Watching the World
Reaction to Cambodia Drive
◆ President Nixon announced on April 30 that the United States was sending combat troops into Cambodia. He called the step an extension of the war to save American lives. The purpose of the drive assertedly is to search out the supplies of the North Vietnamese and drive them from their sanctuaries. The initial world reaction to the move was one of shock. Newspaper editorials were mixed in viewpoint. Student reaction the world over was almost universally negative. Editors of eleven college newspapers in the United States urged a nationwide walkout to protest the action. In a letter to Nixon, the presidents of thirty-seven colleges and universities urged him to end promptly the military involvement in Southeast Asia. They said the American “invasion of Cambodia” generated “severe and widespread apprehensions on our campuses.” At Kent State University, Ohio, four students were killed and eight others wounded by National Guard gunfire during a protest. After the shootings, the university was ordered closed for an indefinite period.
Christian Love Shown
◆ The cold aftermath of war-devastated Eastern Nigeria felt the warmth of Christian love. Jehovah’s witnesses shipped eleven tons of much-needed Bible literature, clothing and food supplies to their Christian brothers in eleven cities in Iboland. These brothers of theirs were found to be in good spirits, determined to hold fast their devotion to God and to continue in their Christian ministry. The work of preaching God’s kingdom is being reorganized in that area, so that mourners can be helped to turn to the kingdom of God as mankind’s only hope.
‘Pushing the Panic Button’
◆ Many Catholic priests are dissatisfied with the way things are being handled by the Vatican. This was the message of priest Joseph H. Fichter, a sociologist on the faculty of Harvard University. He said: “The so-called ‘clergy crisis’ has brought the moment of truth at last to the hierarchy. Nothing else bothers them so much. Now the prelates are pushing the panic button. They are losing their constituents, their employes, their subjects. All of a sudden they realize that the sacred priesthood is no longer attractive enough as a lifelong profession to draw new recruits or to hold men who have already been ordained. This is a shocking revelation, especially for bishops who have been out of contact with their priests, who do not know, or who do not care to admit, why so many of their clergy are discontented.”
Apollo’s Hasty Return
◆ The hasty return of Apollo 13 from its mission to the moon highlighted man’s dependence on the earth. A short circuit in an oxygen tank caused an explosion that placed the lives of three American spacemen in serious danger. Immediately the question arose, Were there enough oxygen and water left on their crippled craft to permit them to make it back to earth? No matter how powerful the rockets that thrust men into space, they cannot escape the fact that planet Earth is their home.
Heroin Aplenty
◆ United Nations experts estimate that about 50 tons of heroin now reach the illicit drug market each year. That amounts to a minimum of 10,000,000,000 doses, enough for three each to every man, woman and child in the world.
“Earth Day” Woes
◆ The globe’s ecological woes were highlighted on April 22, which sponsors called “Earth Day.” Millions of earth’s inhabitants learned how polluted local rivers, air and land are. Although the United States has some 2,000,000,000 acres, most of the people are crowded into cities while much of the land lies sparsely populated. The next challenge, as a number of Earth Day orators noted, is to translate the new awareness of pollution into concrete steps toward environmental reform. That requires more than public demonstrations.
Ocean Floor Was Once Top
◆ Two Columbia University scientists, Dr. Bruce C. Heezen, professor of geology, and Paul J. Fox, a graduate student, stated that there is evidence to show that the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean was once virtually at the surface. They discovered coral-reef remnants in the Puerto Rico Trench at a depth of 27,500 feet. The surprising fact is that such coral grows only in water 50 feet or less in depth. When did the floor subside more than 20,000 feet? It could have happened during the adjustments that took place in connection with the deluge of Noah’s day.
Tax Exemption Upheld
◆ The United States Supreme Court, on May 4, ruled 7 to 1 that laws that exempt from taxation church property used solely for religious purposes do not violate the Constitution’s prohibition against state support of religion. The argument was that tax exemptions granted to church property raised private-property tax bills and forced property owners to contribute to religious groups against their will. It was argued that the result was an indirect state subsidy to churches, in violation of the First Amendment’s prohibition against any “establishment of religion” by the government. The Supreme Court rejected that argument.
Catholic-Episcopal Union
◆ The Roman Catholic Church and the Episcopal churches in the United States issued a report in which they stated that “organic union” of the two churches now appeared to be a realistic possibility. A spokesman for the group predicted that “within five to ten years at the very latest” the Episcopalians and Catholics would be participating in each other’s sacraments.
LSD and Birth Defects
◆ The results of a long-term study of parental use of LSD revealed that the drug “must be seriously considered as a possible mutagen”—an agent that produces genetic changes in cells. Dr. Cheston M. Berlin, principal investigator in the study, stated: “Although we cannot rush in and say we have unequivocal evidence at this time that LSD use causes birth defects, we are on firmer ground, more suspicious, than ever before.”
‘Betraying the Client’
◆ Few people need to be told that lawyers can be expensive. John Douglas Arnup, of the Law Society of Upper Canada for the past eighteen years, said that an increasing number of young lawyers are tarnishing the standards of the legal profession because of being money hungry. These men “want it quick and want it large—and aren’t too fussy how they get it,” he said. Like all laborers, said Arnup, lawyers deserve their hire. “But the lawyer who lets his fee stand in the way of single-minded duty to his client is betraying himself, his client and the whole profession.”
Carbon Monoxide—a Killer
◆ Two state policemen pulled off the road in their car. They backed into a snowbank, which clogged the exhaust pipe. As they watched the traffic with the motor running, exhaust filled their patrol car with carbon monoxide gas. The men were discovered by a State Police investigator. One officer was dead and the other seriously ill.
No One Writes the Language
◆ There is no written Somali language, although it has been spoken for centuries by some four million Somalis inhabiting the hot, arid horn of Africa. Somalia is one of the few countries in Africa where everyone speaks the same tongue, but no one reads or writes it. There are no publications in the national language. The three government newspapers are printed in Arabic, Italian and English.
Church Attendance Down
◆ Less than 1 percent of Protestant members regularly go to church in West Germany. About 30 percent of the Roman Catholics do so. The trend is pointed downward. Catholic bishops have condemned the church leavers for “infringing against the solidarity of the Church.” “We can’t accept this . . . when a Catholic makes such a declaration he is seriously offending against our community,” say the bishops. Evidently they see waning the tax dollar that church members in Germany are compelled to pay, and they are doing all in their power to retain the church tax, trying to forbid members to leave the church. But they are leaving anyway.
Man the Waster
◆ Experts estimate that each Canadian accounts for five pounds of garbage a day. The nation accounts for 100 million. “We are the most wasteful society in history,” says Dr. L. K. Wade, a biologist at Capilano College in British Columbia. “The sheer waste of billions of glass bottles is inexcusable.” Dr. Crawford Holling, director of the Resource Science Center at the University of British Columbia, would not predict when Canada will collapse if pollution and waste are not controlled, but he warns: “Whatever the period, it’s a short enough time that you have to be profoundly concerned over the future for man”
Prayer by Rote
◆ The disciple James, a half brother of Jesus Christ, said that prayers must be spoken in faith, “not doubting at all.” The apostle John added that it is the prayer of those ‘observing God’s commandments’ that is favorably heard. (Jas. 1:6; 1 John 3:22) With that in mind consider the prayer delivered in the Kansas House and Senate by Baptist minister H. Wayne Fink. Reportedly his prayer went something like this: “Well, God, here we are again—praying not because we want to nor really believing that you are listening to us. We pray, simply because of tradition, simply because that’s the way it’s always been done.” Pink asked that the legislators be blessed with “open minds, clear thinking and honest motives,” then concluded: “I’m not going to take any more of your time, God, because these men are anxious to get their trivial preliminary ritual out of the way. They want to get on with the important business and pressing duties of the day. So be it Lord.” Is a religion that moves a minister to pray like that pleasing to God?
Strip at the Church Social
◆ Down in the parish hall of St. John’s, in Clapham, London, the clergy were wowing the congregation with a striptease act. If they can show bare flesh on television, films and in the newspapers, why not in the church hall? The vicar, Tony Crowe, and his curate, William Mullenger, tossed away their clothes. All that remained were their clergy collars, ecclesiastical socks and a pair of swimming trunks. At Brentwood in Essex, some of the ladies of the St. Joseph the Worker Roman Catholic Church have also been getting in on the striptease act. “The only thing we haven’t gone in for,” one of them said, “is oscillation, or tassel-twirling, if you know what I mean.” Did not some people find such acts objectionable, being connected with the church? “Objectionable?” asked one stripper. “Not on your life. No one complains. You should see them out there when we’ve nearly stripped down. They all go wild, especially the old ones. The audience loves it. We love it.” So religious Babylon the Great continues to show what she really is as the time for God’s destruction of her nears.
Survival of Mankind
◆ The Canadian Magazine April 4, 1970, states that “beautiful Canada will be dead in 10 years, unless we start to save it today, unless we act now.” “Otherwise, by 1980, this beautiful country will reek with smog in place of sunshine and sewers in place of rivers and our days and nights will clamor with noise and the land will be rife with disease and violence. The Canadian Society of Zoologists says bluntly: ‘The very survival of mankind is at stake.’” U Thant of the United Nations said the deadline is some ten to fifteen years away, but Daniel Moynihan, special adviser on urban affairs for President Nixon, says man may have less than a fifty-fifty chance of surviving until 1980. Of course, all this leaves God out of account.