Washington: The Federal Census Bureau has a religious problem. The bureau is compiling a new questionnaire for census scheduled in 1960. And it is debating about including one question in the form: “What is your religion?” One faction in the bureau contends some factual data should be collected on the religious affiliations of Americans. But others claim it would be a bad mistake and that many citizens would resent the question as an invasion of privacy. No such question has ever been asked before in a census. The bureau has not yet made a final decision. All of us who have had to teach materials on religion – not a religion – but religion, period, have felt keenly the need for accurate census data on religious affiliations and have, from the teacher’s viewpoint wished for more nearly reliable figures. However, for government to nose its way into religious beliefs is treading on undesirable grounds. If any such question is used in the bureau’s questionnaire, the individual should be entirely free to answer it or not as he chooses, and there should be definite provision for recording his reply as “declining to answer.” As much as I wish accurate data as a teacher, I suspect that my reply would be under this category, for really it is none of the government’s business.
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New York: Some 88 sessions have been held in Madison Square Garden in the current emotional binge under the auspices of Graham and Company. These have attracted more than 1,650,000 persons, resulting in some 51,000 of what the star performer calls “decisions for Christ.” This reporter has no comment, for he is reluctant to judge lest he be judged.
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Minneapolis: The Rev. Dr. Franklin Clark Fry of New York, president of the United Lutheran Church in America, has been elected president of the Lutheran World Federation. Dr. Fry, who is 56, was elected at the organization’s Third Assembly. The Lutheran World Federation represents a membership of 50 million Lutherans all over the world.
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In Vatican City, Giovanni Cardinale Mercati, librarian of the Roman Catholic Church, died at his residence Thursday night. He was 91 years old. The death of this cardinal reduces the rank of the Sacred College of Cardinals to 58. There are now a total of 12 vacancies in the college.
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And in Rome this week some 30,000 Catholic youths from 87 nations and territories gathered for the First World Assembly of the International Young Christians Workers. The climax of the gathering takes place today when the youth pay homage to the pope in a colorful ceremony in St. Peter’s Square.
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The federation may complete its work this weekend on a set of basic principles setting forth a stronger partnership among Christian churches. The project is described as one of Lutheranism’s major goals. It is the hope of the federation that this set of principles will constitute an expression to the world of the nature of Lutheran thinking on major problems confronting the church. During discussion of the various proposals offered by leaders of 20 discussion groups, emphasis was given to one calling for restoration of what was called “right God relationship.” The outgoing federation leader, Hanns Lilje of Hanover, Germany said this relationship has been lost in some areas of the world due to fear and anxiety. The German clergyman acknowledged that the church is restricted in seeking greater freedom in those areas by a broken humanity. In such a predicament, he stated, man needs a deliverer who is more powerful than everything that is wrong.
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Oberlin, Ohio: The issues of Christian unity will be dealt with directly when U.S. and Canadian churches hold the first North American study conference opening at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, starting September 3. The theme of the conference will be “The Nature of the Unity We Seek.” Preparations for the meeting have been under way for two years. These plans involve more than 300 inter-denominational discussions, with working papers submitted by 16 regional groups. The final phase was a selection of 285 official delegates by 34 U.S. churches – Orthodox and Protestant – and five Canadian churches. The meeting is sponsored by the Canadian Council of Churches in conjunction with the U.S. conference for the World Council of Churches, and the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. The conference runs from September 3-10.
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Chicago: The Greater Chicago Federation of Churches is making an effort to see that newcomers to Chicago’s vast metropolitan area are not without friends willing to give help and understanding. The federation has set up what is called the “Newcomers Commission.” Members of the agency, which is a unit of the federation’s social welfare department, undertake the task of finding homes for the newly arrived family from Puerto Rico, the Indian used to life on the reservation, the Chinese, the Negro, or other type of family unused to city living.
The commission’s chairman, the Rev. James Caskey, says its activity represents a major effort by Chicago’s churches to give resettlement assistant and encourage church membership. In general, its task is to help the newcomer adjust to city life. The department’s newly organized Latin American committee is concerned with the needs of Chicago’s 100,000 Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. Among other things attention is given to problems of credit buying and rentals. Work is also aimed at passage of bills in the Illinois legislature designed to improve living and working conditions for the new residents.
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The persistence with which some newspapers and newspaper editors insist upon being concerned about something much, much less important than they tried to make it is being revealed these days by pronouncements regarding the effect of Supreme Court decisions in recent weeks upon secret, raw, unconfirmed, gossip files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Some two months ago, in the Jencks case, the courts ruled that a person on trial for criminal charges could not be convicted upon evidence contained in these gossip files until or unless he and or his attorney had access to them and to the evidence contained therein.
Squawks from pipsqueak law enforcement officers, which would include everybody from Brownell, Hoover, and company up or down, whichever way you want to go, would lead the unthinking to conclude that unless something were done to preserve these precious files that the fate of the U.S. will be sealed beyond redemption, at once, and forever. The Knoxville News Sentinel, which I read regularly and more or less religiously, devoted a blunt editorial to the subject this week imploring Congress before it quits to act upon what it calls “an emergency problem of law enforcement.” The local paper has also wasted some space and many words to the same issue and along the same line.
Now let us be sensible and unemotional about a very important real matter. Nobody but the ones who were loyal to a country other than the United States would wish to do anything that would weaken our system of things here. But a very important part of that system is regard for the rights and integrity of the individual. Convictions of the accused based upon secret informers and secret evidence are trappings and techniques of the dictatorships, not of the democracies. Amendment VI of the Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights, reads in part as follows: “In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right … to be confronted with the witnesses against him…” There are no modifying or qualifying words in this amendment. What the FBI does in an investigation is to take down every scrap of comment one individual may make about the person being investigated – known facts, rumors, suspicions, hearsay. All this is put into what the bureau calls its raw files. All of it is what it terms “unevaluated” data. Yet it is just such data as this that Brownell, Hoover, and The [Knoxville] News Sentinel and other editors want to keep secret from the person accused. Hoover says to reveal these will dry up sources of information. Well, why should one be convicted upon what a jealous neighbor or associate may say, spitefully or otherwise? Why should unevaluated materials be used? All the court said in the Jencks case is that such material should be brought into the courtroom and there evaluated. If it is found to be true, then let it be used without reservation to conflict; if it is false, brand it for what it is and let the chips fall wherever they may. Many people would talk long and freely about things they do not know but suspect would have little hesitancy as long as they can keep their identity secret. But if they knew that their words may later show up in a courtroom and they might have to back up their words, they’d probably be diligent in adhering to the truth. Do the Justice Department and the FBI wish to convict people upon untruths, half-truths, or pure fiction?
We have heard a great deal, too much, in recent weeks about the Fifth Amendment. But what about the Fifth Commandment in this connection? Does it not fit into this case, and is it not reinforced by our own Sixth Amendment to the Constitution? Those who deplore the sad state of affairs well could consider this, for it reads “Thou shall not bear false witness…” Do they wish to violate both the Sixth Amendment and the Fifth Commandment in their zeal to get headlines by convicting whomever they bring into court? I know of at least one court case where the outcome was based entirely upon false witness, but the person witnessing brought less credit to herself than blame against the one testified against. It is about time that the powers that be take another look at this whole subject and reconcile their efforts and pronouncements to American constitutional provisions, traditions, and good common sense, as well to religious and moral concepts involved.
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In Barbourville, Kentucky, this week the Kentucky Conference of the Methodist Church unanimously approved a constitutional amendment to allow Negro churches to apply for membership in white conferences. This is probably the second such act in the Methodist denomination, our own Holston Conference here in Tennessee being the other. Under the proposed amendment Negro churches must get a two-thirds consent from their conference before they can transfer. It will also be necessary for the white conference to give a two-thirds approval. However, it is a step in the right direction, i.e., to erase racial discrimination from the institution that should never have had it in the first place, for if racial groups cannot be united before the altar of God, then what hope is there for the Christianity we talk so much about in non-religious areas?
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Washington: The United Press reports that school administrators are caught in the middle of steadily mounting pressures on the subject of a fourth “R” – religion – as they prepare for the coming fall term of school. Jews and other minority groups want a hands-off policy, leaving religious training to the home and church. Protestant and Catholic officials say if the schools ignore religion, they, in effect, discriminate against the majority of Americans who believe in God. Some fundamentalists have proposed that the Constitution be revised to permit schools to teach Christian religious doctrines in the same way they teach political doctrines of democracy. Opponents claim that this would destroy the walls of separation between church and state. Another proposal has been to teach a so-called “common core” of religious beliefs held by all the major faiths. But opponents of this say that it would dilute religion so much as to be meaningless. Another solution, which has won the backing of many so-called, and probably self-styled educators, is to treat religion as politics and economics are treated – as a subject that is controversial but important to understanding American history and culture. The backers of this plan say the constitutional ban on sectarian teaching “of” religion does not prevent objective teaching about religion.
Unfortunately, time does not permit a further comment on this subject today, but since next Sunday will be the eve of the beginning of most school terms, and since the subject is an important one to all, opponents and proponents alike, I shall treat it in more detail at that time.