Word: churches
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...history at Leningrad Theological Academy, had already spent three weeks studying the World Council at its headquarters in Geneva, and a delegation of W.C.C. leaders will return the visit in Moscow next December. Said the World Council's General Secretary Willem Visser 't' Hooft: "The Russian Church is at the moment in the process of discovering the World Council. If all goes well, it will mean that our relations will develop with churches in Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Rumania and Poland...
...Department of Church and Society issued a 56-page report urging white Christians in rich countries to meet the challenge of social changes. Their responsibility is to help colored people in poor countries realize their aspirations...
...more and more U.S. churchgoers, that oldtime religion is losing its appeal. A trend toward more ritual and formality in church is on the rise, and it is now invading even the Bible Belt. Many a once plain Methodist church in Georgia, Alabama and other Southern states goes in for robed minister and choirs, stained-glass windows, sermons on theology and the life of Jesus rather than hellfire and repentance; a few even have acolytes. To some Southern Methodists, it is high time to make a stand against this creeping formalism. Said the Rev. Pierce Harris of Atlanta...
Bellwether of the opposition to gospel hymns is the Rev. Bliss Wiant, 64, for 28 years a missionary in China (where he was on the faculty of Yenching University in Peking), and now director of music for the Methodist Church. In his Nashville (Tenn.) office last week, he stated his case. "We have to combat Communism with Christianity, and we just can't do it with gospel hymns. They dope us and they dupe us. The gospel hymn is a Victorian development-sentimental and good for nothing. Its message is that everything is blessed and peaceful. That...
...Ladder. Churchmen bucking the new formalism argue that the trend is dangerous because it denies one of the prime reasons for going to church: the chance for the congregation to participate in the service. But to the Rev. Robert McKenzie Jr., who tours North Carolina as director of Methodist youth work, just the opposite is the case. Says he, arguing for more formality: "It involves people more readily in the service. In most informal Protestant services, the minister does most of it. Ritual gives all the people a chance to participate in prayers and responsive readings. But basically...