Bibles in Norway.—The “Quisling” government of Norway says The Evangelical Christian (Toronto), last June, 1942, that the printing of Bibles in that unhappy country must cease, following up Reichscommissar Terboven’s order prohibiting further sale of paper to the Norwegian Bible Society. This discouraging announcement was in the nature of an offset
to the glowing reports of the 125th anniversary meeting of the Norwegian Bible Society, which revealed an unprecedented distribution for 1941. Up to November 3rd the sale had passed 90,000, and confirmation time and Christmas were expected to carry it well beyond the 100,000 mark. This is a record figure for a population of less than 3,000,000 where every household already has its Bible, if not several, as a matter of course. It is also a record figure in the sense that never before have the Norwegians bought Bibles on such a scale. This unprecedented distribution will help to tide them over till peace returns, and the Society may resume its operation. On October 16th, London reported that the “Quisling” regime had confined more than 1,100 clergymen of the official Norwegian Church to their residences, and replaced members of parish councils with “Quisling” followers. This, London said, was the boldest attempt to date to take over all church property.
The Jesuits.—It is appallingly significant says The Dawn that a Jesuit “Father,” Dr. D’Arcy, gave an address a few weeks ago in Winchester Cathedral. On July, 21st, 1773, Pope Clement XIV., exterminated the Jesuit Order thus:—”Inspired as we trust, by the divine Spirit; convinced that the Society of Jesus can no longer effect those purposes for which it was founded; and moved by other reasons of prudence and State policy, which we retain concealed in our breast, we do extirpate and abolish the Society of Jesus, its offices, houses, and institutions.” The Order is now the largest and most powerful in the Roman Church.
The Prime Minister at Requiem Mass.—Rome made the most of the Polish General Sikorski’s funeral. The greater part of the nave of Westminster Cathedral was filled with Cabinet ministers, diplomats, etc. Among these was Mr. Churchill. The Roman Catholic Universe has the following paragraph:—
“First they, i.e. the pressmen, noted that Mr. and Mrs. Churchill knelt for some moments, before taking their seats; then at the end of the Mass they both took away with them their copies of the little black Requiem Mass booklets provided for the more distinguished mourners. Mr. Churchill followed the greater part of the Mass with his copy open and keeping a close watch also on the movements in the sanctuary. He knelt, stood, and sat at all the appropriate times.” It is most regrettable that any Protestant should pay this tribute to the Mass. Surely courtesy to the dead did not require attendance at a requiem mass. We live in days when it is forgotten that the “sacrifices of masses” according to the Thirty Nine Articles of the Church of England “were blasphemous fables, and dangerous deceits.” This pandering to the blasphemous doctrine of the mass even in form by the Chief Minister of the Crown shows how far England has drifted.
Most of Cabinet Present at Requiem Mass.—Most of the senior members of the British Government were present at the Requiem Mass to General Sikorski, the Polish Commander in Chief and Prime Minister; Mr. Eden, Sir John Anderson, Mr. Bevin, Mr. Alexander, Sir Kingsley Wood, Lord Woolton, Viscount Cranborne, Lord Portal, Sir Andrew Duncan, Mr. R. G. Casey, Capt. Crookshank, Mr. Dalton; and the heads of the Fighting Services: Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, General Sir Alan Brooke, Air Chief
Marshal Sir Charles Portal, and with them Field Marshall Sir A. Wavell, Viceroy-designate of India. Only one of the United Nations, it appeared, was not represented by its Ambassador or Minister and with the foreign Ambassadors were the British envoys accredited to the exiled Governments. A third of the nave was filled with members of Governments, diplomats and high officers, and almost all the remainder of the seats were occupied by other officers. This report is taken from a Roman Catholic paper and we assume it is correct coming from such a source. It looks very like that Revelation, xiii. 3, is being literally fulfilled before our eyes.
English Methodists Make a Gesture to the World.—At one time the Methodists set their faces against countenancing dancing by their members. But that is years ago. Now, when the world is torn by a devastating war the Methodist Conference at its meeting held at Birmingham recommended that while no public dances, whist drives, or similar public entertainments should take place on Methodist trust premises or in connection with their work, dancing or games of cards forming an incidental or subsidiary item in the programme of an organisation meeting on Church premises should not necessarily be excluded, provided that the sanction of a joint meeting of the trustees and leaders had been obtained. Dr. Scott Lidgett, aged 89, came forward to speak in support of this recommendation. They might be sure, he said, that the liberty would not be abused. Wisdom does not always accompany age. The above recommendation is the thin edge of the wedge and the World will make sure that having got this opening it will ask for more.
Spurgeon’s Tabernacle.—This well-known place of worship has returned to the Baptist Union which has gone much further on the downgrade than in Spurgeon’s day. Mr. Graham Seroggie and his Deacons carried through the negotiations. The tide is flowing strongly in the wrong direction.
The Bombing of Rome.—What was threatened has been carried out. Let none of our readers think we delight in this dreadful instrument of modern warfare but we cannot help asking with the English Churchman how is it, if Rome was all that our military chiefs knew it to be and which we are now told it was, that its bombing was so long delayed when military preparations for the destruction of our soldiers and airmen were going on with feverish activity. That is a question to which no satisfactory answer has yet been given. Again it may be asked, are the monuments, etc. of Rome and the lives of the Italian people more important and precious than are the monuments and people in Great Britain which our enemies have so ruthlessly destroyed? After all why should so many idle tears be shed over ancient pagan or even Christian monuments. Not one of these ruins says Dr. Barron pertinently in the Inverness Courier (20th July) is worth the life of a single British or American airman. While deploring the use of this dread instrument of modern war why should Rome be singled out as a city for which a special reserve of tears should be kept.
The Pope’s Letter on the Bombing of Rome.—The letter of the Pope on the bombing of Rome, says a London Daily, is calculated to create a
false impression. We feel it our duty, therefore, to protest against it. The extraordinary document which the Pope has thought fit to publish to the world casts a stigma on the Allied Nations, and especially upon the Americans, whose Air Force carried out the operation. The inevitable conclusion to be drawn from the Pope’s letter is that one side in this struggle, namely, the United Nations, has done something which it ought not to have done; something upon which “future generations will pass severe judgment.” This charge constitutes a strange departure from the neutrality which the Vatican has hitherto outwardly preserved, for if the Allied action in bombing Rome is a matter for condemnation, either now or in the future, it follows, on the face of it, that the bombing of any other belligerent towns ought to come into the same category. Air bombardment, either indiscriminate or otherwise, is no new thing. It was tried out by our enemies long before the present war. The helpless natives of Abyssinia were treated to some cruel examples of Mussolini’s air terror, and the Luftwaffe had its baptismal experience of bombing civilians on a large scale at Guernica in the Spanish Civil War. Did the Pope protest? There followed Warsaw, Rotterdam, Belgrade, London, Coventry, Canterbury, and numerous other places. Yet the Vatican did not issue any condemnation, except in the vaguest terms. The War Damage Commission according to Mr. Herbert Morrison, Home Secretary, have received notification of damage by enemy bombing of 13,895 Ecclesiastical buildings in Great Britain including Roman Catholic convents and Monasteries.
Modernism Advancing.—The Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., says the Irish Evangelical, at its Assembly in Detroit elected Dr. H. Sloane Coffin, outstanding Modernist, by a huge majority as its Moderator. Dr. Coffin has been president of the notoriously Modernist Union Theological Seminary, New York, since 1926. In 1892 that Seminary severed its relations with the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. because the General Assembly declined to approve the appointment of Dr. Charles A. Briggs as its Professor of Biblical Theology on account of the rank heresy of his views. The General Assembly thereupon disavowed all responsibility for the Seminary’s teaching and prohibited its Board of Education extending aid to any student of the institution. Now the president of the Seminary is the man the Assembly delights to honour. Dr. Coffin is not only a signer of the Auburn Affirmation, but one of its sponsors and promoters. This document makes the bodily resurrection of Christ, His substitutionary atonement and virgin birth to be matters of slight importance, to say the least. The more orthodox section in the Northern Presbyterian Church have been no more successful in stemming the tide by remaining within than when the same experiment was tried in Scotland.
Unrepentant.—From the following paragraph in the B.B.C. Year Book it would appear that all the protests made against Miss Sayers play, The Man born to be King, had very little effect on those responsible for its broad-casting. Here is the paragraph:—”The greatest venture of British religious broadcasting, in 1942 or perhaps in any previous year, was the broadcasting of the series of twelve plays on the life of our Lord by Dorothy L. Sayers called The Man born to be King. In attempting to do for radio what Oberammergau has done for the visible stage,
Miss Sayers had no precedents to help her, four different source books (the Gospels), and a large body of Christian listeners who were bound to regard the experiment with trepidation. When the venture started there were many critics and some organised opposition, and the Corporation was in duty bound to consider these fears carefully and sympathetically; however, after receiving the unanimous advice of the Central Religious Advisory Committee (which represents all the main Christian confessions and all the broadcasting Regions), the Corporation reaffirmed its decision to broadcast the plays.
In this series of twelve plays having for their subject the greatest of all dramatic themes, we have not only a major achievement of radio but also a religious experience in sound which in a remarkable way broke down the convention of unreality surrounding our Lord’s person, and made His life, words, and significance live in a new way for listeners.” The B.B.C. is not only unrepentant but glories in its shame. We may rest assured that its “success” will be repeated by the broadcasting of similar plays.