First, a potpourri of the religious news of the week as reported by AP and UP:
New York: Thousands of Americans vacationing in the national parks this year will have the opportunity to worship out-of-doors. The National Council of Churches says more than 100 specially trained seminary and college students will establish summertime parishes in the scenic wonderlands of 24 national parks throughout the country. Among them are Yellowstone, Glacier, and Mt. McKinley. They are located in 11 states and Alaska. The preachers and religious workers will include both men and women, and will represent 21 denominations.
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Washington: Leading Protestant clergymen say the New Revised Standard Edition of the Bible is stimulating more interest in Bible reading. The new Bible is easier to read, and easier to understand. Bible sales this year are expected to hit an all-time record of more than 6 million copies. Catholic scholars are now at work to complete a modern translation of the scriptures, and Jewish scholars are bringing out new editions of the ancient Hebrew scripts. The first revised edition of the Talmud in 76 years is scheduled to go to press later this year.
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Atlantic City, New Jersey: Nathan Brilliant of Cleveland, Ohio, has been elected the new president of the National Council for Jewish Education. He succeeds David Radavsky, of Newark. Brilliant is also executive director of the Bureau of Jewish Education.
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Wiesbaden, Germany: An American official of the Protestant Church of Christ charges that a crowd of Catholics led by two priests broke up an evangelist meeting held by a former Catholic clergyman. R. J. Smith, of Terrell, Texas, says the two priests and others continually heckled and interrupted the speaker. The Church of Christ has been in a running fight with Catholics in Italy. Recently it won a court order permitting it to hold and advertise religious services in Italy.
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Philadelphia: Delegates to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. predict that merger with the United Presbyterian Church of North America will be completed in another year. The proposed merger was approved by the assembly and now must be accepted by the individual Presbyteries of both churches and the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church of North America when it meets at Knoxville, Tennessee, later this month. Approval by the Knoxville assembly is regarded as certain.
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New York: The National Council of Churches is sending literacy experts into Tanganyika, East Africa, this summer to conduct a three-month campaign of literacy and literature. Dr. Floyd Shacklock, executive director of the program, says the team will concentrate on developing and perpetuating native leadership in such training programs.
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Hartford, Connecticut: A conference of Methodist ministers has been asked to consider refusing marriages to couples who permit liquor at prenuptial social events and at wedding receptions. The request was made by William H. Veale, of New Haven, to the New York East Methodist Conference. Veale says such a stand was taken recently by a Methodist minister in a Southern city.
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New York: Avery Dulles, the youngest son of “Secretary of Statements” [John Foster Dulles], who is 37, is among 36 seminarians, members of the Roman Catholic Society, who will be ordained by Francis Cardinal Spellman at Fordham University. His father is an elder of the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City. Avery became a Roman Catholic in 1940 while attending Harvard University.
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Kansas City, Missouri: The Southern Baptist Convention has approved a record budget of $11 million for 1957. Almost $4 million of the total will go to the church’s foreign mission, and a little over $1 million to its home mission board.
At the same meeting, the convention revived a religious tradition this week. At the meeting, Baptists brought into use again the old-fashioned amen chorus during an address by Billy Graham. Graham told the 13,000 churchmen that in his meetings around the world he found no difference in the heart of men. As for segregation, he asserted the issue in the South must be faced. “It will take courage, prayer, humility, love, and above all, patience,” he said. However, Graham agreed with the request of the Convention president, the Rev. Dr. Casper Warren of Charlotte, North Carolina, that the racial question not be reopened at this meeting.
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Montreat, North Carolina: On the other hand, the 96th session of the Southern Presbyterian Church has been told that a solution must be found for social and racial problems. The retiring moderator, Dr. J. McDowell Richards of Atlanta, also stated it must be found in a spirit of love. The Southern Presbyterians are to consider again this year a union with the Northern and the United Presbyterians. They rejected it in 1955.
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A newly ordained minister is making ready to take over the pastoral duties of the United Lutheran Church of the Transfiguration in New York City. The Rev. Robert Neilssen is white. His congregation is all Negro. The former pastor, the Rev. Paul West, a Negro, is in poor health.
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Vatican City: Pope Pius XII held a big general audience in St. Peter’s yesterday. The assembly on the anniversary of his namesake attests to his quick recovery from temporary fatigue three days ago. Earlier this week, the pope’s doctors had urged him to go to his summer residence in the hills south of Rome.
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Roman Catholic authorities in Austria say they have heard Hungary has rearrested and imprisoned Josef Cardinal Mindszenty. The reason given is the prelate’s refusal to sign a pledge of loyalty to the Hungarian communist regime. Since last July he has been out on probation from a life imprisonment sentence.
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The National Conference of Jewish Communicable Service has heard two recent Supreme Court decisions are being subjected to nationwide attack, condemnation, and evasion. The American Jewish Congress’ associate general counsel, Leo Pfeffer, told the St. Louis meeting that dissatisfaction with the school desegregation case has been limited exclusively to the South. But, he adds, opposition is widespread to the decision prohibiting teaching of religion in the public schools. The Jewish social workers also have been told that all Jewish groups oppose introducing religion or sectarian practice in the public schools. Jules Cohen, the coordinating officer for the National Community Relations Advisory Council, explains the organizations think separation of church and state is the best safeguard of all religious liberty.
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And again on the matter of segregation, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. this week, meeting in Philadelphia, adopted a report calling for total elimination of racial segregation in this country. The report was directed toward employers, homeowners, and politicians. It said, rather pointedly and succinctly, “Nowhere in this land can Negroes, and to a lesser extent other minority persons, escape the indignity of segregation or discrimination in one form or another.” It recommended specifically that:
1. Christians preparing to sell their homes keep uppermost in their minds the need of minority families for equal housing opportunities, and make their homes available to all qualified purchasers regardless of race;
2. Employers take all necessary steps to break the pattern of discrimination in employment;
3. Politicians “work for the removal of the poll tax and other restrictions which prevent many American citizens from exercising their legal rights.”
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Metropolitan Nikolai, Russian prelate, arrived in this country yesterday heading a delegation of Soviet church leaders who will spend some 11 days in this country, returning a visit that a nine-member delegation of the National Council of Churches made to Russian in March. Not only has Nikolai been active in religious matters, he has taken part also in Russian politics. In October 1950, for example, he declared that the church was solidly behind the capitalist warmongers, and went on to denounce what he called American aggression in North Korea. And as late as May 1952, he spearheaded a meeting of representatives of most of the churches in the Soviet Union, called primarily to denounce the United States. At this meeting he dwelt upon what he called an evil American germ warfare in Korea and went on to picture the United Nations as an instrument of war. His demeanor on this visit doubtless will be one of let’s-be-friends attitude, mirroring something of the present expression of the boys in the Kremlin. However, he may find it a little more difficult than he thinks if the persons whom he meets know something of his background. And it is not unlikely that he will be reminded of some of the things he said earlier but – of course consistency has never been the forté of communists, whether of the Russian or American brand.
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As reported some months ago here, the National Council of Churches has appointed an “ethics kit,” or a “do it yourself” approach to the problem of making religion practical in our modern complicated world. The executive director of this move, the Rev. Cameron F. Hall, says, “Many feel that Christianity is a little too impractical to apply seriously in a highly competitive modern world. We hope this new program will help people see how Christian ethics can become a living, vital force to help solve the different decisions we all face Monday through Saturday.” (Well, it may not be in the best ethical tradition to say, “I told you so,” but a question was raised a few weeks ago here as to whether the great problem of Christianity, and religion of all kinds, for that matter, is not one of ethics rather than ethology.)
But what are these kits like? Each contains five filmstrips, five long-playing records, and five discussion manuals. All the materials deal with practical ethical problems anyone is likely to run into. Pilot discussion groups are already operating in more than 20 states, and churches in 16 Protestant denominations report tremendous interest in the program.
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One of the earmarks of a teacher is his unceasing quest for truth through critical questioning of things with which he comes in contact. What brought this on was something of a chance remark of a teacher whom I know who, according to the implications of what he said, finds nothing in this world that needs improvement; his not to reason why under any circumstances. Well, there are at least two views of the role of the teacher. One is to go along on his own little groove (I almost said “rut”) seeking nothing but those things that pertain directly to his own little field; taking the position that his only proper role is to keep class during stipulated hours, and see no evil, speak no evil, and see no evil – or anything else, for that matter, aside from his own particular specialty.
The other view is that the teacher is an active citizen in his school community, interested in and trying to find out more about every facet of the school society of which he is a part, and, expressing his views wherever appropriate, for whatever they are worth on any subject that bears directly or indirectly to perceive and understand just what effect his own instructional activities have upon the total educational pattern, wherein what he does fits into, or fails to fit into, the summary picture.
Any person functioning in this latter conceived role, then, refuses to be shackled by tradition, to mouth phrases that mean little if anything simply because they are handed down by superiors or handed up by inferiors. He refuses to be smug or complacent, or to pretend to be wise in his little own conceit, but keeps active, flexible interest in the world about him. He is probably a restless soul, doubtless many times he rushes in where both fools and angels fear to tread. But where would we be without the radical Master of Galilee who was impatient of and unwilling to conform to the Judaism of his day? Where would this nation be without its Sam Adams, its Jefferson, its Carl Schurz, its Eugene Debs, and all the other illustrious once-termed radicals who found fault with the existing order of their day for the sole purpose of making it a better order?