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.