankly, religion of any kind will appeal to humanity and endure only insofar as they are aware of the need for it, see sense in it, and get satisfaction from it. Let’s leave it that way.

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Several church groups warned during the week against the use of church facilities aimed at maintaining segregated schools. The Methodist Church’s General Board of Education issued such a warning at its annual meeting in Cincinnati. The board noted that some states have passed laws permitting abolition of the public schools if courts force integration upon them. Efforts may be made, the Methodist agency said, to use church facilities to maintain a segregated system. Some persons have advocated segregated parochial schools as an alternative to non-segregated public schools. The Methodist leaders said such proposals endanger our democratic way of life and threaten the integrity of our churches.

A similar view was expressed by 14 Protestant leaders in an article published in Presbyterian Outlook, a publication of the Southern Presbyterian Church. The church magazine asked leading churchmen whether the churches should let their facilities be used to run segregated schools if public schools were closed down.

The churchmen, from both North and South, agreed the churches never should permit such segregated parochial schools. The opinion was voiced by such prominent religious leaders as Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, stated clerk of the U.S.A. Presbyterian Church; Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr of New York’s Union Theological Seminary; Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, President of Morehouse College in Atlanta, and others.

The same view was offered in a resolution adopted by the North American Area Council of the World Presbyterian Alliance, holding its annual meeting at Mt. Pocono, Pennsylvania. The resolution said a church is in error when it commits itself to a program to deny the right of any person to be treated as a child of God.… The measure said segregated church schools would strike a mortal blow at the public school system at a time when the maintenance of that system at a high level of efficiency is even more vital than ever. In a separate statement, the 100 Presbyterian and Reformed leaders attending the Mt. Pocono meeting called integration in American education the crucial race relations issue today.

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A consultation and information center on Judaism has been set up in New York by the New York Board of Rabbis. Rabbi Harold H. Gordon, executive vice president of the board said the center will consult, advise, and give information on Judaism. A commission headed by Rabbi Robert Gordis of Belle Harbor, New York, will operate the center.

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In Washington, a special committee was named to conduct a two-year nationwide study of Baptist attitudes toward spiritual, moral, and religious instruction in the public schools. This committee will represent six major Baptist conventions affiliated with the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs. The study group will sponsor seminars, workshops, and conferences in various parts of the country. These various studies will culminate in a national conference to be sponsored by the Baptist Joint Committee in 1960, at which time the Baptist leaders will try to state more clearly Baptist positions on controversial issues relating to the public schools.

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So much appears in the press, on the radio, and through all communication media about round-the-clock prayer sessions; about asking for this, praying for that, until at times one cannot help but wonder whether the deity takes the trouble to listen to so much piffle, various parts of which are often contradictory. We have seen such a spasmodic series of supplications going on in our own midst these last few days, apparently in preparation for the forthcoming experiences of renewing Protestant prejudices by sharing them with each other and to the exclusion of any consideration of any kind to those other great religious systems, many of which are older and affect far more people than our own. But we go on holding our missions here and sending missionaries to other countries, when it is more than a sound bet that we would not welcome their missionaries into our own midst. Anyway, out of it all, there comes a wholesome illustration of a realistic prayer that is even more pertinent now than when it was uttered.

It took place like this: When the U.S opened its nuclear detonation season the test began with a short prayer, intoned over the intercom by the warship’s chaplain and it went, “Unto us who are privileged to draw aside the curtain into the secrets of thy universe, teach us that our whole duty is to love thee, our God, and to keep they commandments.”

Sydney J. Harris, columnist for the Chicago Daily News, suggested that a more realistic prayer would have been, “Unto us who have the pride and the presumption to release the most devastating forces of nature, O Lord, be merciful: Protect us from cardiac contusion; preserve us from cerebral or coronary air embolism; guard us from the dreadful consequences of respiratory tract hemorrhage; allow us not to suffer from pulmonary edema; save us from the trauma of distended viscera; withhold from us the horrors of hemorrhages in the central nervous system; visit these catastrophes upon our enemies, not upon us, and we promise to love thee and keep thy commandments – all except one, O Lord, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’”

This, at least, would have been an honest and meaningful prayer. No nonsense, no hypocrisy, no solemn theological jargon to disguise and sanctify the purpose and power of the bomb. It is highly probable that the deity would not have granted this prayer, but at any rate, it would not have been an insult to his intelligence and an affront to his benevolence. One wonders, sometimes, if God may not be more discouraged by the blindness of his shepherds than by the folly of his sheep.

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And while on the matter of hypocrisy, further reflection on the matter comes from the public forum of a recent edition of The Salt Lake Tribune, a newspaper of wide circulation and influence in the inter-mountain area. The writer points out that “We Americans are a peculiar people and surely like to kid ourselves…. We shout lustily in favor of free enterprise; whereas, in very truth, we are in the … clutches of monopolistic enterprise. If you do not admit this, ask any small businessman…. We brag about our educational system and then immediately proceed to ridicule our teachers, making it tough as possible to get adequate appropriations for the schools…. We believe in Christianity, but spend our time scheming how we can carve each other up ‘as a dish fit for the Gods’…. Our private electric power utilities proclaim loudly against government subsidy of any kind but they are strangely silent when good old Uncle Sam spends millions of dollars regulating the waters of the Ohio River for their benefit…. We howl against any subsidy to the poor man, but say nothing of the giant subsidies that our leading magazines receive from the post office department…. We seriously classify ourselves into the genus, homo sapiens, man the wise; whereas, in very truth, we belong to genus, homo the sap…we are indeed, a peculiar people.”

The only comment this reporter feels like making is to ask, “Is not more than consistency involved here? Is it not also a matter of morality?”

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And now for the foreign news as time will permit:

In Sydney, Australia, a prominent Evangelist after two years abroad conducting missions in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Middle East, told his congregation that churches in communist-run East Germany are crowded. He said 90 percent of the East German youth belong to church groups despite the fact that this bars them from higher education.

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In Toronto, Canada, the Canadian Council of Churches reported on the success of the biggest Protestant stewardship campaign ever undertaken in that country. Last year, said the council, the annual budgets of 435 churches totaled $8.85 million. This year the budgets of the same churches increased to nearly $11.5 million.

The big increase is the result of a program under which thousands of laymen canvassed the membership of participating churches. The house-to-house canvas was based on the so-called sector plan, an idea first developed by the American Baptist Convention. Participating in the drive were churches of eight denominations.

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In Rome the first copy of the 1958 Vatican Directory was presented to Pope Pius. The new yearbook’s statistics indicate a strengthening of the Catholic hierarchy and an expansion of the church in missionary territories. The number of resident episcopal sees increased the past year by 35. The number or resident archbishops increased by one to 308. Apostolic vicariates increased by seven to a total of 213.

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This last item is of domestic origin, and reports that when the First Lutheran Church of Worthington, Minnesota, held its recent annual meeting, the congregation elected deacons, trustees, a Sunday school superintendent – and a termite committee. Termites have been a problem in the church for several years. This last reflection of my own is made self-consciously, but when I read that statement, I could not but realize that many churches have been plagued by termites for a long time and they are not always confined to isopteran genus.

The Methodist Board of Missions, holding its annual meeting at Buck Hills Falls, Pennsylvania, heard its general secretary for national missions, Dr. W. Vernon Middleton, emphasize that a new church must be built every day for the next five years if the Methodist Church wishes to provide churches for new communities springing up in all our urban areas. The denomination has been spending more than $100 million a year since 1954 for new church buildings, but Dr. Bonneau P. Murphy, executive in charge of church construction, said this does not begin to meet requirements. Some 1,200 new congregations, he said, still are worshiping in temporary quarters.

The Methodist Women’s Division of Christian Service also held its annual meeting at Buck Hills Falls. They adopted a program for world peace and American foreign policy in a nuclear space age. As part of the policy, they urged renunciation of war, exploration of areas of negotiation with Russia, and placing of outer space control in the United Nations.

Nobody is more sympathetic to any policy that will produce or approach nearer to peace than this reporter. However, it is a bit discouraging to relate fairly regularly such pious and well-meaning pronouncements, without any evidence in the news dispatches that the organizations making them are looking at the problem and machinery realistically. (And parenthetically, this reporter feels free to comment on this particular one because he too is a Methodist.)

Many of us can remember and probably more of us have read that back in 1927 virtually all the nations of the world signed the Briand-Kellogg Peace Pact, a short paragraph in which the signatory nations solemnly avowed to renounce war as an instrument of national policy. Naive as we were, and namby-pamby as politicians were – and are – there was great rejoicing in all the houses of Israel. Listening to and reading statements about the virtues of this pact, one would have thought that the millennium had been miraculously, with signatures of the pens of the nations, brought into existence, and the nations themselves would talk, think, and act about war no more. Four years later Japan attacked Manchuria, and we know the succession of tragic aftermaths.

As to exploration of areas of negotiation with Russia, that the WSCS advocates, well, there does not seem to be anything else we can do but think only of the next war, Mr. Dulles to the contrary notwithstanding. Whether there can be disengagement, constructive negotiations, or what have you, only patience, forbearance, and persistence will tell, but all these are much better than accepting as inevitable the current made race to attain superiority in death-dealing weapons, a race that can end only in catastrophe for everybody. For a next war will certainly not determine who is right, only who is left, if anyone.

The proposal that the nations place control of outer space in the United Nations is wonderful as a sentiment, but that is about as far as realism goes in the matter. It is time this organization, and all others interested in peace, in this country and everywhere else, begin insisting that the U.N. be strengthened to the point where it can effectively control anything. This of course means, bluntly, that the nations will have to relinquish some of that thing called sovereignty. But that is the price that ultimately will have to be paid if effective international control of national ambitions run riot is to be accomplished. It will do no good, as our national politicians, along with those of other countries, go about saying “We are not ready for this.” We shall never be ready for it until and unless we begin to seek ways and means of accomplishing it instead of making excuses for doing nothing about it. Again, bluntly, to do so would mean probably less prestige for national officials, the elimination of many diplomatic posts, the reduction of national armies and cutting some generals and admirals back to colonels and captains. This, of course, is heresy to them. No American, interested in and proud of his country, wishes to see an international Frankenstein monster created that would destroy nations, but we already have such in the monstrous death-dealing machines that man’s ingenuity has created. When will we (or will we ever?) turn that ingenuity to development of political controls at the world level that will make it impossible for war to occur? Methodist women organizations, as well as others, could well ponder this question. Our answer to it may determine the course of history, or indeed, whether there will be much more history made on this planet.

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Dr. James Wagner, president of the Evangelical and Reformed Church, returned to Philadelphia this week from a month’s visit to Africa. Dr. Wagner predicted the downfall of the present government in South Africa because of its racial segregation policy. He said a change in government will come through peaceful political action of the dominant white minority, rather than by a violent uprising of the natives. In South Africa, he said, white Christian leaders meet secretly with native Africans and East Asians. As pointed out here a number of times, a relatively small minority of whites has altered the Union’s constitution and enacted laws thereunder to impose segregation by law. The most elementary rights of the colored peoples there, the natives, have been violated, and in some places they have been removed from their homes much as we moved the five Indian tribes west of the Mississippi in the 1830’s.

While it is recognized that the British Commonwealth is a community of self-governing nations, and that the crown is largely a symbol of unity, but many of us have wondered why the queen has not spoken out against this flagrant violation not only of the basic rights of human beings in the Union but also of the most elementary principles of human decency. Perhaps her critics were right, that she is surrounded by stuffy advisers who are still living in the era of her predecessor, Victoria. We Americans are all too familiar with such Star Chamber advisers at various times in our own government. Certainly, in the case of the South Africans, not only civil rights, but questions of morality also, enter into the dreadful thing that has been happening there. And people of social consciousness everywhere will hope that Dr. Wagner is correct in his prophecy that the current regime will be replaced with one that has not only a more decent respect for the opinion of mankind, but a more decent respect for fellow men.

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In Rome, Vatican circles predicted that little, if anything, would come from a Russian suggestion that contacts be established between the Kremlin and the Vatican. The suggestion was made by Foreign Minister Gromyko in a talk to a group of so-called Italian peace partisans visiting Moscow. Vatican sources indicated the idea was not taken seriously in Rome. Church spokesmen noted that the situation of the church remains very serious in all communist countries.

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In Acapulco, Mexico, a statue neared completion that is destined never to be seen – except under water. It is a 12-foot bronze reproduction of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It is being made in the studios of Mexican sculptor Armando Quezada and will be sunk just inside the breakwater in Acapulco Bay under the title “Protectress of Skin Divers and of all who Work Beneath the Seas.” It is certainly not intended as irreverence to wonder if this applies also to crews of submarines, atomic and otherwise. But to go on, Archbishop Miquel Dario Miranda of Mexico City will proclaim Our Lady of Guadalupe to be queen of the seas that wash Mexico’s shores. And the statue will be blessed under water by a priest who is an expert skin diver.

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A very quotable quote came to me this week which I should like to pass on. It is by Dr. George Fallon, and comes from the Lamplighter. It says that “A great church is no easy thing to build. In fact, a great church cannot be built; it must be created by great people – people great in vision, in courage, in loyalty, in faithfulness, and in their determination to hold high the banner of faith.