Contest Controversy

Three lawyers carefully studied the plan and found it "entirely within the law." Two theologians, five bishops and three religious superiors were consulted about it from the standpoint of morality and Christian ethics. Finally, with only one dissenting vote, the plan was approved by the 68-member board of the American Church Union, high church group in the Protestant Episcopal Church.

The plan was no blueprint for union of the churches, no design for history-making doctrinal upheaval, but a puzzle contest. Its purpose: to raise $100,000 for the A.C.U. by offering $50,000 in prize money to contributors who solve a series of rebus puzzles with terse clues. (Example: "He was a Union general in the Civil War. He made a famous ride.") So far, despite the precautions of the A.C.U., the contest has raised more fuss than funds.

Pulpit v. Pulps. Keith S. Sutton, a nationally known puzzle expert, set up the contest with the blessing of the Rev. Canon Albert J. duBois, general secretary of the A.C.U. The board's lone dissenter, the Rev. Charles H. Graf of Manhattan's St. John's Episcopal Church in the Village, objected to the puzzle initially because, he argued, contestants are encouraged by easy come-on puzzles until they reach "tiebreakers" that are "so prodigiously difficult that only experts can solve them."

Father Graf soon found more compelling reasons for opposing the contest. He discovered that the full-page ads announcing the contest over the A.C.U.'s name were being placed in romance magazines (Life Romances, Romance Confessions), comic books (Lovers, My Own Romance, Diary Confessions), confidential magazines and other pulps with sexy or lurid themes and pictures. Shocked, he resigned from the A.C.U., took to his pulpit to condemn the contest as "barely legal, hardly legitimate and highly unethical."

Circulation v. Implication. Magazines that have accepted the ads, said Father Graf, "will corrupt the minds of our youth." He called the puzzles "gyp lotteries," reminded the A.C.U. that the House of Bishops opposes bingo and other gambling. Furthermore, he implied, the whole business was unsound: "If less than $315,000 is grossed," he said, "then the A.C.U. will receive not one cent. How in conscience can a church organization take such a gamble with its reputation and its contributors' money?"

Pained, the A.C.U. retorted that it allowed ads to be placed in pulp magazines because their rates were cheaper, their circulations large and many of their readers puzzle fans. The contest, it insisted, was "moral, ethical, legal, legitimate and proper" and Father Graf had "by implication, smear and innuendo impugned the morals, ethics, motives and intelligence of the council [and] permitted numerous errors and distortions of fact . . . to cloud the issue."

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