December 16, 1956

This week saw Lutheranism in North America get a boost toward union. Commissioners representing four Lutheran church groups voted at Chicago to proceed with plans for merger. That followed agreement that no serious doctrinal disagreement separates them. The union would make a new church of almost 3 million members, including the United Lutheran Church in America, the Augustana Lutherans, the Finnish Evangelical Lutherans, and the American Evangelical Lutherans. A steering committee is to make a pattern of organization. Commissioners of the four groups will meet in Chicago next March to begin drafting a constitution. All told, there are about 7 million persons belonging to 18 Lutheran bodies in North America, which includes congregations in Mexico and Canada. The Lutheran Church Evangelical Synodical Conference claims the most members, about 2.5 million.

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Albany New York: Protestant and Jewish clergymen are doing four-hour shifts as hospital orderlies and hearing lectures on psychiatry and medicine. Their work and studies are part of a 30-week extension course offered by Andover Theological Seminary, Newton Center, Massachusetts, and sponsored by the Federation of Churches in Christ in Albany and vicinity.

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In Egypt this week, the Rev. Russell Stevenson has made a survey of refugee needs for some U.S. churches. His sponsoring agency, the National Council of the Churches of Christ, has said reports indicate some 60,000 refugees need aid because of the Egyptian hostilities.

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In Jerusalem, the foreign consular members have cancelled their traditional Christmas procession to Bethlehem. One of the diplomats says the abandonment is to protest Jordan’s refusal to allow the procession to use the southern road. This is the route over the old Roman road said to have been used by Mary and Joseph in their journey to Bethlehem. However, the usual Christian pilgrimage by another road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem will be permitted by Jordan.

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The head of the Roman Catholic Church has pleaded for a little more quiet in modern life. Pope Pius has told Italy’s Anti-noise Congress that mechanization is responsible for most of today’s noise. He has named streetcars, trains, subways, and heavy trucks as offenders that disturb what the pontiff describes as “the serene joy that should reign at family hearths.”

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Reaffirmation of their faith in dogma of Our Lady of Guadalupe has been made by some 35,000 Catholic pilgrims from 140 parishes around San Antonio, Texas. The candlelight procession and high pontifical Mass celebrated the appearance of the “patroness of the Americas” to a simple Indian in 1531.

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Washington: American churches have begun to wage a religious crusade against death on their highways. Clergymen are telling their members that reckless driving is not merely dangerous; it is a sin. Churches of all denominations are joining in the campaign to bring Christian conscience to bear on traffic safety problems. Pope Pius and many Protestant leaders have endorsed it. The widely circulated Protestant magazine, Christian Herald, has an editorial in its current issue entitled “Are You a Christian at the Wheel?”

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Indianapolis, Indiana: The managing editor of The Christian Century magazine has urged the nation’s churches to go ahead with interdenominational projects even though they disagree on theology. Dr. Theodore A. Gill told a divisional meeting of the National Council of Churches that Christians need theological clarification, not looking for a super church, but a superior national church.

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Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. Spencer was elected at a meeting of the group to succeed Herschel Pettus, of the Louisiana Baptist Foundation.

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Pasadena, California: The Methodist Council of Bishops has set a $1 million goal in a resolution appealing for donations to aid Hungarian refugees. The resolution authorized collection of funds through January 6 in the 40,000 Methodist churches throughout the country.

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Indianapolis, Indiana: The head of the National Council of Churches says an all-powerful totalitarian church is as great a menace to the worship of God as an all-powerful totalitarian state. Dr. Eugene Carson Blake says the church in America is in a far happier situation than is the church in most other nations. He urged all religious groups to reexamine the tax-free status of the church in America as a possible threat to freedom.

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Almost every day enough items having moral, ethical or religious significance crop up in the news that fifteen minutes well could be devoted to them. Hence, trying to prepare a broadcast weekly on such items necessitates simply trying to decide, and with very little time at that, which of the many are more significant. The following seem worthy of inclusion under the latter category and comment upon insofar as time will allow:

Yesterday, December 15, marked the 165th anniversary of the adoption of the first 10 amendments known as “The Bill of Rights,” to the federal Constitution. In these days when in so many areas of the world, there is no value of human dignity, we Americans should give special attention to this all-important document. Here in Tennessee we have seen during recent weeks denial of constitutional rights to American citizens and resort to the potentially strong arm of the federal government to secure those rights which are plainly embodied in the Constitution and spelled out by court interpretation.

Furthermore, the U.N. Committee on Human Rights worked out some years ago a Universal Declaration of Human Rights and presented it to the member nations. Our nation, once the only nation standing out clearly on the world horizon as the staunch declarer and defender of human freedoms, has refused to endorse this declaration. Why? Because individuals in both parties, whom we have a right to expect to assume the stature of statesmanship, have, instead, chosen the path of political expediency. One of the unnecessary ways to be defeated and to defeat ourselves is to assume at the outset that nothing is possible or can be done about a situation, then proceed to do nothing about it. So far, neither Truman nor Eisenhower has presented this document to the Senate with full administration backing!

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Another subject about which considerable has appeared in recent weeks and months, and more this week than usual, is the matter of billboards on our highways. The federal government has authorized spending over $40 billion of your and my money during the next few years in the construction of a network of highways throughout this country. So far, only a feeble attempt has been made to get written into law protection of the public against commercial blights strung promiscuously along the highways where we shall drive. Ours is beautiful country, and could and should be made more so. But shall we sacrifice that God-given natural beauty to the unsightly commercial appeals that urge us as we drive along to use this soap, that gasoline, another brand of beer, to try this gadget. Or that some medical panacea for all human ills will cure everything from an in-grown toenail to a bald head? Aside from the purely aesthetic aspects of this problem is another one: safety. Here in Tennessee, the governor’s Emergency Traffic Safety Committee has become very much concerned over the distraction of motorists’ attention to billboard appeals when that attention should be concentrated on driving. Nobody rejects the right of advertising as a part of the right of free expression, but nobody has a right to yell “Fire!” in a crowded building merely for the purpose of seeing the people surge to the exits, and perhaps get killed in the process.

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Again in Tennessee, two matters of more that usual importance are shaping up for a legislative battle in the forthcoming legislature. One is the matter of reapportionment. (I am aware that some of you listeners will fail to see any religious significance in this, but there is some anyway.) Ours is a representative government; one in which the voice of each and every voter is as nearly equal to that of each and every other voter as possible. As long as this is true, each person can make his influence felt as much as anyone else in selecting public officials, influencing their actions, and securing the kind of government that he thinks will promote the general welfare. But, when legislatures fail to live up to their constitutional obligations, when certain portions of the state are denied their rightful representation in the halls of government, that government, to that extent, is longer fair, honest, or moral.

The Tennessee Constitution requires that the state be divided into legislative districts after each federal census, such districts to be as fairly designated as possible in order to give all voters an equal voice in influencing their government. The last time the Tennessee legislature did this was in 1901, 55 years ago. Since then the social and economic picture has changed. Cities have arisen, population shifted. Today, East Tennessee is under-represented and other regions of the state have more voice than they should. Rural areas are grossly over-represented, while the voice of urban areas is small indeed. In addition, Democrats have so gerrymandered the districts of the state that Republican representation is far out of line with what it rightfully should be.

Civic-minded, public-spirited groups have sought justice for the people through appeal to the courts. The U.S. Supreme Court recently refused to consider the matter, holding that this was a problem for the people of the state to handle. But are we going to do it? The strategy of the recently elected legislators and the administration at Nashville is to consign reapportionment proposals to a study committee for report two years from now. We do not need any more study or reports. The only right, moral, ethical, legal thing to do is to reapportion the state immediately and without regard to vested interests, political affiliations, or anything else but the right of each citizen to have an equal voice in the government – no more, no less. Suppose you write your senator and representative and tell them how you feel about this? Religious people have a greater obligation to do this than anyone else.

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Well I promised to treat another state question, but I see time is running out, and there is another topic I wish to deal with briefly. I shall save the other topic until next week.

This is the season of the year when our thoughts turn toward an event of 2,000 years ago that was small, insignificant, within itself. Few people were aware it was happening. It took place in a town of which few people in the then-known world knew or cared. It was a simple event: a little baby was born, but that birth was heralded by angels themselves declaring that this day is born a king, who is to be the savior of all mankind. Wise men brought gifts to him, and lowly shepherds fell down and worshiped him. His was a life of service; he was man without a home, with only a single garment, which his executors cast lots for. He was buried in a borrowed tomb. But not all the strong men of history have had the influence upon human history that his life has had.

In observance of this life of service to the betterment of mankind, we set aside December 25. How do we observe it? To the wondering, but not cynical observer, it would appear that we have let our observance degenerate into an occasion on which we exchange merchandise. This week a student of mine said that when she became president she was going to declare Christmas giving silly, for it kept her wondering who was going to give her what, in order that she might know what to give who (English teachers make the most of that ungrammatical use). And she was understandably concerned over whether her gift to her friends would be of equal value as those she received. I know this student pretty well. She is not mercenary minded, but she feels that in order to maintain her status with her friends, she must give material things of approximately equal value to those she receives. Is this the spirit of Christmas? Are we not paying more attention to the things that are Caesar’s than to the things that are God’s?

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