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.