Words & Works

P: Meeting in St. Paul, delegates to the 96th annual synod of the Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church (membership: 516,968, fifth largest of the 18 Lutheran bodies in the U.S.) pondered the current shortage of pastors (857 available for 1,211 congregations), protested that "political expediency" in Washington has held up operation of the 1953 Refugee Relief Act, re-elected the Rev. Dr. Oscar A. Benson of Minneapolis for his second four-year term as president. Hottest issue of the convention was a proposal made by the United Lutheran Church in America (membership: 2,061,004) that Augustana join with U.L.C.A. in inviting "all Lutheran Church bodies to participate in merger discussions looking toward organic union." The synod voted overwhelmingly to accept.

P: California's Attorney General Edmund G. Brown ruled that the Bible may be read in the state's public schools. But, said Brown, it may be read only as literature or history. Prayers, he ruled in another opinion, may not be said in the public schools. The Constitution's position on religion, declared Brown, stems "not from opposition to religion but from respect for it and for the right of each person to determine for himself his fundamental faith."

P: Three months after Billy Graham packed Madison Square Garden in a one-night stand, the board of directors of Manhattan's Protestant Council voted to invite Billy to hold a first full-scale "crusade" in New York City in September 1956. Graham, in Switzerland to conduct crusades in Zurich and Geneva last week, told newsmen that he would wait until the invitation arrived before accepting or rejecting it.

P: After three years, two months and 13 days of publishing the New Testament in daily installments (about 100 words), the Akron Beacon Journal set to work on the Old Testament. Estimated running time for the completed Bible: some 15 years.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.