Harvard University has begun a five-year study to develop mental health training for future clergymen. Heading the study will be Dr. Hans Hofmann, now of Princeton Theological Seminary and trained in both psychology and theology. Dr. Hofmann is ordained in the Reformed Church of Switzerland. His project will be to direct creation of a curriculum in mental health for Protestant theological seminaries. Harvard says similar studies are planned in Loyola University, a Roman Catholic institution in Chicago, and Yeshiva University, a Jewish institution in New York City.
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The American Jewish Committee plans to break ground this year for its Institute of Human Relations in New York City. The $1.5 million building will be dedicated to brotherhood.
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The largest Methodist church in Minneapolis has accepted a small Negro Methodist congregation as fellow worshipers. Almost 70 members of the Border Methodist Church have been received into the Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church, one of Minneapolis’ most exclusive congregations. The small church’s building is to be demolished to make way for a redevelopment project. But the pews, baptismal font, and other furnishings have been donated to other churches and religious institutions. The Border Church minister, the Rev. Dr. Charles Sexton, has been named to a position in the Minneapolis Methodist district. Hennepin’s senior minister, the Rev. Dr. Chester Pennington, says a missionary in India wrote him that such news is invaluable in that part of the world.
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An Associated Press writer well-versed in Soviet and satellite nation history says a major diplomatic crisis is likely to develop sooner or later because Josef Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary is in refuge in the U.S. legation in Budapest. Foreign news analyst Thomas Whitney says the Soviet puppet regime in Hungary may demand that the U.S. turn over the Catholic prelate, and the U.S. is likely to refuse. He adds that other possibilities include an offer of “safe conduct” to the cardinal to go to the Vatican. If Mindszenty should accept, and then be arrested, the incident no doubt would arouse great protest in the U.S. The Hungarian cardinal occupies the rooms of U.S. Minister Edward Wailes in the legation building. He holds occasional masses for legation personnel. And so far the Hungarian communists have apparently not objected to his staying there.
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Washington: Religious leaders say that America’s church boom is concentrated heavily in suburbs and small towns. By contrast, they say, churches in big cities and in rural areas have been suffering a steady decline in membership. Officials of major denominations have made a study of the uneven impact of the back-to-church movement and have come up with some facts. Most of the church building of recent years has been in the suburban areas, yet they cannot keep pace with the demand. During the same period, rural churches have been closing at the rate of nearly one thousand a year. And many of those Protestant churches in particular are disappearing from the centers of cities. There are only two left in downtown St. Louis and only three in Cleveland, for example.
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Again Washington: The Kresge Foundation of Detroit has contributed $1.5 million to help build a new Methodist theological seminary in Washington. The grant is contingent upon the church raising a similar amount to match it. Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam says construction of the seminary, which will be located on the campus of American University, is scheduled to begin in April, with its opening set for the fall of 1958.
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Kenilworth, England: An English preacher has doubled his congregation by retelling the New Testament in the jargon of science fiction. The Rev. John Thompson says he even uses stage props, including hydrogen-filled spaceships which shoot up to the church roof to add drama to his narration. Sounds come from a tape recorder he takes with him. Says the Rev. Thompson, “I think our belief in incarnation lends itself very well to explanation in terms of space travel.”
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A Methodist bishop from the South says U.S. churches must apply Christianity to the problem of racial segregation or quit trying to win foreign converts. The warning has come from Bishop William Watkins of Louisville, Kentucky. He also told a meeting of Cumberland Presbyterian ministers at Bethel College, McKenzie, Tennessee, that the decision cannot be long delayed.
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Many people are more distressed now that at any previous time of the Cold War. With Nehru’s visit here and reliance on the United Nations and the moral force of world opinion, it looked for a short time as if peace might be worked out under a real United Nations police force, that force acting like real [?] policemen. But now the policy is announced of the mailed fist of the U.S. in the East – the old balance of power again. The British and the French moved out of the East. Now it appears that the U.S. is going to move in, and there is little less likelihood of war with us there than there was when Britain and France were there. The problems of the have-nots cannot be solved by guns. It is wrong to kill people because you do not like their government and all the double talk of statesmen cannot change that. How long is the world going on talking in 17th, 18th, and 19th century terms in a 20th century that has already seen three of our B-52 Stratofortresses encircle the globe in 45 hours? That just puts all of us within less than 24 hours distance from anyone who may wish to bomb us. It is about time we brought our thinking up to cope with the realities or our present day bombers.
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Recently the Chicago Tribune‘s station, WGN-TV, canceled at a late hour the showing of the film “Martin Luther.” This brought a strong protest from groups who believe in both freedom of religion and freedom of communication. It was alleged that pressure from the Catholic Church was responsible for the ban, but a spokesman of the church, Monsignor E.M. Burke, chancellor of the Chicago Diocese, denied this. However, air wavelengths belong to the people, and this means to all the people. They are licensed to private corporations to be used in the public interest. Anyone has a right to protest a presentation, to refrain from viewing it and to attempt to persuade others not to see it. But it is obnoxious to freedom of communication, on which our democratic system rests, to have any group seek to impose a general censorship on material of which it disapproves according to the special standards of that group.
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And in the same connection, a more highly publicized controversy arose when Cardinal Spellman made one of his rare appearances in the pulpit of St. Patrick’s Cathedral to back up the Catholic Legion of Decency’s condemnation of the film “Baby Doll” and to warn Roman Catholics against seeing it “under pain of sin.” This reporter did not see the picture, but a good friend of his did, and her succinct evaluation of it was that it was not so much risqué as it was stupid. While still another critic made the comment to this reporter that if sex were objectionable, then the Ten Commandments should have been banned, but the public, including the Catholic Church lapped that one up. I wonder why it is that when approaching such matters relating to religion, so many of us are willing to accept uncritically something bearing a religious label, without looking under that label to see whether it is religious in name only. But to examine (publicly, at least) such things is not even considered ethical. I know because of the reaction several months ago to my comments on the picture entitled “A Man Called Peter.”
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One very wholesome proposal, apparently with administrative backing, now pending in the Tennessee legislature is a bill that would require that all meetings of public boards, commissions, and legislative bodies in the state be open to the public. Americans are notoriously suspicious of the transaction of public affairs in a secretive manner. However, school boards and other bodies have been just as notorious in trying to conduct their business secretly. This time, with the backing of the Tennessee Press Association, it looks as if positive action may result. Those who oppose it will be the ones who have a “Father Knows Best” complex, an attitude that those who believe in the true democratic process will reject summarily.
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All of us have seen, heard, and read about the reluctance, and, in one or two cases, the downright refusal, of certain labor leaders to testify before a congressional investigating committee regarding possibility of racketeering in the ranks of organized labor. As a matter of fact, the present convention of AFL-CIO leaders, meeting in Miami Beach, Florida, has put this matter of testifying as the first order of business. Nobody knows what the decision will be, but there is a moral principle involved in the matter (and I say this as a member of an AFL affiliate). What labor does or does not do is a matter of public concern, for organized labor has grown until its structure, organization, and functioning can mean good or ill for the whole country. It is just as unfair for labor to refuse to divulge information which Congress legitimately needs to know as it is for management to do so. Both labor and management will prosper and will be entrenched in public support only so long as the public has confidence in them. Both have a responsibility to the public in seeing that their houses are in order, and refusal to talk about this very important matter is no way to build public confidence.
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An interesting case of vacations in reverse cropped up this week in Virginia, a case of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. E. Claiborne Robins, president of a pharmaceutical firm, has practiced shutting down his plant from time to time in order that his workers may all take off to New York, Miami, or elsewhere, for a round of play. This week, he and Mrs. Robins departed via airplane for Acapulco, Mexico, on a two-week vacation. In breaking the news to their president, the employees handed Mr. Robins two checks: one drawn on the Bank of Good Times for a good vacation, the other, a real one, for $4,200, compliments of the employees.
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Ladies and gentlemen, it has been suggested to me that it might be indiscreet for me to include this last item on this program. That item is the fact that Rep. Harry Lee Senter of Kingsport, representing Sullivan County in the state legislature, has introduced in the House a bill that would prohibit public schoolteachers from encouraging integration on school grounds, and would make violations of this grounds for dismissal. In commenting upon it, Senter said, “We don’t believe that the question of integration or segregation should be made a part of the curriculum.”
This is not a fit subject for legislation. Teachers have no right to use their special position in the schoolroom to promote their own pet ideas, whether those ideas include segregation, or the relative merits of last year’s bird nests. They do, however, have an obligation to discuss frankly and fearlessly any social or other problem confronting the community. It would be difficult to conceive a more ubiquitous social problem than that posed by court decisions on segregation. Students of all ages are asking what are the facts? What do they mean? Teachers have an obligation to help students answer these questions. Moreover, it is the thesis of this reporter that teachers have a right to state their convictions about any subject, but do not have any right to try to impose those convictions upon their pupils. This right exists, not for the benefit of the teacher, but for the benefit of the community, including the pupils. In a democracy, no problem is solved merely by sticking our heads in the sand, or in gagging people from talking about that problem. Gag rule is a trapping of dictatorship, not a democracy. Academic freedom exists for the teacher because through it only can he encourage and promote the study of controversial issues. Democracy rests basically on the discovery of truth and upon popular acceptance of policies based on the facts. It is hard to subscribe to the theory that ignorance about anything is better than knowledge about it. Perhaps the sponsor of this legislation should read John 8:32, which is as follows: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”