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The Church In the World
By E.G Homrighausen

DEVELOPMENT: THE NEW ECUMENICAL EMPHASIS

The current preoccupation of the churches in ecumenical action, both national and international, is on development. What started at the Oxford Conference on Life and Work in 1937 has been slowly pushing itself to the fore in the Evanston Assembly of 1954 ("Rapid Social Change"), the Church and Society Conference of 1966, the Uppsala Assembly of 1968, and the recent five-day consultation of one hundred churchmen and economists from fifty countries who met in Montreaux early in 1970. To climax it all, the Executive Committee of the World Council of Churches established a Commission on the Churches' Participation in Development, and urged its two hundred and thirty-nine member-churches to contribute not less than two percent of their total annual income for developmental programs and projects around the world.

Churchmen have come to sense that most countries in the Third World face the old problems of deep-rooted poverty and technological backwardness. They also realize that these countries are ready for economic and social advance. But they also understand that this aspect of the church's mission will bring about a confrontation between the forces of the status quo and the forces of change and modernization. At the end of 1969, sums totaling over eighty million dollars for projects at home and abroad had been pledged by churches in Europe and North America. Member churches of the Council will now consider the re-deployment of their investments and property holdings, a process which is already in progress in many churches.

The programs and projects center in social justice, self-reliance, and economic growth. The Commission will coordinate all efforts of the World Council in this field, stimulate new initiatives, and provide support for programs and projects stressing justice and

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human dignity. The Commission will study the churches' role in the development and relate its work to other agencies of the churches and of specialized efforts of the United Nations. It will mobilize funds, be a catalyst for multi-lateral planning and action, and provide education and information on development, especially in the affluent world. The so-called developed industrial nations need to be made aware of their "under-developed, self-centered attitudes" and their spiritual, social, and psychological relationships to the development debate.

This is perhaps one of the most significant actions taken by the ecumenical movement. Dr. Eugene C. Blake stated that he thought the motivation for this ambitious development program came from "the vision of one human family." He also stated that the churches have learned how to apply morality at the neighborhood level, but "we have not learned how to be Christian on a world scale. Development depends on the world community. The program aims at getting the Christian church to serve the world."

Though this is a world program, stress will be placed upon the use of local technical advice and the stimulation of local leadership. Emphasis will also be placed upon local decision-making and self-reliance. There will be concentration on small projects to be undertaken at short notice, creating small enterprises to be taken over locally, helping the "casualties of development," including school-leavers and victims of the new urban miseries. That such a program involves the use of power in its many forms is quite evident. Further, changes in the structures of undeveloped countries can hardly be made without changes in the structures of developed countries. The problem of poverty is integrally related to international commercial policies.

Dr. Blake is quite right in maintaining that this program involves a radical new understanding and commitment by the churches in the ecumenical movement. It means not only giving money, but a change of mind regarding the meaning of stewardship, the priorities of the churches, the understanding of what it means to press for changes in unjust structures in national and international affairs, and above all the implications and involvements of Christian discipleship in an ecumenical age. Will or can the churches rise to meet this challenge?

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AN OLD CHURCH IN A NEW ORDER

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church, founded in A.D. 870, is the oldest Orthodox Church in Europe. This year it is celebrating its 1100th anniversary. It has survived many an invasion, including nearly five centuries of Moslem occupation. Elevated into a Patriarchate in the tenth century, later brought under the Patriarchate of Constantinople, reconstituted as the Bulgarian Exarchate in 1870, it regained the status of Patriarchate in 1953.

Six of the eight and a half million Bulgarians are members of the Orthodox Church. They worship in 3,200 churches and 500 chapels (places where services are held on the feast day of the patron saint), and are served by 2,000 priests. There are 400 monks and nuns; the most celebrated historic monastery is located at Rila, south of Sofia.

To be sure, there are other churches and religious groups in Bulgaria: 50,000 Western Rite Catholics; 10,000 Uniats of the Eastern Rite; 3,500 Adventists; 1,500 Methodists, 5,000 Congregationalists; 22,000 Armeno-Gregorians; 6,000 Pentecosals; 1,000 Baptists; 6,000 Jews; and 650,000 Muslims (who a-re Bulgarians converted to Islam during the Turkish regime). Most of the Protestant groups came into being during the nineteenth century through the work of American missionaries coming via Constantinople. These Protestant groups were under suspicion in 1944, but today they have religious freedom according to Article 78 of the Constitution, which guarantees "liberty of conscience, confession, and religious worship." Although they are eligible for a financial grant from the state, they prefer to support themselves independently.

The Orthodox Church is the people's church. It is well-organized into eleven dioceses, each presided over by a Metropolitan. Its Patriarch is elected by the People's Ecclesiastical Council. Its principal ruling bodies are the Holy Synod, consisting of Patriarch and Metropolitans, the People's Ecclesiastical Council, and the Senior Ecclesiastical Council, which includes laity and clergy. There is a twelfth diocese for Bulgarian Orthodox in the United States, Latin America, Canada, and Australia. The number of students preparing for the priesthood is growing; two hundred are now enrolled at the theological college or secondary school, and one hundred and forty-five at the academy or university level.

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The church became separated from the state when the new socialist order arose in 1944. The Constitution not only guarantees religious communities the right to "self-organization and self-administration" and "liberty of conscience, confession, and religious worship," but it also makes liable to punishment anyone who "forcibly or by threat hinders the citizens of the recognized confessions from freely practicing their faith and carrying out their rites and religious services." The Constitution also warns that imprisonment and fines may be imposed upon anyone who, on religious grounds, preaches hate by word, deed, or press. And it forbids the abuse of religion and the church for political ends, and the formation of a political party with a religious basis. The church is free to build houses of worship or prayer and religious schools. When required, the state may grant financial aid to the various confessions. The Orthodox Church receives an annual grant from the state, which is about one-sixth to one-eighth of its total budget.

This rather favorable relation of church and state in Bulgaria is due to many causes. Historically, the church has been the center of education, literature, and culture, according to Dr. T. Sabev (one of its distinguished theological leaders, who is a member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches). He also maintains that the church has rallied and defended the people against internal and external enemies; it has served as the guardian of the national conscience, and of spiritual and cultural values through many invasions and the Moslem occupation; it has been active in restoring the Bulgarian nation in its struggle for religious and political independence; it has also been close to the people. Georgiu Dimitrov, a leader of the Communist movement and former head of the government, once said, "As a Bulgarian I feel proud of the Bulgarian Church . . . [as the] guardian and protector of the Bulgarian national spirit throughout centuries of bitter trial." To all this must be added the intellectual, spiritual, and cultural stature of the Patriarch Cyril, who has been decorated on many occasions.

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church is free to preach, teach the catechism, conduct Christian education through lectures and discussions on church premises. It publishes several periodicals. It also owns property including farms, churches, schools, factories, old people's homes, an architectural and building organization, and its administrative premises. A new translation of the Bible into Bul-

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garian is in progress as an ecumenical venture. The church may engage in youth work with those who come to church. While the educational work of the nation is the province of the state' only in the philosophical faculty of the university is official Marxism taught with any degree of fervor. Churchmen know they live and work in a socialist order, and as a result church work takes on a definite character.

The Bulgarian Church has faced the same situation which other churches in socialistic societies confronted. Several courses of action were open to them: (1) restoration or an attempt to restore the past; (2) conformism or adaptation to the idealism of the new social order; (3) resistance or opposition to the new order; (4) ghettoism or separation from society and the problems of the people; (5) toleration or indifference towards the new order. All of these alternatives were regarded as temptations. Instead, the churches have chosen the way of diaconia. This is not a cheap pragmatism, an easy charity, or a surrender of the prophetic proclamation of God's Law and Gospel. Nor is it living an innocuous ethical existence which avoids conflict. The way of diaconia is a style of life in "the form of a servant." It is the proclamation of the Good News of God's free grace. It is the way of a new obedience in and to a new orientation. It is a witness not so much of judgment as of God's positive way of leading people to life. It is the ministry of mission in a socialist society that seeks to convert man to a life for others, and to perform this mission not from the outside but from the inside of the massa perditionis, that is, standing within life, partaking of the everyday life of people, of their needs and joys.

THE GENERAL EDUCATION OF CHRISTIANS

There is a widespread debate regarding the crisis in general education. This discussion deals not only with the need for larger facilities, better programs, and more competent teachers, but with the meaning of education itself. It is accentuated by the fact that this period is characterized by a world-wide awakening of mankind to the importance of education. Serious concern is expressed about the adequacy and effectiveness of public education to produce individuals with a measure of self-identity and social responsibility.

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Dr. Philip H. Phenix of Columbia University writes in Religious Education that "modern man is in search of a faith. He is eagerly, even desperately seeking for honest and dependable answers to questions about the meaning of life. He perceives the need for reliable foundations upon which to effect a secure yet creative civilization."

As far back as 1932, the Department of Superintendents of the National Educational Association published its Yearbook, Character Education, and asked how "knowledge and human purpose could be integrated, how the findings of science, the social revolution, and the spiritual values of great leaders could be brought together." Since then other publications and statements of educational leaders have sought ways by which "spiritual and moral values" could be incorporated into public education while safeguarding the separation of church and state, respecting religious differences, and avoiding sectarian indoctrination. In short, the crisis public education reflects the crisis in personal life and society which is creating a favorable attitude towards the inclusion of the religious dimension in education.

To be sure, this crisis is also felt in the churches. There is a widespread dissatisfaction with the Christian education of the Sunday and other church schools. Curriculum materials are in a constant state of revision. Much of the education carried on by churches is regarded as ineffective, and rather unrelated to the education their children and youth receive in the public schools. This critical attitude is shared by Roman Catholics who are concerned about the cost of and rationale for parochial schools, their quality, and their separation from general education.

In the United States at least five rulings have been made by the Supreme Court from 1947 to 1963 regarding religion in public schools. They deal with the granting of public funds to transport pupils to parochial schools, the use of classrooms for religious classes, the use of released time to receive religious instruction in religious centers outside school buildings, the use of a standard prayer for regular daily recitation in classrooms of public schools, and the reading of verses of the Bible before classes each morning. The Court ruled against all acts of worship in the schools, but it encouraged the "objective teaching about religion." In fact, Mr. justice Brennan wrote that "it would be impossible to teach meaningfully many subjects in the social sciences or the humanities without some mention of religion." This interpretation has led to many experiments

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to include religion in the teaching of history, art, drama, music, the social sciences, and literature, and the direct teaching of selections from the Bible, the Koran, and other religious sources.

The Department of Education Development of the National Council of Churches has conducted workshops in the teaching of religion in the schools, and carried on conversations with the members of departments of religion in colleges and universities on the training of teachers for such teaching. It has gathered reports on conferences and consultations on the subject, compiled a list of materials being used in such teaching, and developed the use of mass media and the press for the dissemination of the ideas, issues, and programs to inform the public.

A number of courses in religion in scores of schools are now being conducted. Such offerings bear various titles: Types of Biblical Literature, Religious Literature of the West, The Bible as Literature, Hebrew Literature, Biblical Literature, The History of World Religions, Religion in Culture, Biblical History and Literature, Man's Religious Experience, Comparative Religious Forum, to mention a few. In these programs, religion is incorporated into history courses, studied as a force in community life, or related to literary classics.

The Religious Instruction Association of Ft. Wayne, Indiana, has been a pioneer in this field. The University of Nebraska has developed a twelve year program in religious teaching. Its reading list includes the King James Bible and several literary classics with a religious thrust, such as Paradise Lost and The Scarlet Letter. Another course is centered in Newton, Massachusetts, where Thayer Warshaw, an English teacher in the eleventh grade, uses the King James Version to explain the biblical implications of Moby Dick, The Old Man and the Sea, and The Pearl. Many state departments of education are at work introducing the religious element into the regular curriculum. Perhaps the state most advanced in this matter is Pennsylvania which authorized through its legislature the development of courses in the literature of the Bible and other religious writings. This includes the Bible, the Apocryphal writings, the Rabbinic writings, and the Koran. Tested in 1967-1968, this elective course was given in 31 high schools, then expanded in 19681969 to 44 schools with 1,300 students. When materials are available, it will be offered to all public schools in the state.

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Some have criticized these programs for their superficiality. Others have called attention to the difficulty of training teachers who can teach such a course "objectively" and competently. Parental responses have sometimes been negative. The strongest criticisms have come from Christians who are dissatisfied with the "neutral" way in which the Bible is taught as mere literature. Objective teaching of the Bible or about religion, they maintain, leads to no commitment; indeed, it may give students the impression that the Bible has no authority. Criticisms are also directed at the "antisupernaturalism" of the syllabus, its documentary interpretation of the Old Testament, and its use of myth in teaching the Bible. These critics regard the theological position of the course as sectarian, and claim that while Bible reading has been banned by the Court, "objective" Bible study in this course is anything but objective.

All of this leads to the larger issue involved relating religion to public education. The World Council of Churches has become concerned about general education, and is planning its first consultation next May on the crisis in education. It is asking the leaders in church and public education to become concerned about the religious dimensions of the nature, vocation, and destiny of man. Churches are asked to become concerned not only about the Christian education of their people, but about the full education of Christians in public schools. Since public education has become more pervasive and powerful in the life-long education of man, it may not be enough simply to improve the Christian education now done by the churches, nor to add "objective" courses on religion or the religious implications of educational subjects to the present curriculum. Christians, whose children and youth are educated in public schools, should insist that public educators take more seriously the full dimensions and responsibilities involved in educating persons in 1970, which is International Education Year.

THE LOCAL CHURCH-DEATH AND RESURRECTION

A few years ago many ministers, and laymen too, thought the local church was finished. Some deserted what they regarded as a sinking ship. Even in high circles of ecumenical leadership, it

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was stated that the structures of the local congregation formed in a rural culture could not possibly survive in a mobile urbanized society. Many were the criticisms leveled at the congregation. Ministers were primarily dispensing a private Christianity. The local church was not involved in the great social issues of the time. It was far more concerned about getting people to come to church than getting them to go into all the world. It was related too obediently to denominational programs in a day of ecumenical fluidity. Worship lacked authenticity because it was unrelated to the common life. The laity assisted the clergy rather than the reverse. Instead of being lively centers of theological reflection, local churches were shaped by the culture around them until they had become social clubs.

Who will dispute the truth in this catalogue of criticisms against the local church? However, ministers and people all across the churches are engaged in critical and creative discussion about themselves. The local church has proven to be a tough sociological institution that does not die easily. Critics did not take sufficiently into consideration the power of the local church to renew and change itself. New attitudes have produced new forms of ministry, of ecumenical relations, of worship, of education, and of social action.

Perhaps one of the finest statements about the local church was made by the late Dr. Truman B. Douglass. He disputed the prevalent notion that modern man is highly fragmented by living and working in different places. He maintained that one of the most notable facts about man is the persistence of his personal identity, even though he plays many roles in different situations. Man is more than the sum of his parts; he is "man as man." In this role as man, he wants to be taken seriously. Where shall he go to find himself taken seriously but in a local congregation of Christian people? In spite of the fact that man as a creature always lives in crisis, the local church is the place where his major crises (marriage, parenthood, life-affirmation, death) may be met in faith and fellowship; here he can become empowered to face the daily crises of existence.

The local church is still the most likely place where man can meet the living word of God and engage under trained leadership in reflection upon the meaning of that word. Even though every man must meet the word for himself, and even though the word may be distorted by its media, the word is mightier than any min-

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aster's power to forward or frustrate this event of meeting. The local church is also the most likely place for the individual to experience the corporate character of the Christian life. There are no solitary Christians. The local church brings generalized and unfocused love into human relations. Christ has not only given himself to man, but he has given him fellow-individuals in the bond of faith, hope, and love. The local church is still the best place for the church to make its sorties into the surrounding kingdoms of this world and claim them for the kingdom of Christ. It is located where concrete human needs are found, and where they can be met not by high-sounding pronouncements but by concrete relationships. The church is local in a profound sense, wrote Dr. Douglass. But, he implored, let it be radically and uncompromisingly a local parish.

Perhaps we are experiencing a rediscovery or a redefinition of the local church. It may combine that which is radically local with that which is radically ecumenical. It may break down the current unhealthy polarity between localism and ecumenism. The ecumenical enthusiasts are finding themselves cut off from the local churches, and the localists are discovering that to be truly local the congregation must be a colony of the whole church universal. The local is not only incomplete in itself, but it is not strong enough to deal effectively with collectives and mass movements and corporate injustice. But the ecumenical is also incomplete in itself. It may lack the concrete reality of incarnational Christianity, without which it not only becomes abstract, but finds itself cut off from the support and context necessary to plan or even to survive.

AND NOW-WOMAN POWER

The fiftieth anniversary of women's suffrage in the United States will be celebrated on August 26, 1970. It will be designated a "national day of protest" by the National Organization for Women, which is regarded as one of the oldest and largest protest groups in the nation. How effective the protest will be in a "man's world" remains to be seen. In any case, we are witnessing a "women's liberation movement." It is organizing city groups, publishing its objectives, picketing educational and industrial institutions, and threatening lawsuits aimed to expose discrimination against women.

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However, the feminist movement is not united by any means. It has been said that the "conservatives go in for leaflets and lawsuits; the radicals denounce marriage and burn their bras."

The motivation for this protest is subtle and varied. It ranges from the old hostility between the sexes to a desire to crash men's colleges and clubs. Some of this protest centers in economics. Surveys show that in 1968 women on the average earned only $58.20 in comparison to $100.00 per man. A large proportion of the thirty-one million working women in the United States are employed as clerical, service, and sales workers and as domestic servants, but not in better-paying jobs. Newspaper advertisements still run separate columns for male and female employment. According to government findings, even a higher education and more training does not bring the woman's salary up to that of a man. Most companies recruit employees on co-ed or all-male campuses, but not on women's campuses. Women are the first to be unemployed, although this fact must be seen in the light of the large number of women who enter the work force after rearing their families and who may lack experience.

The Women's Equity Action League with membership in thirty states includes lawyers and judges concerned about the small numbers of women in the professions. Only one percent of the federal judges and engineers are women, three percent of the lawyers, seven percent of the physicians, and nine percent of the scientists. The League is raising many questions about discrimination against women: in college admissions, scholarship grants, faculty appointments, promotion of women professors, salary differentials. This protest of women is also aimed at politics, religion, education, and current myths about women. For instance, it is no longer true that women stop working when they marry. Nor is it true that married women with children quit work: sixty percent of the women who work have husbands at home, and fifty percent have children under eighteen years of age.

This protest has convinced the United States Senate to hold hearings on a possible amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing equal rights for women. A national report on women's rights is about to be released which is disturbingly forceful. Women are demanding the passage of relaxed abortion laws. They are demanding more places in such male universities as Princeton and Yale.

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At the recent Assembly of the National Council of Churches in Detroit, a prominent woman made a passionate plea for a larger place for women in the life and government of the churches. She was supported by a group of demonstrators. The election of Cynthia Wedel as President of the Council was in some measure due to the pressure of women's rights in the voting delegates.

The various churches differ in the place they give to women in their life and work. Older and more traditional churches have reserved their highest offices for men, but they have made provision for women in orders and lesser forms of service. The more democratic churches have opened up the ministry and other offices to women. Most of the churches have vast separate women's organizations which engage in study, worship, and services of various kinds. What would these churches do were it not for the devotion and work of faithful serving women?

As far back as 1948, the World Council of Churches was concerned about the life and work of women in the church. Many studies have been made on the subject, among them Kathleen Bliss's excellent volume, The Service and Status of Women in the Churches. There have been a few great women associated with the life of the Council, including Miss M. Barot, Dr. Olive Wyon, Dr. Georgia Harkness, Dr. S. de Dietrich, Barbara Ward (Lady Jackson), and others. But the number is small. The studies have inspired discussion and action around the world, particularly in the younger churches. Certain significant literature has also sparked this concern, namely, Margaret Mead's Male and Female, Simeone de Beauvoir's Le Deuxieme Sexe, and especially Barth's exegesis of the creation story in his Dogmatics, to mention only a few.

What effect this surge of "woman power" will have upon the churches so largely controlled by men is a question. What has been done thus far officially is little more than a token policy. Now that a women's Ecumenical Liaison Group has been formed, sponsored by the World Council of Churches and the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity of the Roman Catholic Church, to study women's work in the church and world, an impetus has been given to explore many problems in this area. But the churches have a long way to go if they are to take seriously the female reality which women represent in the enterprise God has released through Jesus Christ for the humanization of man and woman!