Tidings

> By all accounts, a virtual pogrom is in progress against the 22,000 Jehovah's Witnesses in the African nation of Malawi. The Witnesses have been outlawed there since 1967 on the grounds that they are "dangerous to the government," but they have persisted as an underground church. Malawi President-for-life Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda, a staunch elder in Malawi's Presbyterian Church of Central Africa, has become increasingly angered by the "devil's Witnesses," their unwillingness to join his ruling Congress Party, their refusal to take loyalty oaths, and their exclusivist claims to religious truth. A Congress Party convention in September demanded that the Witnesses be expelled from their jobs and property, and since then party zealots have been carrying out the mandate with fervor. One company with 200 employees was shut down because it refused to fire a Witness who worked there. Huts have been burnt, and as many as 60 Witnesses may have been killed. Most of the Witnesses have fled to a calamitously overcrowded refugee camp across the border in Zambia, where an estimated 19,000 have been fighting among themselves for the meager water supply. As many as nine are dying daily, mostly children. Said a distressed Zambian official last week: "Only a change of heart by Dr. Banda can save them."

> Santa Claus came to town last week in Flushing, N.Y.--not a department-store imitation but the original St. Nicholas, who was a 4th century bishop in the Asia Minor city of Myra. Or at least a part of him came. Relics of the saint--fragments of his skull and a vial of oily substance said to have oozed from his skull--were formally enshrined in St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Flushing. A gift from the Roman Catholic Church to the Greek Orthodox, the relics were sent to New York from the cathedral in Bari, Italy, where other relics of the saint remain. Nicholas' bones had been brought to Bari in the 11th century after being stolen from Myra by Italian soldiers. Little is known about Nicholas. Legends of his good works include one that portrays him supplying dowries for three impoverished girls, thus saving them from careers as prostitutes. That tale, combined with local folklore, eventually produced the St. Nicholas of European tradition, who reputedly brought gifts to children on the eve of his Dec. 6 feast day. The custom was later transferred to Christmas in many countries.

> Last winter the small U.S. branch of the Roman Catholic Order of the Most Holy Trinity raised some eyebrows by soliciting religious vocations in a Playboy ad. Last week the Trinitarians took an ad in the Sunday New York Times to announce the returns from Playboy: more than 700 responses from college men, 30 of whom have already been accepted for training. Among them are black, white, Chicano and American Indian candidates. Nine respondents who had no church affiliation are now taking religious instructions. Others wrote asking for guidance in becoming ministers or rabbis. The Times ad appealed for contributions to finance further pitches "in the big ones like TIME and Newsweek."

> The last place one might expect to find stereotypes that foster anti-Semitism is in Sunday school. But according to a new study of teaching materials used by ten Protestant denominations and two publishing houses, texts and lesson plans "still tend to draw an unjustifiably negative picture of Jews and Judaism in dealing with such crucial issues as the Jewish religion, the Jews' rejection of Jesus as the Messiah [and] their role in the crucifixion." The study, published jointly by the National Conference of Christians and Jews and the American Jewish Committee, found the most extreme bias in such conservative denominations as the Church of the Nazarene and the Assemblies of God. One of the Assemblies' texts explains the persecution of Jews throughout history as "the price Jews paid for their rejection of Christ." Traces of bias were also found in such mainstream denominations as the United Methodist Church and the United Presbyterian Church. One United Methodist lesson, for example, perpetuates the notion that Judaism at the time of Christ was an ossified, spiritually bankrupt religion, whereas Christian scholarship now recognizes that Jewish institutions and intellectual life of that time were in fact dynamic.

> Three years ago, the National Council of Churches elected its first woman president, Episcopal Laywoman Cynthia Wedel. Last week in Dallas, the N.C.C. General Assembly chose as her successor its first black president: the Rev. W. Sterling Cary, 45. Cary is currently chief administrator of the 91 United Church of Christ congregations in metropolitan New York City. He brings to the titular office a broad ecumenical background: ordination by the National Baptist Convention, pastorates in an interdenominational church, a Presbyterian church, and a United Church of Christ congregation in Harlem. In a statement accompanying the news of his election, Cary complained about the slow progress of Black Power in the churches: "Empowerment today is limited to the placement of certain individuals in executive positions. That isn't empowerment."

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