A Friend of the Devil: Inside a famous Cold War deception

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Re: A Friend of the Devil: Inside a famous Cold War deceptio

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Letter to Allen W. Dulles, Director Central Intelligence Agency, from Samuel McCrea Cavert, The United States Conference for the WORLD COUNCIL of CHURCHES
December 2, 1957
Letter from Allen W. Dulles, Director Central Intelligence Agency, to Samuel McCrea Cavert, The United States Conference for the WORLD COUNCIL of CHURCHES
3 January 1958

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Approved for Release 2002/03/29: CIA-RDP80B01676R0038000300092-9

3 January 1958

Dr. Samuel McCrea Cavert
Executive Secretary in the United States
World Council of Churches
156 Fifth Avenue
New York 10, New York

Dear Dr. Cavert:

I have your letter of 2 December 1957, and wish to add my word to the many you are receiving in appreciation for the constructive contribution you have made in your years of active service in the World Council of Churches.

I know your successor well, and shall be glad to be of any possible assistance to him.

Faithfully yours,

Allen W. Dulles

AWD/ji

***

The United States Conference for the WORLD COUNCIL of CHURCHES
156 Fifth Avenue, New York 10, N.Y.
Tel. WAtkins 4-8551 – Cable Address: WORCIL

December 2, 1957

Mr. Allen W. Dulles
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D.C.

Dear Mr. Dulles:

As I retire from active service in the World Council of Churches at the end of this month, I find myself thinking gratefully of you and the other friends who year after year have given their loyal support in prayer and thought and money. Looking back over the forty years during which I have been associated with the movement for a greater Christian unity, I am grateful to God for the encouraging developments that have taken place both in this country and around the world. As I look ahead I have no doubt that the coming years will see a much greater advance toward a truly united Church. On the human side, it is such help as faithful friends like yourself have given that has made all this possible.

During these last weeks in which I shall have any official responsibility for the finances of the U.S. Conference for the World Council, I am especially anxious that we should come to December 31st with a balanced budget. I therefore hope that you will want to renew your usual contribution toward the Council’s work in this country.

For my successor, Rev. Dr. Roswell P. Barnes, who will become the Executive Secretary in the U.S.A. on January 1st, I can wish nothing happier and better than that he should have the same kind of friendly interest and support which you have shown during my years of service.

Faithfully yours,

Samuel McCrea Cavert
Executive Secretary in the United States

Officers and Staff

Rt. Rev. Henry Knox Sherrill, D.D., Chairman
Rev. Franklin Clark Fry, D.D., Vice Chairman
Rev. Samuel McCrea Cavert, D.D., Executive Secretary
Mr. W. Rodman Parvin (Vice President, Guaranty Trust Company), Treasurer
Miss Eleanor Kent Browne, Secretary for Administration and Assistant Treasurer
Miss Betty Thompson, Secretary for Public Relatinos
Miss Antonia H. Froendt, Secretary for Promotion

Staff Consultants

Rev. Philip Potter, Secretary of the Youth Department in North America

Rev. O. Frederick Nolde, D.D., Director of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs

Rev. Richard M. Fagley, D.D., Executive Secretary of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs

Friends of the World Council of Churches, Inc.

Mr. Charles P. Taft, Chairman
Rev. Henry Smith Leiper, D.D., Secretary
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Re: A Friend of the Devil: Inside a famous Cold War deceptio

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The Gospel According to Whom?: A Look at the National and World Councils of Churches
by 60 Minutes
January 23, 1983 7:00 PM

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Approved For Release 2007/05/21 : CIA-RDP88-01070R000100540010-5

"RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 656-4068

FOR: PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF

PROGRAM: 60 Minutes

STATION: WDVM TV, CBS Network

DATE: January 23, 1983 7:00 PM

CITY: Washington, DC

SUBJECT: National and World Councils of Churches

MORLEY SAFER: Religion, money, revolutionary politics. There is no more explosive mixture. Our report, "The Gospel According to Whom," has equal measures of all three. It is a look at the National Council and World Council of Churches. Long before this report was completed, it was condemned from the pulpit, and the National Council suggested we'd succumbed to pressure from the religious right.

The National Council is an association of the major American Protestant denominations: the Episcopal Church, the United Methodists, United Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, 32 in all. Most of those churches are also members of the World Council of Churches. Each week American Protestants who belong to those churches put $150 million into their collection plates.

Do the people in the pews go along with their leadership on how that money is spent?

A fairly typical Sunday morning in a fairly typical town. Americans are still among the most church-going people in the world. About half the population regularly attends services. The congregation is the First United Methodist Church of Logansport, Indiana; Pastor Michael Lusseau presiding.

Logansport is middle America and proud of it. Its major vice, in fact, may be the pride it holds in the Berries, its high school baseball team.

But this weekend, Pastor Lusseau has more on his mind than his son's batting average. His concern is the money in the collection plate. Americans give more to their churches than any other charity, and this congregation is as generous as any: money to do God's work at home and abroad.

But what if some of that money is doing this man's work, or these people? If it surprises you, it may surprise these Methodists even more, for that act of Christian charity this Sunday in Logansport may end up feeding a starving child. That they know. Maybe the gift of literacy to someone somewhere. That they know. Or maybe the price of a brand new Soviet assault rifle. That they may not know.

It is near impossible to follow church money in any precise way. When Pastor Lusseau and his parishoners tried to, they found that it was being absorbed into the coffers, committees and ad hoc committees of the United Methodist Church, National Council of Churches and the World Council, and then surfacing in some surprising places. They found some of it was being spent on causes that seemed more political than religious, on causes that seemed closer to the Soviet-Cuban view of the world than Logansport, Indiana's, and they didn't like it.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: The World Council, in particular, has become a political organization and not, as they set out, to be a fellowship of Christian organizations who accept Jesus Christ as our God and savior.


UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We don't feel -- that is, the people in our church that have discussed it -- that the Methodists belong in an organization which permits the use of money to accomplish political objectives. Why should we support one group rather than another in Africa any more than we should in the United States?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: I think most of our parishioners feel that their outcries of total frustration are falling on deaf ears. I think there's a bureaucracy there that maybe it's so large, that we can't get to it.

SAFER: The bureaucracy they're concerned about, indeed what many American Protestants are concerned about, is largely headquartered, 475 Riverside Drive in New York City. This building is officially known as the Inter-Church Center. The people who work in it call it the God Box. It's the home of the National Council of Churches. It's also the national headquarters for dozens of agencies attached to the United Methodists, the United Presbyterians and other Protestant churches. It's also the U.S. headquarters of the World Council of Churches, which is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. All these agencies claim a strict independence from each other, but, in fact, there's a constant exchange of programs and personnel. And although they may be technically independent, they do work in concert and are often hard to distinguish, one from the other. What all the agencies have in common is that they get most of their budgets from the people in the pews, a small percentage of each Sunday's collection plate.

The annual budgets are: the United Methodists, $70 million; the United Presbyterians, 35 million; the National Council of Churches, $44 million, and $12 million from American contributions alone to the World Council of Churches.

All that money is sent on a very complex maze of programs by groups and organizations in the thousands that touch people's religious and social and their political lives as well.

There are bureaucracies within bureaucracies in this building, and often one hand does not know what the other's up to.

Bishop James Armstrong is president of the National Council of Churches. He's also United Methodist Bishop for Indiana and is a delegate to the next assembly of the World Council of Churches.

Well, are you going to represent some of those grassroots' voices that have strong reservations about what the church is doing in what they regard as political areas?

BISHOP JAMES ARMSTRONG: A long time ago, Martin Luther said that his conscience was bound to the word of God. I will certainly be sensitive to what people in the churches are feeling and saying and thinking.

SAFER: That hasn't answered the question. Are you going to speak for those people?

BISHOP ARMSTRONG: That is not my primary concern. My primary concern is to be faithful to the gospel, as I understand it.

SAFER: But do you feel a sense of responsibility to those people?

BISHOP ARMSTRONG: Of course I do. And I will attempt, as best I can, to respond on the basis of my understanding of them.

SAFER: Bishop Armstrong feels that too much emphasis is placed by outsiders on the political activities of the churches.

BISHOP ARMSTRONG: I don't understand why we're never asked about international Sunday school lessons. I don't understand why we're never asked about five billion pounds of clothing and foodstuffs and medicine that have gone to every part of the world to relieve every form of human misery. These are things that don't seem to come into these conversations.

SAFER: Well, I think -- I think most people do assume that a religious organization is doing good works, is spreading the world of God, is helping the hungry. What they don't assume is that it's so active in politics.

We read Bishop Armstrong a passage from a World Council publication.

But would you agree, for example, with a statement that says "The international capitalistic economic system is repugnant to the Christian concept of justice. It's a denial of the lordship of Christ, therefore an abomination to the creator."

BISHOP ARMSTRONG: No. No. Nor do I believe that the capitalist system, nor the socialist system, is beyond the judgment of God. We don't belong to Karl Marx. We don't belong to Adam Smith. We belong to Jesus Christ. We must. That's our identity.


SAFER: A great deal, though, of the National -- of the World Council would seem to not exactly belong to the Marxist system, but speak in much the same language.

BISHOP ARMSTRONG: Well, you're asking me to speak in the language of the United States government. I won't.

SAFER: Few would doubt Bishop Armstrong's sincerity, but critics feel that the National and the World Council lean toward Karl Marx when it comes to giving certain financial support.

Among the things they object to: money to NACLA, the North American Congress on Latin America, based in New York. Money from the Presbyterian Hunger Program helped NACLA publish this book, Agribusiness in the Americas, an indictment of capitalism and American agricultural corporations.

Two million dollars from the World Council went to buy heavy equipment and materials for new economic zones in Vietnam. Critics claim new economic zones are little more than forced labor camps.

After the Cuban supported revolution in Grenada, the National Council contributed money to publish a primer on the island. What was produced was a tribute to the revolution.

Another item. For a center in Nicaragua that would, quote, "serve the revolutionary reality in Latin America," unquote, $60,000 from the United Methodists.

The Cuba Resource Center received heavy financial support from the National Council member churches. It produced blatantly pro-Castro publications. And a continuing theme was to redefine Christianity in Marxist revolutionary terms.

Another item. To the Nicaraguan literacy program, $1-1/2 million from the World Council. The purpose was to raise political awareness while teaching reading. The teachers were Cuban; American teachers were not welcome.


Another item. The Conference in Solidarity with the Liberation Struggles of Southern Africa in New York was funded and organized by the United Methodists. But when it took place, according to FBI documents, it was run by the U.S. Communist Party and was entirely manipulated by the Soviet Union. The only Methodist official on the platform was the one who gave the invocation.

We asked Bishop Armstrong about a few of those examples.

Are you familiar with the Cuba Resource Center?

BISHOP ARMSTRONG: No.

SAFER: Have you ever seen their publication?

BISHOP ARMSTRONG: No.

SAFER: It claims to be a newsletter, an information letter about the clergy in Cuba. And in fact, it's a propaganda tract that shouts out the glories of the revolution.

BISHOP ARMSTRONG: No, I have no knowledge of it.

I want it to be known that my first responsibility in the National Council of Churches is not to dig around in the corners and move into the closets, but to deal with those things I consider supremely important.

SAFER: There was an anti-apartheid meeting called at Columbia University in New York that was, in effect, run by the American Communist Party. Your name was on the preparatory committee.

BISHOP ARMSTRONG: But I was not contacted. There was no permission for that.

SAFER: Well, how did it get there?

BISHOP ARMSTRONG: I have no idea.

SAFER: So somebody's trying to manipulate.

BISHOP ARMSTRONG: I would say so.

SAFER: Richard Newhouse is a Lutheran pastor; Ed Robb, a Methodist minister. They claim to represent middle-of-the-road Protestants and, through their organization, the Institute on Religion and Democracy, which is funded by some conservative foundations, they've been putting some tough questions to the World and National Councils.

REVEREND ED ROBB: I have the opportunity of preaching all over the country. And I have found that in every geographical area of this nation, people are concerned, many are aroused about the radical left-wing views of the National Council of Churches, and also the views expressed by the bureaucracies of the main line denominations. And then I noticed a pattern of support of totalitarian leftist regimes across the country -- across the world, and an apology for this type of oppression.

SAFER: Can you give me one good, hard example?

REVEREND ROBB: ETHICA, which is funded by the National Council of Churches, has a booklet out about the colonialism of the United States in Puerto Rico.

SAFER: ETHICA is run by Philip -- the Reverend Philip Wheaton, correct?

REVEREND ROBB: That's correct. And they have a crusade on about U.S. colonialism in Puerto Rico. And of course the Puerto Rican people have voted time and again to remain a part of the United states as a commonwealth. It seems ridiculous. But why should National Council of Churches' money be spent for such dubious causes as that?


SAFER: Philip Wheaton, who runs that, would describe himself as a dedicated Christian.

REVEREND ROBB: He comes across as a revolutionary.

SAFER: The Reverend Philip Wheaton is an Episcopalian priest who heads a group called ETHICA, which promotes liberation theology in Latin America. ETHICA gets $15,000 a year from the National Council of Churches, and Wheaton acts an an adviser on Latin America and the Caribbean.

REVEREND PHILIP WHEATON: My feeling, Morley, is that colonialism is dead, that dictatorial rule has the writing on the wall, if not moving out of existence and style, that the whole previous concept of the United states as an empire is under very strong attack.

SAFER: You say you fellow the people. Do you fellow the people when they choose violence, terrorism? When they've aligned themselves with godless Marxism, do you still follow them?

REVEREND WHEATON: I really object, Morley, to the use of the word "terrorist," because it's not only a catchword, but it's a propagandistic word. And if you look at 90% of the terror that's going on in Central America, it is being created not only by the ruling juntas and the paramilitary forces, but by U.S. aid and support going to those regimes.


SAFER: You get financial support from the National Council of Churches. Do you think the people who put their dollar bills into the collection plate on Sunday morning go along with your ideas?

REVEREND WHEATON: People throughout the churches in the United States, in relationship to Central America and the Caribbean, are reading our materials, are using our materials regularly for study programs. The Methodist Church has a regular program of bringing students into Washington, D.C., and they bring me in to present an analysis of Central America.

So my answer is that certainly a portion of the churches find our work very helpful, very useful.

PASTOR RICHARD NEWHOUSE: In El Salvador, you'll find that the National Council of Churches and the main line denominational bureaucracies have consistently supported the FDR, the Marxist guerrillas. But when you challenge them, they'll say, well, show us a resolution where we are supporting the FDR? And there is no resolution. But if you read all their materials, if you see where their money is being spent, you'll find that all of their sympathies are with the FDR.

SAFER: As an example of the churches showing a political bias, critics point to this film strip on the war in El Salvador, produced by the United Methodist Church, in cooperation with the National Council of Churches.

NARRATOR: Many of the FMLN have been branded communists, but everywhere I walked I saw the cross of Christ. The Christian symbol of death and resurrection was worn around the neck along with the bullets. To our Western minds and hearts, to see this juxtaposition of the cross and the gun is a shock. But in our own history through the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, we have frequently sought God's help in fighting the forces of injustice.

PASTOR NEWHOUSE: There're certainly many people in the churches who will quite frankly say that they are committed to the world -- to the global revolution, of which they believe the antithesis is the United States and the United States influence in the world.

SAFER: The National Council, World Council would argue that what they spend in the areas you're critical of is really just a tiny part of their entire budget.

REVEREND ROBB: Well, that's true. It is a small part. I would say that it's far too much. Any money is too much. But that only represents a small part of what we're concerned about. Staff involvement is another thing. And then another thing is the education, or reeducation of people. We've had a study booklet on Cuba lifted up as the model for Latin America. Well, this could not be money that was given to a pro-Marxist cause, but it was propaganda, we believe, for a pro-Marxist cause.

PASTOR NEWHOUSE: And it was held up as a model, Ed, not only for Latin America or for China, but also for the United States.

People, just very understandably, cannot follow through the whole track of where that dollar goes. They have to trust their leadership to a large extent, that when they say, you know, this is an appeal to meet human needs and the suffering of hungry people, or whatever, that that's how the money's going to be used. And I think, for the most part, that is how the money's used. But it is also true that, today, the crisis that this whole conversation is about is created by a lot of instances in which people found that that isn't the case, in which they found that things were being supported and promoted which they had no intention of endorsing whatsoever, and nobody asked them.

SAFER: One is careful in this kind of report to not make the suggestion of guilt by association, to not use what are generally described as McCarthy tactics. But whether it is by design or mischance or deliberate manipulation from outside the churches, church money and the churches themselves are found to be supporting highly political movements.

CISPES, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, set up to support the cause of the FDR guerrillas in the United States, is an example. The National Council could fairly say that this is not a group it officially supports. Yet an ad hoc committee, made up of various member denominations, working out of National Council headquarters, helped CISPES get started. And the denominations give it money and support services.

When CISPES released some controversial documents that it claimed were confidential State Department memoranda on American involvement in El Salvador, the very same documents were also released by a group called the Washington Office on Latin America, which is funded by the National Council and member churches. The FBI says this document is a forgery, precisely the same forgery the KGB tried to circulate earlier in Central America. The New York Times, having quoted from the document, later admitted it had been duped.


But Pastor Newhouse has other concerns.

PASTOR NEWHOUSE: What worries me most, indeed outrages me most, is when the church starts telling lies, when we start just sheer telling lies, and when we start telling lies about countries where people are being imprisoned and tortured and slaughtered, as in Indochina, for example, after the American withdrawal, and we paint a rosy picture of this and pretend it isn't happening. And then the height of hypocrisy is to pretend that in painting a rosy picture of the sufferings of the poor and making excuses for those who oppress the poor, that one is speaking on behalf of the poor.

So we have religious leaders who go to countries which are massively repressive regimes, in which Christians are in jail, are being tortured, have been killed by the thousands, and they go to those countries, and our religious dignitaries consort with the persecutors of the church of Christ. This is evil. This is wrong. This discredits the church as social witness. It undermines any elementary notion of justice. We have to turn this around.

SAFER: We'll be back with the second part of "The Gospel According to Whom" in a moment.

* * *

SAFER: In this second part of "The Gospel According to Whom," we concentrate mostly on the World Council of Churches, the international community of churches that includes American Protestant denominations, plus churches in over 100 other countries.

The World Council spends, on the average, about $85 million, again for relief work, for missionary work, operating expenses, and on political action as well. Among its member churches is the United Methodists, and that includes Logansport, Indiana.

Last spring at the regional conference of the United Methodists, Pastor Lusseau and his parishioners proposed that the nine million strong United Methodists withdraw support from the World Council. What had troubled Pastor Lusseau and many others most of all was one particular arm of the World Council, the Special Fund of the Program to Combat Racism.

The Program to Combat Racism, PCR, was funded, according to the Central Committee of the World Council, for the churches to, quote, "Move beyond charity to relevant and sacrificial action, to become agents for the radical reconstruction of society. There can be no justice without a transfer of economic resources to undergird the redistribution of political power."

The fund was set up in 1970. It gave cash grants to armed guerrilla groups in southern Africa. The World Council requests that the money go for humanitarian purposes, but exercises no control over it.

Since 1970, the World Council has raised about $5-1/2 million worldwide in special appeals to help groups like FERLIMO in Mozambique, the Patriotic Front in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, SWAPD in Namibia, and guerrillas in Angola, all when they were openly violent. Critics point out that these church-supported guerrillas who have come to power have, for the most part, not been guarantors of either political or religious freedom.


For many Christians, the openly political nature of the Program to Combat Racism was just too much.

PASTOR LUSSEAU: If we are people of peace, it is time to send a message to the decision-makers of the World Council of Churches that we will not be guilty by association in the killing and murder of human beings under the disguise of eliminating racism.

SAFER: Pastor Lusseau's petition was soundly defeated. But he was not the only one concerned. Just a year earlier, the 2,000,000 member Salvation Army withdrew from active participation in the World Council. Commissioner John Needham, head of the Army in the United States, told us why.

COMMISSIONER JOHN NEEDHAM: I think the support of a good many extremely radical causes around the world. I think the straw that broke the camel's back was finally the actual gifts of money to the guerrillas who were operating in Zimbabwe. And some of our people were being killed, for that matter.

SAFER: In fact, the World Council gave a grant of $85,000 to the Patriotic Front fighting the Smith regime in Rhodesia just two months after eight Christian missionaries, including two from the Salvation Army, were murdered. Most believe the guerrillas did it. The World Council says Rhodesian troops were responsible.


COMMISSIONER NEEDHAM: Now we serve -- we've been serving in Zimbabwe, Rhodesia before that, for over 80 years. So there's no sense in which we separate ourselves from the needs of the common man. That's where the Army was born. But we're not about to get involved in anything that has any violent overtones as we go about our work.

SAFER: Did the World Council try to justify this kind of deep political involvement?

COMMISSIONER NEEDHAM: It's an interpretation of the Christian gospel that you should be a part of any means to better the lot of the common man.

SAFER: But this determination to help the common man could mean money for weapons.

COMMISSIONER NEEDHAM: That's right. Of course the suggestion was that, of course, monies from the World Council was being given to feed, to take care of medicines, that sort of program. But after all, the end result was there were guerrillas about their work, you know, which resulted in death and violence.

SAFER: The question of whether money from American contributions pays for guns or is misdirected in other ways goes to the very heart of the matter. Just how does the World Council see itself in relation to the concerns of the Salvation Army? And what is its role in the secular world?

We went to its headquarters in Geneva and talked to Dr. Philip Potter, a prominent West Indian clergymen who's been General Secretary of the World Council since 1972.

DR. PHILIP POTTER: The question of whether aid and the support for justice can be left apart is a serious problem to the Salvation Army. I know it speaks about soup, soap and salvation. But soup and soap is not enough. The causes for the need for soup and soap are deeply important. And it is the question of when you speak about the causes and the structures of those societies which bring about oppression and bring about poverty, these are the things we have challenged.

Now the Salvation Army depends for its aid work, its work of mercy from large contributions from powerful groups that are involved economically and militarily in these countries.

COMMISSIONER NEEDHAM: You know, an article just came out in some magazine that said one source said that the Army left the World Council of Churches because of pressure of large corporations. Nothing could be farther. There's never been anybody that's ever talked to us. We've never related to, never had any suggestions from, you know, any corporation, that because the World Council is political we should withdraw. Nothing. That kind of stuff -- I don't know where people get those kinds of ideas.

DR. POTTER: Is it enough just to -- when people are down in the gutter, is it enough just to go and try and lift them up? Or is it important for us who are part of the system to do something to change that situation? And when Christ came, he spoke very firmly about all those things that prevented human beings from having their dignity. He acted as well as spoke.

SAFER: And in the practical world, that may mean supplying these oppressed with guns.

DR. POTTER: We have not done that, and it's never been proved that we did that.


SAFER: But you're convinced that the people in SWAPO who receive money from World Council have this fine distinction about what they'll do with the money, because the World Council gives it without strings.

DR. POTTER: We give the money and base it on the basis of the requests made, which are according to the criteria we have laid down. When we give it, we show an act of faith and confidence in people. And they know that if they misuse it, their whole credibility ....

SAFER: But you wouldn't know if they misused it.

DR. POTTER: We do know.

SAFER: But you wouldn't know if they did.

DR. POTTER: Nor have you been able to prove that they've used it for arms.

SAFER: A criticism often heard of the World Council is the relative ease with which it denounces human rights' violations in the West but rarely does it point out the policies of oppression that exist in the Soviet dominated world. As an example, a World Council task force that visited Australia to look into the treatment of aborigines. It was led by a Pakistani, Dr. Anwar Barket, head of the Program to Combat Racism.

In less than three days there, or three days, Dr. Barket announces that the Australian government is practicing genocide. I wonder if genocide is the right word for a terribly complicated historical situation.

DR. POTTER: Dr. Barket was not speaking for the World Council of Churches. Naturally, anybody working for the World Council of Churches would have to watch what he or she says, because it will be conceived as speaking for the World Council. The only bodies that can speak for the World Council are its Assembly, its Central Committee, its Executive Committee, its officers and myself.

And -- however, the word "genocide" is, of course, a strong word. But what it does convey this this, that when people come in as colonists and the indigenous people's customs are not observed, you know, and they are pushed aside, they lose the sense of the wholeness of their life, and they die out. You know, they take to drink and all the other things. And that is -- is -- is -- is the phrase that is used by sociologists as ethnic -- ethnic genocide.

SAFER: I understand that. A good part of the population of Australia, of the non-aboriginal part of the population, is perfectly aware and has been trying to do something about it. I wonder if the arrival of a World Council delegation spouting genocide enhances the Australian awareness of the problem.

DR. POTTER: Actually -- actually that group was invited by the Council of Churches of Australia and by the churches for the very simple reason that the Australian people's consciousness was not sufficiently aware of that situation there.

SAFER: Another member of that delegation was Madame Adler, who said that Marxist analysis should be used to examine Australian racism; this from an East German whose entire nation is enclosed by barbed-wire. Marxist analysis coming out of the mouth of the World Council of Churches?

DR. POTTER: Well, first of all, the barbed-wire is rather strange, because we had our Central Committee in Dresden last year in August, in which 400 people, including a lot of journalists, over 100 journalists, were able to visit nearly 100 parishes on a Sunday and were able to mingle for several hours with the people in Eastern Europe, in East Germany.

So the barbed-wire question is a bit much, isn't it?

SAFER: No, it's not, because how many of those parishioners would be allowed to come and visit here in Geneva?

DR. POTTER: Well, that -- that is a problem. There is a problem. But don't call it barbed-wire in that sense.

SAFER: Well, if you've been to that border, because it is barbed-wire.

DR. POTTER: Okay. There is barbed-wire in Berlin, yes.

SAFER: No, right across the border of East Germany, not just Berlin.

DR. POTTER: Yes, but I also want to point the fact that it is possible to be in contact with people and for a lot of people to meet them and to speak to them. However ....

SAFER: But I should think that a Marxist analysis would be anathema to anyone representing the World Council of Churches.

DR. POTTER: Miss Adler spoke for herself. But I would say that Marxist analysis -- Marxist analysis of -- of the causes of -- of poverty and of oppression has been a very useful analysis. But Christians use that analysis very critically in terms of our own faith.


SAFER: A motto of the Salvation Army is to change the world one life at a time. A recurring theme of the World Council of Churches is the redistribution of power.

What exactly does redistribution of power mean?

COMMISSIONER NEEDHAM: Well, I think it's a changing of the structures of society thereafter.
There is a difference in the world amongst religious people, obviously. There are the liberals and the conservatives; the liberals believing that you do, in fact, in changing the structures of society, you bring about salvation. We rather think you make a better man and you get a better world.

SAFER: There is some indication that many American Protestants would agree with Commissioner Needham. The National Council, in analyzing a survey on Americans and religion, found that three-quarters of its members consider themselves either moderate or conservative. In its report, the National Council cautions that the results of the survey should not be given wide distribution. It states "Although we may all agree that public opinion does not set our marching orders, there are those who will see some of these findings as showing how out of step the National Council is with its own constituency and censure us for it. To those who are hunting for such ammunition, we need not supply a silver bullet.

"This is not intended to be a broadly disseminated document for the general public."
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Re: A Friend of the Devil: Inside a famous Cold War deceptio

Postby admin » Thu Mar 28, 2019 6:30 am

William Sloane Coffin
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/27/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Clergy and Laity Concerned is a nationwide network within the religious community which was founded to mobilize opposition to U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia. In late 1965, John C. Bennett, William Sloane Coffin, Jr., Rabbi Abraham Heschel and others organized the National Emergency Committee of Clergy Concerned About Vietnam.

This committee soon developed a national organization of Roman Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant clergymen and laymen which was known as Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam (CALCAV). Richard R. Fernandez was hired as Executive Secretary in 1966, continuing in that capacity or as Co-Director until 1973. Others who have served as Director or Co-Director include Richard M. Boardman, John Collins, Robert S. Lecky, Barbara Lupo, Don Luce, Richard Van Voorhis, and Trudi Schutz Young.

-- Clergy and Laity Concerned Records, 1965-1983, Swarthmore College Peace Collection


Image
William Sloane Coffin
Photo of The Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (1924-2006), Senior Minister of The Riverside Church, New York, NY (1977-87).jpg
Coffin circa 1980
Church United Church of Christ
Other posts Riverside Church
Orders
Ordination Presbyterian church
Personal details
Birth name William Sloane Coffin Jr.
Born June 1, 1924
Died April 12, 2006 (aged 81)
Nationality American
Denomination Presbyterian, United Church of Christ
Spouse Eva Rubinstein,
Harriet Gibney,
Virginia Randolph Wilson
Education Yale College,
Union Theological Seminary
Alma mater Yale Divinity School

William Sloane Coffin Jr. (June 1, 1924 – April 12, 2006) was an American Christian clergyman and long-time peace activist. He was ordained in the Presbyterian Church, and later received ministerial standing in the United Church of Christ. In his younger days he was an athlete, a talented pianist, a CIA officer, and later chaplain of Yale University, where the influence of Reinhold Niebuhr's social philosophy led him to become a leader in the Civil Rights Movement and peace movements of the 1960s and 1970s. He also was a member of the secret society Skull and Bones. He went on to serve as Senior Minister at the Riverside Church in New York City and President of SANE/Freeze (now Peace Action), the nation's largest peace and social justice group, and prominently opposed United States military interventions in conflicts, from the Vietnam War to the Iraq War. He was also an ardent supporter of gay rights.

Biography

Childhood


William Sloane Coffin Jr. was born into the wealthy elite of New York City. His paternal great-grandfather William Sloane was a Scottish immigrant and co-owner of the very successful W. & J. Sloane Company. His uncle was Henry Sloane Coffin, president of Union Theological Seminary and one of the most famous ministers in the U.S. His father, William Sloane Coffin, Sr. was president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and an executive in the family business.[1]

His mother, Catherine Butterfield, had grown up in the Midwest, and as a young woman spent time in France during World War I providing relief to soldiers, and met her future husband there, where he was also engaged in charitable activities. Their three children grew up fluent in French by being taught by their nanny, and attended private schools in New York.

William Sr.'s father, Edmund Coffin, was a prominent lawyer, real estate developer, and reformer who owned a property investment and management firm that renovated and rented low-income housing in New York. Upon Edmund's death in 1928, it went to his sons William and Henry, with William managing the firm. When the Great Depression hit in 1929, William allowed tenants to stay whether or not they could pay the rent, quickly draining his own funds, and at a time when the family's substantial W. & J. Sloane stock was not paying dividends.

William Sloane Coffin, Sr. died at home on his oldest son Edmund's eleventh birthday in 1933 from a heart attack he suffered returning from work. After this, his wife Catherine decided to move the family to Carmel, California, to make life more affordable, but was able to do this only with financial support from her brother-in-law Henry. After years spent in the most exclusive private schools in Manhattan, the three Coffin children were educated in Carmel's public schools, where William had his first sense that there was injustice—sometimes very great—in the world.

A talented musician, he became devoted to the piano and planned a career as a concert pianist. At the urging of his uncle Henry (who was still contributing to the family's finances), his mother enrolled him in Deerfield Academy in 1938.

The following year (when Edmund left for Yale University), William moved with his mother to Paris at the age of 15 to receive personal instruction in the piano and was taught by some of the best music teachers of the 20th century, including Nadia Boulanger. The Coffins moved to Geneva, Switzerland, when World War II came to France in 1940, and then back to the United States, where he enrolled in Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.

Early adulthood

Having graduated from high school in 1942, William enrolled at Yale College and studied in the School of Music. While continuing his pursuit of the piano, he was also excited by the prospect of fighting to stop fascism and became very focused on joining the war effort. He applied to work as a spy with the Office of Strategic Services in 1943, but was turned down for not having sufficiently "Gallic features" to be effective. He then left school, enlisted in the Army, and was quickly tapped to become an officer. After training, he was assigned to work as liaison to the French and Russian armies in connection with the Army's military intelligence unit, and where he heard first-hand stories of life in Stalin's USSR.

After the war, Coffin returned to Yale, where he would later become President of the Yale Glee Club. Coffin had been a friend of George H. W. Bush since his youth, as they both attended Phillips Academy (1942). In Coffin's senior year, Bush brought Coffin into the exclusive Skull and Bones secret society at the university.

Upon graduating in 1949, Coffin entered the Union Theological Seminary, where he remained for a year, until the outbreak of the Korean War reignited his interest in fighting against communism. He joined the CIA as a case officer in 1950 (his brother-in-law Franklin Lindsay had been head of the Office of Policy Coordination at the OSS, one of the predecessors of the CIA) spending three years in West Germany recruiting anti-Soviet Russian refugees and training them how to undermine Stalin's regime.
[1] Coffin grew increasingly disillusioned with the role of the CIA and the United States due to events including the CIA's involvement in overthrowing Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran in 1953, followed by the CIA's orchestration of the coup that removed President Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala in 1954.

Ministry and political activism

After leaving the CIA, Coffin enrolled at Yale Divinity School and earned his Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1956, the same year he was ordained a Presbyterian minister. This same year he married Eva Rubinstein, the daughter of pianist Arthur Rubinstein, and became chaplain at Williams College. Soon, he accepted the position as Chaplain of Yale University, where he remained from 1958 until 1975. Gifted with a rich bass-baritone voice, he was an active member of the Yale Russian Chorus during the late 1950s and 1960s.

With his CIA background, he was dismayed when he learned in 1964 of the history of French and American involvement in South Vietnam. He felt the United States should have honored the French agreement to hold a national referendum in Vietnam about unification. He was in early opposition to the Vietnam War and became famous for his anti-war activities and his civil rights activism. Along with others, he was a founder in the early 1960s of the Clergy and Laity Concerned About Vietnam, organized to resist President Lyndon Johnson's escalation of the war.[1]

Coffin had a prominent role in the Freedom Rides challenging segregation and the oppression of black people. As chaplain at Yale in the early 1960s, Coffin organized busloads of Freedom Riders to challenge segregation laws in the South. Through his efforts, hundreds of students at Yale University and elsewhere were recruited into civil rights and anti-war activity. He was jailed many times, but his first conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court.[1]

In 1962, he joined SANE: The Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy,[2] an organization he would later lead.[3]

Approached by Sargent Shriver in 1961 to run the first training programs for the Peace Corps, Coffin took up the task and took a temporary leave from Yale, working to develop a rigorous training program modeled on Outward Bound and supervising the building of a training camp in Puerto Rico. He used his pulpit as a platform for like-minded crusaders, hosting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandela, among others.
Fellow Yale graduate Garry Trudeau has immortalized Coffin (combined with Coffin's protege Rev. Scotty McLennan) as "the Rev. Scot Sloan" in the comic strip Doonesbury. During the Vietnam War years, Coffin and his friend Howard Zinn often spoke from the same anti-war platform. An inspiring speaker, Coffin was known for optimism and humor: "Remember, young people, even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat."[4]

By 1967, Coffin concentrated increasingly on preaching civil disobedience and supported the young men who turned in their draft cards. He was, however, uncomfortable with draft-card burning, worried that it looked "unnecessarily hostile".[5][6] Coffin was one of several persons who signed an open letter entitled "A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority", which was printed in several newspapers in October 1967. In that same month, he also raised the possibility of declaring Battell Chapel at Yale a sanctuary for resisters, or possibly as the site of a large demonstration of civil disobedience. School administration barred the use of the church as a sanctuary. Coffin later wrote, "I accused them of behaving more like 'true Blues than true Christians'. They squirmed but weren't about to change their minds.... I realized I was licked."[7]

And so on January 5, 1968, Coffin, Dr. Benjamin Spock (the pediatrician and baby book author who was also a Phillips Academy alumnus), Marcus Raskin, and Mitchell Goodman (all signers of "A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority" and members of the anti-war collective RESIST[8]) were indicted by a Federal grand jury for "conspiracy to counsel, aid and abet draft resistance". All but Raskin were convicted that June, but in 1970 an appeals court overturned the verdict. Coffin remained chaplain of Yale until December 1975.[1]

In 1977, he became senior minister at the Riverside Church—an interdenominational congregation affiliated with both the United Church of Christ and American Baptist Churches—and one of the most prominent congregations in New York City. He was a controversial, yet inspirational leader at Riverside. He openly and vocally supported gay rights when many liberals still were uncomfortable with homosexuality. Some of the congregation's socially conservative members openly disagreed with his position on sexuality.[1]

Nuclear disarmament

Coffin started a strong nuclear disarmament program at Riverside, and hired Cora Weiss (a secular Jew he had worked with during the Vietnam War and had traveled with to North Vietnam in 1972 to accompany three released U.S. prisoners of war), an action which was uncomfortable for some parishioners. Broadening his reach to an international audience, he met with numerous world leaders and traveled abroad. His visits included going to Iran to perform Christmas services for hostages being held in the U.S. embassy during the Iran hostage crisis in 1979 and to Nicaragua to protest U.S. military intervention there.

In 1987, he resigned from Riverside Church to pursue disarmament activism full-time, saying then that there was no issue more important for a man of faith. He became president of SANE/FREEZE[9] (now Peace Action), the largest peace and justice organization in the United States. He retired with the title president emeritus in the early 1990s, and then taught and lectured across the United States and overseas. Coffin also wrote several books. He cautioned that we are all living in "the shadow of Doomsday", and urged that people turn away from isolationism and become more globally aware. Shortly before his death, Coffin founded Faithful Security, a coalition for people of faith committed to working for a world free of nuclear weapons.[1]

Personal life

Coffin was married three times. His first two marriages, to Eva Rubinstein and Harriet Gibney, ended in divorce. He was survived by his third wife, Virginia Randolph Wilson (called "Randy").[10] Eva Rubinstein, his first wife and the mother of his children, was a daughter of pianist Arthur Rubinstein. The loss of their son Alexander in a car accident in 1983 inspired one of Coffin's most requested sermons.

He was given only six months to live in early 2004 due to a weakened heart. Coffin and his wife lived in the small town of Strafford, Vermont, a few houses away from his brother Ned, until his death nearly two years later at age 81.

Military awards

• American Campaign Medal
• European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal
• World War II Victory Medal
• Army of Occupation Medal with "Germany" clasp

Books

By Coffin


• Letters to a Young Doubter, Westminster John Knox Press, July 2005, ISBN 0-664-22929-8
• Credo, Westminster John Knox Press, December 2003, ISBN 0-664-22707-4
• The Heart Is a Little to the Left: Essays on Public Morality, Dartmouth College, 1st edition, October 1999, ISBN 0-87451-958-6
• The Courage to Love, sermons, Harper & Row, 1982, ISBN 0-06-061508-7
• Once to Every Man: A Memoir, autobiography, Athenaeum Press, 1977, ISBN 0-689-10811-7

About Coffin

• William Sloane Coffin, Jr.: A Holy Impatience, by Warren Goldstein, Yale University Press, March 2004, ISBN 0-300-10221-6
• The Trial of Dr. Spock, William Sloane Coffin, Michael Ferber, Mitchell Goodman, and Marcus Raskin, by Jessica Mitford, New York, Knopf, 1969 ISBN 0-394-44952-5

See also

• List of peace activists

References

1. Goldstein, Warren. William Sloane Coffin Jr.: A Holy Impatience (2005).
2. "Service for William Sloane Coffin to be Held at Yale". Yale News. Retrieved 2017-02-12.
3. Charney, Marc D. (2006-04-13). "Rev. William Sloane Coffin Dies at 81; Fought for Civil Rights and Against a War". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-02-12.
4. Rick Perlstein (2015). The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan. Simon and Schuster. p. 131.
5. “Interview with William Sloane Coffin, 1982.”, August 30, 1982. WGBH Media Library & Archives. Retrieved November 9, 2010.
6. Foley, M.S. (2003). Confronting the War Machine: Draft Resistance During the Vietnam War. University of North Carolina Press. p. 120. ISBN 978-0-8078-5436-5.
7. Geoffrey Kabaservice (2005). The Guardians: Kingman Brewster, His Circle, and the Rise of the Liberal Establishment. Henry Holt. p. 320.
8. Barsky, Robert F. Noam Chomsky: a life of dissent (M.I.T. Press, 1998) online Archived 2013-01-16 at the Wayback Machine
9. SANE: The Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy merged with the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign in 1987 and was renamed SANE/FREEZE; it was renamed Peace Action in 1993.
10. Schudel, Matt; Bernstein, Adam (April 16, 2006). "The Rev. William Sloane Coffin made his mark as activist, rebel". The Seattle Times. Retrieved 2017-02-12.

Sources

• Once to Every Man: A Memoir (1977)
• William Sloane Coffin, Jr.: A Holy Impatience (2004)
• Passion for the Possible: A Message to U.S. Churches

External links

• Interview from 1982 with William Sloane Coffin on Vietnam and the Anti-War movement WGBH Educational Foundation
• A Politically Engaged Spirituality Video and transcript of Coffin's April 2005 speech at Yale Divinity School
• Interview with William Sloane Coffin from Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, August 2004
• William Sloane Coffin: A Lover's Quarrel With America Video interview from Old Dog Documentaries
• William Sloane Coffin - Not to Bring Peace, But a Sword Sermon and interview.
• A film clip "The Open Mind - A Man for All Seasons (1986)" is available at the Internet Archive
• Profile of Coffin from Yale Alumni Magazine, March 2004
• Personal papers archive at Yale University
• Selected writings (PDF)
• Peace Action (formerly SANE/Freeze, the merger of SANE and the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign)
• Faithful Security
http://www.williamsloanecoffin.org This is the complete digital collection of William Sloane Coffin's sermons preached from the pulpit of New York City's Riverside Church 1977–1987.
• Speech "Who Is the Enemy?" delivered April 8, 1983 at a symposium in Kansas City.

Memorials

• Obituary from the New York Times
• Obituary from the Los Angeles Times
• Obituary from The Guardian
• Obituary from the Associated Press
• Remembrance from the United Church of Christ (article and video)
• Remembrance from The Nation
• Remembrance by William F. Buckley Jr. in the Yale Daily News
• The Legacy of William Sloane Coffin by Rev. Scotty McLennan
• Tribute of Yale Class of 1968 to its "Permanent Chaplain "
• Obituary on Commondreams.org
• Photo gallery of Coffin from The Washington Post
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Re: A Friend of the Devil: Inside a famous Cold War deceptio

Postby admin » Thu Mar 28, 2019 6:35 am

Alfred Eckhard Zimmern
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/25/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


"It was a very quiet little student who came up to St. Hugh's [College, Oxford University] and wore the long exhibition gown to the lectures," Freda conceded. Oxford opened the doors of the world to her. At St. Hugh's she drew to her a small group of girls who were to go on to become some of the most powerful figures of their time. They stayed friends for years. From this time on, Freda was to mingle effortlessly with the great and the good from all cultures and ways of life.

Leading the pack was the inimitable, feisty Barbara Betts, later better known as Barbara Castle, the first woman to become First Secretary of State under Prime Minister Harold Wilson, and hailed as one of the most important Labor politicians of the twentieth century. She was a major influence on Freda's life, steering her away from her provincial upbringing into an infinitely bolder, more sophisticated life.

"Barbara brought with her a flavor of the north of England, where I was brought up, as well as the sturdy atmosphere of the great pioneers of English socialism," commented Freda. There was also Olive Salt Gorton, who became a pillar of the BBC and broke down class barriers by introducing regional accents to the airwaves to balance the clipped tones of "received pronunciation." "Olive brought the people of England into the BBC with programs like 'Underneath the Arches.' She took the microphone onto the pavements." And there was Olive Chandler, whom Freda was particularly fond of and with whom she maintained a lifelong correspondence: "She was a quiet little nun of a girl with a dove-like quality who was like my good conscience. When she saw me getting too excited with outside activities, she used to bring me back to my books and look after me."

***

She joined just about every society, from the League of Nations to the Ornithological Club.

***

Inevitably, like many Oxbridge intellectuals of her day, she became increasingly left wing, joined the Labor Club along with Barbara Castle and Michael Foot (the future Labor prime minister), and began to class herself as one of the "Burning Socialists." She meant it. Freda's idealism about a fairer world never left her....

"My belief in the charter of human rights was very strong, so that I saw Marxism not as a cheap political stunt, but in a deep,direct way." Freda rapidly learned German in order to be able to read and study Hegel, Marx, and the German philosophers in the original.

Her spiritual life was not forgotten, however, and was running smoothly along parallel lines. Every Sunday she went to church to take Communion and would pop into chapel if there was Bach concert. Any hint of Eastern thought drew her like a magnet. She devoured "The Light of Asia," subtitled "The Great Renunciation," by Sir Edwin Arnold -- an epic poem describing the life of Prince Siddhartha, who became the Buddha. And she rushed to attend a lecture by Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali Nobel Prize-winning poet, philosopher, songwriter, and educator, and was immediately entranced.

"I first saw him at Oxford lecturing on the highest philosophy before some of the greatest savants and philosophers in the West. He sat on a low platform with the rare light of the late evening falling on his face and making a complete aureole around his white head. I was very moved by his understanding, his dignity, the way in which he seemed to distill the essence of India into the small hall and with it the essence of all that is highest and universal in man. At that time my knowledge of India was superficial and I did not know it was to be my home, but my response to Tagore and what he was saying was immediate. I believe that Tagore, more than any other Indian, has been able to interpret the East, and her aspirations, and make them understood in the West. ...

***

Initially the glue was their shared admiration of communism and socialist ideals, so fashionable among the Oxbridge intellectuals of their day, who were eager to build a better, fresher world after the devastation of World War I. Cambridge, in particular, became a famous, well-documented breeding ground for communist gentlemen spies. Revolution was in the air, first in Russia then in China, overthrowing the old order, making way for the new. It was exhilarating. The Suffragettes were on the march too, chaining themselves to rails, throwing themselves under horses, and going on hunger strikes to obtain equal rights with men. The atmosphere was electric....

Freda married BPL on June 12, 1933, at the Oxford Registrar’s Office. She was twenty-two and he was twenty-six….

Their creative, radical Oxford days were over. Both Freda and BPL received their degrees and a whole new life beckoned. It was not what Freda had imagined. She had successfully lined up a job as a cub reporter on the Derby Telegraph, her first stepping stone to Fleet Street (as she had intended). Instead she went to Germany with her new husband, who had won a Humboldt scholarship at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, to research a PHD in Political Science.

“Bedi was concerned about the rise of Hitler, but he thought that as long as he didn’t get a chance to rant in Parliament, it would be all right. He was going to keep a very keen eye on the situation,” she said. She was not to see her homeland again for fourteen years….

By the time Freda reached Berlin, she was pregnant, and delighted with the prospect of motherhood. BPL somewhat protectively decided that she should not work, but instead live quietly in the charming little cottage they had found on the bank of Lake Wannsee. “It was really a lovely place, with a beautiful garden, and we had some very happy months there preparing for the child,” she said. She busied herself with making baby clothes, but could not resist going to Berlin University to study Hindi with a Punjabi professor – a necessary preparation, she thought, for a life on the subcontinent, and to counteract the full-on domesticity she found herself in….

BPL refrained from any political activity in Germany, although he was keeping up-to-date with the Free India movement in India. A frequent visitor to their lakeside cottage was Subhas Chandra Bose, who went on to become one of the most prominent and controversial leaders of the independence movement. Bose was educated at Cambridge and also had a European wife – Emilie Schenkl, an Austrian. He made it a point to visit sympathetic Indian students living in Europe, and the couple had much in common with Freda and BPL Bedi.

“We came to know Bose intimately, and a deep friendship grew,” said BPL. Bose was a hard-core communist, a great admirer of the Soviet Union, who maintained that only an authoritarian state, not democracy, would be able to reshape India. (Later he was forced to resign as present of the Indian National Congress because his platform of violent resistance clashed with Gandhi’s peaceful pathway.)

In Germany, however, Bose, won the young BPL over completely. “Freda and I were both fired up with the patriotic zeal of liberating the motherland from British imperialism,” BPL said. “While we were in Berlin, an eminent journalist asked me what was my agenda for India. ‘Live dangerously,’ I replied. ‘Live dangerously for every form of exploitation of man by man. Live dangerously for every form of injustice. Live dangerously for any violation of human dignity.’”

On May 13, 1934, Freda gave birth to a son after just a four-hour labor….They named him Ranga after the Indian statesman who had defeated the political opposition to their marriage, ten months previously….

BPL had not joined any political club at Berlin University, nor was he taking part in any political activities, but he sensed that tension was mountain. He was friendly with many of the Indian students living in the International Houses, which were being increasingly dominated by Nazi representatives.

In August 1934, Hitler was made fuhrer. The morning the news broke, BPL put down his paper and announced, “Tomorrow we get on the train and go to Geneva. It’s not safe here anymore.”

“He knew that Hitler could swoop down on the Indian students, which was precisely what happened,” said Freda. The life of drama and danger that she pledged to share with Bedi had begun. “You can imagine the state I was in, having to pack up everything in one day, and with BPL having to get the visas for Switzerland. But the next morning we were on the train!” she said

After their hasty exit, they spent a few pleasant weeks staying in accommodations that had been arranged by their old Oxford professor, Alfred Zimmern [Professor Sir Alfred Eckhard Zimmern, whose name is associated with the founding of the League of Nations], who ran a school there. In October 1934, they finally made the decision to go to India and make it their permanent home. They sailed on the SS Conte Verde from northern Italy to Bombay, a journey of three weeks.....

Almost immediately they joined both the Socialist and Communist parties. Freda took on the extra work of organizing the All India Civil Liberties Union of the Punjab. BPL happily set to work organizing demonstrations ...

-- The Revolutionary Life of Freda Bedi, by Vicki Mackenzie


Image
Alfred Eckhard Zimmern
Born 26 January 1879
Surbiton, Surrey, U.K.
Died 24 November 1957
Avon, Connecticut, U.S.
Education Winchester College
Alma mater New College, Oxford
Occupation Classical scholar, historian

Sir Alfred Eckhard Zimmern (1879–1957) was an English classical scholar and historian, and political scientist writing on international relations.[1] His book The Third British Empire was among the first to apply the expression "British Commonwealth" to the British Empire.[2] He is also credited with the phrase "welfare state",[3][4][5] which was made popular a few years later by William Temple.[6]

Early life and background

Zimmern was born on 26 January 1879 in Surbiton, Surrey, UK. His father was a naturalised British citizen, born in Germany. The writers, translators and suffragettes Helen Zimmern and Alice Zimmern were his cousins.

Alfred was brought up a Christian and later an active participant in the World Council of Churches. However, later in life he also became a supporter of Zionism.[7] He was educated at Winchester College, and read classics at New College, Oxford, where he won the Stanhope essay prize in 1902.[8] At Berlin University, he came under the influence of Wilamowitz and Meyer.

The fifth essay is again by Flaig, and is called "Towards Rassenhygiene: Wilamowitz and the German New Right." Flaig first examines Wilamowitz's Staat und Gesellschaft (1910; 2nd.edn., 1923). He finds that in this work Wilamowitz is inconsistent in his use of the notion of race; in the first part of the work he conceives of race in a biological sense, arguing that both Greeks and Phoenicians owed their exceptional vivacity to the mixing of races, but in the second part he argues that the unique spirit of the Greeks has nothing to do with "racial purity." But in Der Glaube der Hellenen, Flaig argues, Wilamowitz operates with a peculiar conception of "faith," an individual religion of the heart believed in by an elite and distinct from the religion of the masses with its cult and the bond among its members; Wilamowitz carried to extreme lengths the belief common to Droysen and Harnack that Christian religion owed more to Greece than to Israel. Like Walter F. Otto, Flaig claims, Wilamowitz believed in the real existence of the Greek gods, but at the same time he believed in a specially Greek monotheism different from that of Judaism, to which he was profoundly hostile. Using the vocabulary of the new "eugenics," he argues, Wilamowitz was advocating a kind of Rassenhygiene akin to that later associated with National Socialism.

Flaig is not the first to have regarded Wilamowitz as a proto-Nazi. On pp. 56-79 of Wilamowitz nach 50 Jahren (edd. W.M. Calder III, H. Flashar and T. Lindken, 1985), L. Canfora anticipates Flaig by setting out to prove Wilamowitz to have been a kind of National Socialist avant la lettre. In a review of the book in which Canfora's piece appeared (Classical Review 36 [1986], 400-1 = Academic Papers, 1990, ii 400-1)), I dealt briefly with his thesis. I remarked that Wilamowitz belonged to the Prussian aristocracy of his time, which had a strong strain of nationalism and militarism and that he did all he could to promote the German cause in the First World War. But I pointed out that though Wilamowitz, like many persons of his type, may have thrown out the odd remark that sounded anti-Semitic, he was certainly not anti-Semitic in his practice and that a letter published in the same book as Canfora's piece (p.612) showed his utter contempt for racial theories about Aryanism. I wrote that "he would have despised Hitler as a socialist and a guttersnipe, and, though he would have derived pleasure, had he lived on, from the triumphs of 1939-41, July 1944 would have found him in full sympathy with the conspirators, who were indeed people of his own kind."


-- Ingo Gildenhard, Martin Ruehl, Out of Arcadia: Classics and Politics in Germany in the Age of Burckhardt, Nietzsche and Wilamowitz. BICS, Suppl. 79. London: Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 2003. Pp. vii, 208.


The German philhellenists of the Enlightenment era imagined Greek antiquity as a kind of pastoral idyll.1 Throughout the second half of the eighteenth century, scholars and poets enthused about the innocent beauty of the ancients, glorified the 'noble simplicity' and 'calm grandeur' (Winckelmann)2 of Hellenic art, and posited an elective affinity between the glory that was Greece and the future achievements of a German Kulturnation. Schiller's poem 'The gods of Greece' (1788) held up the harmonious word of pagan antiquity as a moral and aesthetic model for a disenchanted, alienated modernity. The educational reforms initiated by Wilhelm von Humboldt between 1809-10 moved this model to the centre of school and university curricula. For members of the educated middle class (Bildungsburger), classical philology became an integral part of their self-cultivation or Bildung. Through their identification with ancient Greece, however, many of them expressed hopes not just of cultural, but also political transformation. In the age of Winckelmann and Humboldt, Graecophilia was associated with a lofty (and often vaguely defined ) liberalism.3 Yet from the start, there were voices of doubt. In Faust II (1832), Goethe questioned the viability of a marriage between Romantic Germany and classical Greece -- as well as the emancipatory elements of Graecophilia; Euphorion, product of Faust's union with Helen of Troy and an allegory of Byron's fateful commitment to the cause of Greek independence, met a significantly premature death in the play.4

-- Out of Arcadia, by Martin Ruehl, 2003 Institute of Classical Studies. School of Advanced Studies, University of London, 22 February 2011


Academic career

Zimmern was Lecturer in Ancient History, New College, Oxford (1903), and Fellow and tutor, New College (1904–1909). Subsequently, he was a staff inspector, Board of Education (1912–1915) and a member of the Foreign Office Political Intelligence Department (1918–1919).

He then became Wilson Professor of International Politics, and as such the first Professor of International Politics (also known as International Relations) in the world, at the University College of Wales (1919–1921); having left Aberystwyth, he taught at Cornell University in 1922 and 1923.[9][10]

He was the inaugural Montague Burton Professor of International Relations, Oxford University (1930–1944), and co-founder of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (1919). He was for a short time a member of the Round Table Group (1913–1923) and would provide the insider source of information for conspiracy theorist Carroll Quigley.



Internationalism

Zimmern has been classified as a utopian and idealist thinker on international relations.[11][12] He is cited often, in this perspective, in E. H. Carr's The Twenty Years' Crisis (1939); Carr and Zimmern are characterised[13] as at opposite ends of the theoretical and political spectrum.

Zimmern contributed to the founding of the League of Nations Society and of UNESCO.[14] He was Deputy Director of the Institute for Intellectual Co-operation, in Paris, in the mid-1920s;[15] after tension with the Director, the French historian Julien Luchaire, both left.[16] He was nominated in 1947 for the Nobel Peace Prize,[17] in connection with his UNESCO work.

Within UK politics, Zimmern joined the Labour Party in 1924, and was Labour candidate for Carnarvon Boroughs against David Lloyd George in the 1924 general election. A close friend of Ramsay MacDonald, Zimmern followed him in 1931 when MacDonald moved to head a National Government; he became an active member of the National Labour Organisation and frequently wrote articles for its journal, the News-Letter. Zimmern was one of five writers who contributed to a book "Towards a National Policy: being a National Labour Contribution" in April 1935. He died at Avon, Connecticut on 24 November 1957.

Works

• Henry Grattan, (1902)
• Nationality and Government with other war-time essays (1919)
• "Greek Political Thought", an essay in The Legacy of Greece (1921)
• Europe in Convalescence (1922)
• America and Europe
• Prospects of Democracy & Other Essays
• The Greek Commonwealth: Politics and Economics in Fifth Century Athens, 1911; 5th edition 1931, Oxford, reprint 1977
• The Economic Weapon Against Germany, London: Allen & Unwin, 1918
• The Third British Empire (1926; 3rd edition 1934), London: Oxford University Press
• The League of Nations and the Rule of Law 1918–1935 (1936)
• "The Ethical Presuppositions of a World Order", an essay in The Universal Church and the World of Nations (1938).

Further reading

• Jeanne Morefield (2004), Covenants Without Swords: Idealist Liberalism and the Spirit of Empire, on Zimmern and Gilbert Murray

Notes

1. Donald Markwell (1986), "Sir Alfred Zimmern Revisited: Fifty Years On", Review of International Studies. Donald Markwell, "Sir Alfred Eckhard Zimmern", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004. [1]
2. Discussed in J. D. B. Miller, "The Commonwealth and World Order: The Zimmern Vision and After" (1979), Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 8: p. 162.
3. welfare state
4. Book extract
5. Kathleen Woodroofe, "The Making of the Welfare State in England: A Summary of Its Origin and Development", Journal of Social History, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Summer, 1968), pp. 303–324.
6. Oxford English Dictionary, from 1941.
7. Noam Pianko, "The True Liberalism of Zionism”: Horace Kallen, Jewish Nationalism, and the Limits of American Pluralism, American Jewish History, 94(4), December 2008.
8. "University intelligence". The Times (36770). London. 17 May 1902. p. 11.
9. Cornell University Information Database Archived 7 September 2008 at the Wayback Machine
10. Time magazine comments.
11. In addition to Dickinson, the list of contributors to this utopian literature included Nicholas Murray Butler, James T. Shotwell, Alfred Zimmern, Norman Angell, and Gilbert Murray.[2]Archived 13 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine
12. Idealism (or 'utopianism') and power (or 'realism') are often portrayed as mutually exclusive and contradictory philosophies or attitudes to global affairs.... When the intellectual roots of the leaders of Chatham House (Lionel Curtis, Philip Kerr, Arnold Toynbee, Alfred Zimmern) and the Council on Foreign Relations(Hamilton Fish Armstrong, Whitney Hart Shepardson, Russell Cornell Leffingwell) are examined, it is clear that each category of their thought may be interpreted as a combination of idealism and power.[3][permanent dead link]
13. 2001 edition of the Crisis, introduction by Michael Cox, note p. xciii.
14. Richard Toye – | UNESCO.ORG
15. PDF, p. 22.
16. Duncan Wilson, Gilbert Murray, p. 357.
17. Nomination database

External links

• Works by Alfred Eckhard Zimmern at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Alfred Eckhard Zimmern at Internet Archive
• Biography
• Donald Markwell, 'Sir Alfred Eckhard Zimmern', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004. [4]
• Book extract
• (in German) Biographical page
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Re: A Friend of the Devil: Inside a famous Cold War deceptio

Postby admin » Thu Mar 28, 2019 6:38 am

CIA FOIA for 1956 Eugene Carson Blake briefing (f2015-01266)
by David Staniunas
March 16, 2015

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


This is the complete correspondence surrounding my FOIA request for records of the CIA's briefing of Eugene Carson Blake before his trip to Moscow in March of 1956. ARP's response is that the initial "neither confirm nor deny" was appropriate. Have made a request for review with NARA OGIS.

***

David Staniunas

From: David Staniunas

Sent: Monday, March 16, 2015 11:14 AM

To: David Staniunas

Subject: Blake Moscow FOIA

Information and Privacy Coordinator
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington, D.C. 20505

Dear Coordinator:

Under the freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. subsection 552, I am requesting records of CIA contact with or briefing of the members of a delegation from the National Council of the Churches of Christ which visited Moscow in March 1956, including correspondence, reports, minutes, and transcripts of interviews.

The delegation initiated contact with the State Department in September 1955 regarding its trip to Moscow, and left for Moscow on March 9, 1956. They were most likely briefed by Agency staff in New York City during the first week of March, 1956. The nine men in the delegation were: Paul B. Anderson, Roswell P. Barnes, Eugene Carson Blake, Franklin Clark Fry, Herbert Gezork, D. Ward Nichols, Charles C. Parlin, Henry Knox Sherrill, and Walter W. Van Kirk.


If there are any fees for searching for, reviewing, or copying the records, please notify me before processing if the amount exceeds $100.

If you deny all or any part of this request, please cite each specific exemption you think justifies your refusal to release the information and notify me of appeal procedures available under the law.

Please contact me directly with any further questions, by phone at 215-928-3864, or by email at dstaniunas[at]history[dot]pcusa[doct]org.

Sincerely,

David Staniunas, Records Archivist
Presbyterian Historical Society
425 Lombard Street, Philadelphia PA 19147

***

Central Intelligence Agency
Washington D.C. 20505

15 April 2015

Mr. David Staniunas
Presbyterian Historical Society
425 Lombard Street
Philadelphia, PA 19147

Reference: F-2015-01266

Dear Mr. Staniunas:

This is a final response to your 16 March 2015 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, received in the office of the Information and Privacy Coordinator on 16 March 2015, for "records of CIA contact with or briefing of the members of a delegation from the National Council of the Churches of Christ which visited Moscow in March 1956, including correspondence, reports, minutes, and transcripts of interviews." You stated that "they were most likely briefed by Agency staff in New York City."

In accordance with section 3.6(a) of Executive Order 13526, the CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of records responsive to your request. The fact of the existence or nonexistence of requested records is currently and properly classified and is intelligence sources and methods information that is protected from disclosure by section 6 of the CIA Act of 1949, as amended, and section 102A(i)(1) of the National Security Act of 1947, as amended. Therefore, your request is denied pursuant to FOIA exemptions (b)(1) and (b)(3). I have enclosed an explanation of these exemptions for your reference and retention, As the CIA Information and Privacy Coordinator, I am the CIA official responsible for this determination. You have the right to appeal this response to the Agency Release Panel, in my care, within 45 days from the date of this letter. Please include the basis of your appeal.

Sincerely,

Michael Lavergne
Information and Privacy Coordinator

***

Agency Release Panel, c/o
Michael Lavergne
Information and Privacy Coordinator
Central Intelligence Agency
Washington DC 20505

Reference: F-2015-01266

27 May 2015

Dear Mr. Lavergne:

This letter is to appeal the response of 15 April neither confirming nor denying the existence of records of CIA contact with or briefing of the members of a delegation from the National Council of the Churches of Christ which visited Moscow in March 1956.

The 1949 CIA Act, as amended, and the National Security Act of 1947, as amended, provide for the protection of intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure. Invoking these protections is moot, and the existence of the records, along with the records themselves, should be declassified and released, as:

1) The intelligence sources are all deceased. No active CIA operation could be endangered through the release of information about these men:

Decatur Ward Nichols, died January 24, 2005.
Henry Knox Sherrill, died May 11, 1980.
Eugene Carson Blake, died July 31, 1985.
Charles Parlin, died November 15, 1981.
Walter Van Kirk, died July 6, 1956.
Herbert Gezork, died October 1984.
Roswell Barnes, died December 21, 1990.
Franklin Clark Fry, died June 6, 1968.
Paul B. Anderson, died June 26, 1985.

2) The chief targets of the intelligence collection in question are deceased. No active CIA operation could be endangered through the release of information about these men:

Metropolitan Nikolai, died December 13, 1961.
Patriarch Alexei, died April 17, 1970.


3) An unclassified 2013 report of an evaluation required by the 2010 Reducing Over-Classification Act indicates that Agency staff routinely misapply derivative classifications:“

Seventy-five percent of the sampled reports had inaccuracies in the declassification instructions in the classification block. Discrepancies included: use of a 50-year declassification date when there was no sensitive human source information to justify the extended period of classification;”

This statement suggests that a routine 50-year classification of records to protect sensitive human sources is common practice. Given that 59 years have elapsed since March 1956, prior administrative practice suggests that records pertinent to my request should be declassified and released.

3) The method in question -– contacting and cultivating religious figures as sources of foreign intelligence -– has been acknowledged by the CIA for the past 40 years.

The final report of the Church Committee in 1975 described CIA contact with clergy: “The number of American clergy or misionaries [sic] used by the CIA has been small. The CIA has informed the Committee of a total of 14 covert arrangements which involved direct operational use of 21 individuals.” [http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/pdfs94th/94755_I.pdf p.202]

In 1996, Rodney I Page, deputy secretary general of the NCCC, testified before Congress that even suspected CIA use of religious workers as intelligence assets undermined the workers’ credibility, and placed their lives in danger. He added that it was widely known that the CIA operated under a general ban on such use of religious workers and clergy, but could authorize exceptions to the ban. The substance of CIA methodology is known. [http://archive.org/stream/ciasuseofjournal00unit/ciasuseofjournal00unit_djvu.txt]

Thank you for your attention, and please contact me directly with any further questions.

Sincerely,

David Staniunas

***

Central Intelligence Agency
Washington D.C. 20505

9 June 2015

Mr. David Staniunas
Presbyterian Historical Society
425 Lombard Street
Philadelphia, PA 19147

Reference: F-2015-01266

Dear Mr. Staniunas:

On 2 June 2015, the office of the Information and Privacy Coordinator received your 27 May 2015 administrative appeal under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for records on "CIA contact with or briefing of the members of a delegation from the National Council of the Churches of Christ which visited Moscow in March 1956, including correspondence, reports, minutes, and transcripts of interviews." Please continue to use this case reference number so that we can more easily identify your FOIA administrative appeal.

You are appealing our initial-level determination to neither confirm nor deny you material responsive to your request. Your appeal has been accepted and arrangements are being made for its consideration by the Agency Release Panel.

You will be advised of the panel's determination. In order to afford requesters the most equitable treatment possible, we have adopted the policy of handling appeals on a first-received, first-out basis. Despite our best efforts, however, the large number of public access requests CIA receives creates processing delays making it unlikely that we can respond to you within 20 working days. In view of this, some delay in our reply must be expected, but every reasonable effort will be made to respond as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Michael Lavergne
Information and Privacy Coordinator

***

Central Intelligence Agency
Washington D.C. 20505

29 September 2015

Mr. David Staniunas
Presbyterian Historical Society
425 Lombard Street
Philadelphia, PA 19147

Reference: F-2015-01266

Dear Mr. Staniunas:

This is a final response to your 27 May 2015 administrative appeal under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which was processed under the referenced case identification number by the office of the Information and Privacy Coordinator. As a reminder, you appealed our initial-level determination to that we could neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of material responsive to your request.

The Agency Release Panel considered your petition and fully denied your administrative appeal in accordance with Agency regulations set forth in Part 1900 of Title 32 of the Code of Federal Regulations. In reaching this determination to reaffirm CIA's initial-level processing of this request, the Agency Release Panel concluded that, in accordance with Section 3.6(a) of Executive Order 13526, the CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of records responsive to your request. The fact of the existence or nonexistence of such records is itself currently and properly classified and relates to intelligence sources and methods information that is protected from disclosure by section 6 of the CIA Act of 1949, as amended, and section 102A(i)(1) of the National Security Act of 1947, as amended. As the panel's Executive Secretary, I am the CIA official responsible for informing you of the appellate determination.

In accordance with the provisions of the FOIA, you have the right to seek judicial review of this determination in a United States district court. Alternatively, the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) offers mediation services to resolve disputes between FOIA requesters and federal agencies. Using services offered by OGIS does not affect your right to pursue litigation. For more information, including how to contact OGIS, please consult its website, http://ogis/archives.gov.

Sincerely,

Michael Lavergne
Executive Secretary
Agency Release Panel
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Re: A Friend of the Devil: Inside a famous Cold War deceptio

Postby admin » Thu Mar 28, 2019 6:42 am

William Sloane Coffin
by World Council of Churches
13 April 2006

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Clergy and Laity Concerned is a nationwide network within the religious community which was founded to mobilize opposition to U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia. In late 1965, John C. Bennett, William Sloane Coffin, Jr., Rabbi Abraham Heschel and others organized the National Emergency Committee of Clergy Concerned About Vietnam.

This committee soon developed a national organization of Roman Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant clergymen and laymen which was known as Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam (CALCAV). Richard R. Fernandez was hired as Executive Secretary in 1966, continuing in that capacity or as Co-Director until 1973. Others who have served as Director or Co-Director include Richard M. Boardman, John Collins, Robert S. Lecky, Barbara Lupo, Don Luce, Richard Van Voorhis, and Trudi Schutz Young.

-- Clergy and Laity Concerned Records, 1965-1983, Swarthmore College Peace Collection


Image

"One of the 20th century's great Christian pastors and activists for peace and justice" is how World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia describes US clergyman Rev. Dr William Sloane Coffin, Jr., who died on 12 April 2006, in a tribute issued on Maundy Thursday, April 13, 2006.

The full text of Kobia tribute follows:

I write to express my sympathy at the loss of William Sloane Coffin, who will be profoundly missed by many of us throughout the world.

The Rev. Dr William Sloane Coffin, Jr., who died yesterday in the United States, was one of the 20th century's great Christian pastors and activists for peace and justice. His life reflected an understanding of ministry that he once described in these words: "Every minister is given two roles, the prophetic and the priestly." And so he sought racial reconciliation through civil rights legislation, saw himself during the cold war years as "very anti-Soviet, but very pro-Russian", conducted a "lover's quarrel" with his own country's foreign and nuclear policies, opened the eyes of students, parishioners and readers to the demands of the gospel on every aspect of life. So, too, he taught that "the greatest danger each of us faces comes not from our enemies, but from our enmity".

Dr Coffin was aware of the World Council of Churches from before its inception in 1948. His uncle Henry Sloane Coffin, then president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, was one of the founding intellects behind the Council and a guiding influence in the establishment of its Ecumenical Institute for graduate study in Bossey, Switzerland. His theological mentors, Reinhold and H. Richard Niebuhr, led him to view God's calling in a framework that transcended national, cultural and denominational boundaries. William Sloane Coffin would continue these traditions in ecumenical circles through his years as chaplain of Yale University, pastor of Riverside Church in New York and leader of movements including the civil rights struggle, anti-war protest and the lobby for a nuclear freeze. His voice was one that we heard clearly, and heeded.

He was arrested several times in the pursuit of social righteousness. On one of these occasions, while demonstrating for the desegregation of an amusement park in Baltimore on July 4, 1963, he was one of nine US religious leaders taken into custody. Arrested in company with Coffin that day was Eugene Carson Blake, another minister of the United Presbyterian Church in the USA. Less than three years later, Gene Blake would become the second general secretary of the World Council of Churches. They remained friends and confidants to the end of Blake's life. In fact, William Sloane Coffin has been greatly admired by every one of the WCC's general secretaries.

Upon graduating in 1949, Coffin entered the Union Theological Seminary, where he remained for a year, until the outbreak of the Korean War reignited his interest in fighting against communism. He joined the CIA as a case officer in 1950 (his brother-in-law Franklin Lindsay had been head of the Office of Policy Coordination at the OSS, one of the predecessors of the CIA) spending three years in West Germany recruiting anti-Soviet Russian refugees and training them how to undermine Stalin's regime.

-- William Sloane Coffin, by Wikipedia


Dear Mr. Lavergne:

This letter is to appeal the response of 15 April neither confirming nor denying the existence of records of CIA contact with or briefing of the members of a delegation from the National Council of the Churches of Christ which visited Moscow in March 1956.

The 1949 CIA Act, as amended, and the National Security Act of 1947, as amended, provide for the protection of intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure. Invoking these protections is moot, and the existence of the records, along with the records themselves, should be declassified and released, as:

1) The intelligence sources are all deceased. No active CIA operation could be endangered through the release of information about these men:

Decatur Ward Nichols, died January 24, 2005.
Henry Knox Sherrill, died May 11, 1980.

Eugene Carson Blake, died July 31, 1985.
Charles Parlin, died November 15, 1981.
Walter Van Kirk, died July 6, 1956.
Herbert Gezork, died October 1984.
Roswell Barnes, died December 21, 1990.
Franklin Clark Fry, died June 6, 1968.
Paul B. Anderson, died June 26, 1985.

2) The chief targets of the intelligence collection in question are deceased. No active CIA operation could be endangered through the release of information about these men:

Metropolitan Nikolai, died December 13, 1961.
Patriarch Alexei, died April 17, 1970....


3) The method in question -– contacting and cultivating religious figures as sources of foreign intelligence -– has been acknowledged by the CIA for the past 40 years....

In 1996, Rodney I Page, deputy secretary general of the NCCC, testified before Congress that even suspected CIA use of religious workers as intelligence assets undermined the workers’ credibility, and placed their lives in danger. He added that it was widely known that the CIA operated under a general ban on such use of religious workers and clergy, but could authorize exceptions to the ban. The substance of CIA methodology is known. [http://archive.org/stream/ciasuseofjournal00unit/ciasuseofjournal00unit_djvu.txt]

***********************************************************

Dear Mr. Staniunas:

The Agency Release Panel considered your petition and fully denied your administrative appeal in accordance with Agency regulations set forth in Part 1900 of Title 32 of the Code of Federal Regulations.

-- CIA FOIA for 1956 Eugene Carson Blake briefing (f2015-01266), by David Staniunas


Dear Mr. Dulles:

As I retire from active service in the World Council of Churches at the end of this month, I find myself thinking gratefully of you and the other friends who year after year have given their loyal support in prayer and thought and money. Looking back over the forty years during which I have been associated with the movement for a greater Christian unity, I am grateful to God for the encouraging developments that have taken place both in this country and around the world. As I look ahead I have no doubt that the coming years will see a much greater advance toward a truly united Church. On the human side, it is such help as faithful friends like yourself have given that has made all this possible....

I can wish nothing happier and better than that he should have the same kind of friendly interest and support which you have shown during my years of service.

-- Letter to Allen W. Dulles, Director Central Intelligence Agency, from Samuel McCrea Cavert, The United States Conference for the WORLD COUNCIL of CHURCHES


It is near impossible to follow church money in any precise way. When Pastor Lusseau and his parishoners tried to, they found that it was being absorbed into the coffers, committees and ad hoc committees of the United Methodist Church, National Council of Churches and the World Council, and then surfacing in some surprising places. They found some of it was being spent on causes that seemed more political than religious, on causes that seemed closer to the Soviet-Cuban view of the world than Logansport, Indiana's, and they didn't like it.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: The World Council, in particular, has become a political organization and not, as they set out, to be a fellowship of Christian organizations who accept Jesus Christ as our God and savior....

SAFER: The bureaucracy they're concerned about, indeed what many American Protestants are concerned about, is largely headquartered, 475 Riverside Drive in New York City. This building is officially known as the Inter-Church Center. The people who work in it call it the God Box. It's the home of the National Council of Churches. It's also the national headquarters for dozens of agencies attached to the United Methodists, the United Presbyterians and other Protestant churches. It's also the U.S. headquarters of the World Council of Churches, which is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland....

Critics feel that the National and the World Council lean toward Karl Marx when it comes to giving certain financial support.

Among the things they object to: money to NACLA, the North American Congress on Latin America, based in New York. Money from the Presbyterian Hunger Program helped NACLA publish this book, Agribusiness in the Americas, an indictment of capitalism and American agricultural corporations.

Two million dollars from the World Council went to buy heavy equipment and materials for new economic zones in Vietnam. Critics claim new economic zones are little more than forced labor camps.

After the Cuban supported revolution in Grenada, the National Council contributed money to publish a primer on the island. What was produced was a tribute to the revolution.

Another item. For a center in Nicaragua that would, quote, "serve the revolutionary reality in Latin America," unquote, $60,000 from the United Methodists.

The Cuba Resource Center received heavy financial support from the National Council member churches. It produced blatantly pro-Castro publications. And a continuing theme was to redefine Christianity in Marxist revolutionary terms.

Another item. To the Nicaraguan literacy program, $1-1/2 million from the World Council. The purpose was to raise political awareness while teaching reading. The teachers were Cuban; American teachers were not welcome.

Another item. The Conference in Solidarity with the Liberation Struggles of Southern Africa in New York was funded and organized by the United Methodists. But when it took place, according to FBI documents, it was run by the U.S. Communist Party and was entirely manipulated by the Soviet Union. The only Methodist official on the platform was the one who gave the invocation.

-- The Gospel According to Whom?: A Look at the National and World Councils of Churches, by 60 Minutes


On behalf of the ecumenical fellowship represented by the World Council of Churches, I offer thanks to God for the life, faith and courage of William Sloane Coffin. Many of us who knew him only slightly, or through his writings, or by report, join in prayer with those close friends and family members who are experiencing sorrow at his death. May the hope of the resurrection to eternal life, found at the heart of this Easter season, be with us and reassure us of God's abiding love.

Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia

General secretary, World Council of Churches
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Re: A Friend of the Devil: Inside a famous Cold War deceptio

Postby admin » Thu Mar 28, 2019 10:21 pm

Henry Sloane Coffin
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/28/19

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.


Dr. [William Sloane] Coffin was aware of the World Council of Churches from before its inception in 1948. His uncle Henry Sloane Coffin, then president of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, was one of the founding intellects behind the Council and a guiding influence in the establishment of its Ecumenical Institute for graduate study in Bossey, Switzerland.

-- William Sloane Coffin, by World Council of Churches


The Church

About 2 percent of The Order is in the Church (all Protestant denominations), although this percentage has declined in recent years.

A key penetration is the Union Theological Seminary, affiliated with Columbia University in New York. This Seminary, a past subject of investigation for Communist infiltration, has close links to The Order. Henry Sloane Coffin ('97) was Professor of Practical Theology at Union from 1904 to 1926 and President of Union Theological Seminary, also known as the "Red Seminary," from 1926 to 1945. Union has such a wide interpretation of religious activity that has, or used to have, an Atheists Club for its students.

Henry Sloane Coffin, Jr. ('49) was one of the Boston Five indicted on federal conspiracy charges.

And this is only part of The Order's penetration into the Church.

-- America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones, by Antony C. Sutton


The movement in favour of India in US received further impetus from the visit of Madame Cama as an emissary of the Indian revolutionaries from London and Paris. Arriving in New York in October 1907, Madame Cama delivered a series of lectures before American audiences, explaining to them the purpose of her visit. “I am in America”, she said, “for the sole purpose of giving a thorough expose of the British suppression which is little understood so far away and to interest the warm hearted citizens of the great Republic” in our fight for freedom against the British rule. 20 Explaining the aims of the Indian revolutionaries abroad she made it clear that it was to achieve “Swaraj; self-government” and to strive for “liberty, equality and fraternity” with the hope of getting it within ten years.

When questioned by a press correspondent as to “how this mighty overthrow was to come about,” she explained, “by passive resistance. We are peaceful people and unarmed. We could not rise and battle if we could. We are preparing our people for concentrated resistance.” 21

In the subsequent meetings, which Madame Cama addressed at the Minerva Club and at the Adams Union Theological Seminary, she asked for the help of the American people for the political enfranchisement of India. Her only regret was that the American people had knowledge about the conditions in Russia, but they had no idea about the conditions in India under the British Government. 22

It was on account of her visit and her meeting with Barkatullah and Phelps, that both the societies decided to join in 1908 and worked together for self-rule for India. 23

The ruthless policy of the Government of India to suppress the rising tide of the national movement gradually convinced Indians abroad that it was futile to carry on the struggle on constitutional lines. Madame Cama in Paris and Savarkar in London started advocating violent methods for the attainment of freedom. Their propaganda had a direct impact on the political thinking of the Indians in America. This had already been noticed by the British Consul-General. He reported that the Indians were saying in private that they had been trying for the last twenty-one years to obtain freedom by constitutional means and were now tired of that line and that their difficulty, however, was the same as that of the Irish; they had no arms. 24

-- 3: Indian Revolutionary Movement in USA and Canada The Pan-Aryan Association
Excerpt from "Indian Revolutionary Movement Abroad" (1905-1921), by Tilak Raj Sareen, M.A., Ph.D.


A number of prominent Indian revolutionaries and nationalists were associated with India House, including Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Bhikaji Cama, V.N. Chatterjee, Lala Har Dayal, V.V.S. Aiyar, M.P.T. Acharya and P.M. Bapat….

India House is a large Victorian Mansion at 65 Cromwell Avenue, Highgate, North London. It was inaugurated on 1 July 1905 by Henry Hyndman in a ceremony attended by, among others, Dadabhai Naoroji, Charlotte Despard and Bhikaji Cama….

The Paris Indian Society, a branch of the IHRS, was launched in 1905 under the patronage of Bhikaji Cama, Sardar Singh Rana and B.H. Godrej.[26] A number of India House members who later rose to prominence – including V.N. Chatterjee, Har Dayal and Acharya and others – first encountered the IHRS through this Paris Indian Society.[27] Cama herself was at this time deeply involved with the Indian revolutionary cause, and she nurtured close links with both French and exiled Russian socialists.[28][29] Lenin's views are thought to have influenced Cama's works at this time, and Lenin is believed to have visited India House during one of his stays in London.[30][31] In 1907, Cama, along with V.N. Chatterjee and S.R. Rana, attended the Socialist Congress of the Second International in Stuttgart. There, supported by Henry Hyndman, she demanded recognition of self-rule for India and in a famous gesture unfurled one of the first Flags of India.[32]….

From the time it was founded, India House cultivated a close relationship with socialist movements in Europe. Prominent Socialists of the time like Henry Hyndman were closely linked to the house. Cama cultivated a close relationship with French Socialists and Russian communists.
The IHRS delegation to Stuttgart in 1907 is known to have met with Hyndman, Karl Liebknecht, Jean Jaurès, Rosa Luxemburg and Ramsay MacDonald. Chatterjee moved to Paris in 1909 and joined the French Socialist Party.[103] M.P.T. Acharya was introduced to the socialist circle in Paris in 1910.[104]

India House, by Wikipedia


Image
Henry Sloane Coffin
The Rev. Henry Sloane Coffin on the cover of Time magazine November 15, 1926
Born January 5, 1877
New York City
Died November 25, 1954 (aged 77)
Lakeville, Connecticut
Title President of the Union Theological Seminary
Spouse(s) Dorothy (nee Eells)
Academic background
Education Yale College, Union Theological Seminary

Henry Sloane Coffin (January 5, 1877, in New York City – November 25, 1954, in Lakeville, Connecticut) was president of the Union Theological Seminary, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, and one of the most famous ministers in the United States. He was also one of the translators of the popular hymn "O Come, O Come Emmanuel", along with John Mason Neale.[1][2]

Biography

Coffin was the son of Edmund Coffin and Euphemia Sloane. He was an heir to the fortune of the furniture firm of W. and J. Sloane & Co. His brother was William Sloane Coffin, who was later the president of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Coffin attended Yale College and obtained a Bachelor of Arts in 1897. In 1896, he was one of fifteen juniors invited to join the Skull and Bones. He then received his master's degree from Yale in 1900.

Image
The gravesite of Henry Sloane Coffin

During his time at Yale, Coffin was on friendly terms with evangelist Dwight L. Moody, who devoted considerable attention to Coffin during his famous Northfield Conferences in Massachusetts. In spite of Moody's influence, Coffin would emerge as a leading theological liberal.

Coffin also obtained his Bachelor of Divinity from the Union Theological Seminary in 1900. He then became pastor of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City in 1910. He declined an offer to become president of Union Theological Seminary in 1916. In 1917, he became Chairman of the Committee of the Board of Home Missions. In 1926, offered the presidency of Union a second time, he accepted and retained the post until 1945.

Coffin was married to Dorothy Eells. He was the uncle of William Sloane Coffin, and a member of the Yale Corporation (1921–45).

Henry Sloane Coffin died in 1954 at age 77 and was interred at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, NY.

Works

Music


• Coffin, Henry Sloane; Vernon, Ambrose White (1910). Hymns of the Kingdom of God, with tunes. New York: Barnes. OCLC 816788.

Books

• ——— (1911). Social Aspects of the Cross. New York: Hodder & Stoughton ; George H. Doran Company. OCLC 2025617.
• ——— (1914). University Sermons. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. OCLC 3087064.
• ——— (1915). The Ten Commandments: with a Christian application to present conditions. New York: Hodder & Stoughton ; George H. Doran Company. OCLC 24003995.
• ——— (1915). Some Christian Convictions: a practical restatement in terms of present-day thinking. New Haven, CT ; London: Yale University Press ; Oxford University Press. OCLC 2161577.
• ——— (1918). In a Day of Social Rebuilding: lectures on the ministry of the church. Lyman Beecher lectures. 44th. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. OCLC 6438204.
• ——— (1922). What is There in Religion?. New York: Macmillan. OCLC 1433526.
• ——— (1926). What to preach. New York: George H. Doran Company. OCLC 331924.
• ——— (1926). The Portraits of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. New York: Macmillan. OCLC 1015672.
• ——— (1931). The Meaning of the Cross. New York: Scribner. OCLC 5744451.
• ——— (1933). What Men are Asking: some current questions in religion. Cole lectures - 1933. Nashville, TN: Cokesbury Press. OCLC 6028333.
• ——— (1934). God's Turn. New York ; London: Harper & Bros. OCLC 3068432.
• ——— (1940). Religion Yesterday and Today. Nashville, TN: Cokesbury Press. OCLC 3297242.
• ——— (1946). The Public Worship of God: a source book. Westminster Source Books. Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press. OCLC 166224.
• ——— (1947). God Confronts Man in History. New York: Scribner. OCLC 1444731.
• ——— (1952). Communion Through Preaching: the monstrance of the Gospel. George Craig Stewart Lectures. New York: Scribner. OCLC 500871.
• ——— (1954). A Half Century of Union Theological Seminary, 1896-1945: an informal history. New York: Scribner. OCLC 664803.
• ———. Bowie, Walter Russell, ed. Joy in Believing: selections from the spoken and written words and the prayers. New York: Scribner, [1956. OCLC 547760.

Articles and chapters

• ——— (1939). "Religion in the last hundred years". A Century of Social Thought: a series of lectures delivered at Duke University during the academic year 1938-1939 as a part of the centennial celebration of that institution. Duke University Publications. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. OCLC 3370775.

See also

• List of people on the cover of Time Magazine: 1920s - 15 Nov. 1926

References

1. ^ O Come, O Come Emmanuel on HymnSite.org
2. ^ O Come, O Come Emmanuel Archived 2010-11-04 at the Wayback Machine on WorshipTutorials

External links

• Works by Henry Sloane Coffin at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Henry Sloane Coffin at Internet Archive
• Henry Sloane Coffin on NNDB
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Re: A Friend of the Devil: Inside a famous Cold War deceptio

Postby admin » Mon Apr 08, 2019 10:35 pm

Documents from WCC assemblies since 1948
by World Council of Churches
Accessed: 4/8/19

Please note that only few of the documents from assemblies held prior to the invention of the internet are currently available. None of the documents from the WCC 2nd Assembly, held in Evanston in 1954, is available in electronic format so far.

Amsterdam, 1948
New Delhi, 1961
Uppsala, 1968
Nairobi, 1975
Vancouver, 1983
Canberra, 1991
Harare, 1998
Porto Alegre, 2006
Busan, 2013
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Re: A Friend of the Devil: Inside a famous Cold War deceptio

Postby admin » Mon Apr 08, 2019 10:41 pm

Amsterdam, 1948
by World Council of Churches
Accessed: 4/8/19

Amsterdam Assembly 1948 Extracts from Report of Committee IV CONCERNS OF THE CHURCHES - THE EMERGENCE OF ISRAEL AS A STATE

Concerns of the churches - The emergence of Israel as a state
Amsterdam Assembly 1948
01 August 1948

Extracts from Report of Committee IV

On the Political aspects of the Palestine problem and the complex conflict of "rights" involved we do not undertake to express a judgement. Nevertheless, we appeal to the nations to deal with the problem not as one of expediency - political, strategic or economic - but as a moral and spiritual question that touches a nerve centre of the world's religious life.

Whatever position may be taken towards the establishment of a Jewish state and towards the "rights" and "wrongs" of Jews and Arabs, of Hebrew Christians and Arab Christians involved, the churches are in duty bound to pray and work for an order in Palestine as just as may be in the midst of our human disorder; to provide within their power for the relief of the victims of this warfare without discrimination; and to seek to influence the nations to provide a refuge for "displaced persons" far more generously than has yet been done.

REFUGEES AND UPROOTED PEOPLES

Resolution proposed by the Committee on Christian Reconstruction and Inter-Church Aid of the Amsterdam Assembly:

The World Council of Churches, recalling that the origin of its refugee division was the concern of the churches for Jewish refugees, notes with especially deep concern the recent extension of the refugee problem to the Middle East by the flight from their homes in the Holy Land of not less than 350,000 Arab and other refugees.

It receives, with an urgent sense of its Christian duty, the appeal which originally came from Christian leaders in Palestine. It records appreciation of the prompt co-operation offered by the UN mediator in Palestine with the projects of relief initiated by the churches and interchurch bodies, and in commending the actions in this field already taken.

RESOLVES

To urge the churches to include in their provisions for refugees additional emergency help for the urgent situation in the Middle East, and to channel this help in such a way as both to achieve a distinctive and maximum Christian effort in this field, and to ensure its co-ordination with the measures initiated;

To recommend that, through its refugee commission, the World Council of Churches should:

1. Appeal for money, food, medical supplies, and blankets;
2. In connection with the International Missionary Council, appoint a special field representative to co-ordinate Christian action with the mediator's programme;
3. Urge and assist all Christians in Palestine and neighbouring countries to cooperate in this work in every way practicable.


Amsterdam Assembly 1948 Extracts from Report of Committee IV CONCERNS OF THE CHURCHES: 3. THE CHRISTIAN APPROACH TO THE JEWS

Concerns of the churches - The Christian approach to the Jews
by World Council of Churches
01 August 1948

Extracts from Report of Committee IV

3· THE CHRISTIAN APPROACH TO THE JEWS

The Report was received by the Assembly and commended to the churches for their serious consideration and appropriate action.

Introduction

A concern for the Christian approach to the Jewish people confronts us inescapably, as we meet together to look with open and penitent eyes on man's disorder and to rediscover together God's eternal purpose for His Church. This concern is ours because it is first a concern of God made known to us in Christ. No people in His one world have suffered more bitterly from the disorder of man than the Jewish people. We cannot forget that we meet in a land from which 110,000 Jews were taken to be murdered. Nor can we forget that we meet only five years after the extermination of 6 million Jews. To the Jews our God has bound us in a special solidarity linking our destinies together in His design. We call upon all our churches to make this concern their own as we share with them the results of our too brief wrestling with it.

1. The Church's commission to preach the Gospel to all men

All of our churches stand under the commission of our common Lord, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." The fulfilment of this commission requires that we include the Jewish people in our evangelistic task.

2. The special meaning of the Jewish people for Christian faith

In the design of God, Israel has a unique position. It was Israel with whom God made His covenant by the call of Abraham. It was Israel to whom God revealed His name and gave His law. It was to Israel that He sent His Prophets with their message of judgment and of grace. It was Israel to whom He promised the coming of His Messiah. By the history of Israel God prepared the manger in which in the fulness of time He put the Redeemer of all mankind, Jesus Christ. The Church has received this spiritual heritage from Israel and is therefore in honour bound to render it back in the light of the Cross. We have, therefore, in humble conviction to proclaim to the Jews, "The Messiah for Whom you wait has come." The promise has been fulfilled by the coming of Jesus Christ.

For many the continued existence of a Jewish people which does not acknowledge Christ is a divine mystery which finds its only sufficient explanation in the purpose of God's unchanging faithfulness and mercy (Romans xi, 25-29).


3. Barriers to be overcome

Before our churches can hope to fulfil the commission laid upon us by our Lord there are high barriers to be overcome. We speak here particularly of the barriers which we have too often helped to build and which we alone can remove.

We must acknowledge in all humility that too often we have failed to manifest Christian love towards our Jewish neighbours, or even a resolute will for common social justice. We have failed to fight with all our strength the age-old disorder of man which anti-semitism represents. The churches in the past have helped to foster an image of the Jews as the sole enemies of Christ, which has contributed to anti-semitism in the secular world. In many lands virulent anti-semitism still threatens and in other lands the Jews are subjected to many indignities.

We call upon all the churches we represent to denounce anti-semitism, no matter what its origin, as absolutely irreconcilable with the profession and practice of the Christian faith. Anti-Semitism is sin against God and man.

Only as we give convincing evidence to our Jewish neighbours that we seek for them the common rights and dignities which God wills for His children, can we come to such a meeting with them as would make it possible to share with them the best which God has given us in Christ.


4. The Christian witness to the Jewish people

In spite of the universality of our Lord's commission and of the fact that the first mission of the Church was to the Jewish people, our churches have with rare exceptions failed to maintain that mission. This responsibility should not be left largely to independent agencies. The carrying on of this mission by special agencies has often meant the singling out of the Jews for special missionary attention, even in situations where they might well have been included in the normal ministry of the Church. It has also meant in many cases that the converts are forced into segregated spiritual fellowship rather than being included and welcomed in the regular membership of the Church.

Owing to this failure our churches must consider the responsibility for missions to the Jews as a normal part of parish work, especially in those countries where Jews are members of the general community. Where there is no indigenous church or where the indigenous church is insufficient for this task it may be necessary to arrange for a special missionary ministry from abroad.

Because of the unique inheritance of the Jewish people, the churches should make provision for the education of ministers specially fitted for this task. Provision should also be made for Christian literature to interpret the Gospel to Jewish people.

Equally, it should be made clear to church members that the strongest argument in winning others for Christ is the radiance and contagion of victorious living and the outgoing of God's love expressed in personal human contacts. As this is expressed and experienced in a genuine Christian fellowship and community the impact of the Gospel will be felt. For such a fellowship there will be no difference between a converted Jew and other church members, all belonging to the same church and fellowship through Jesus Christ. But the converted Jew calls for particular tenderness and full acceptance just because his coming into the Church carries with it often a deeply wounding break with family and friends.

In reconstruction and relief activities the churches must not lose sight of the plight of Christians of Jewish origin, in view of their special suffering. Such provision must be made for their aid as will help them to know that they are not forgotten in the Christian fellowship.

5. The emergence of Israel as a state

The establishment of the state "Israel" adds a political dimension to the Christian approach to the Jews and threatens to complicate anti-semitism with political fears and enmities.

On the political aspects of the Palestine problem and the complex conflict of "rights" involved we do not undertake to express a judgment. Nevertheless, we appeal to the nations to deal with the problem not as one of expediency—political, strategic or economic—but as a moral and spiritual question that touches a nerve centre of the world's religious life.

Whatever position may be taken towards the establishment of a Jewish state and towards the "rights" and "wrongs" of Jews and Arabs, of Hebrew Christians and Arab Christians involved, the churches are in duty bound to pray and work for an order in Palestine as just as may be in the midst of our human disorder; to provide within their power for the relief of the victims of this warfare without discrimination; and to seek to influence the nations to provide a refuge for "Displaced Persons" far more generously than has yet been done.

RECOMMENDATIONS

We conclude this report with the recommendations which arise out of our first exploratory consideration of this "concern" of the churches.

1. To the member churches of the World Council we recommend:

that they seek to recover the universality of our Lord's commission by including the Jewish people in their evangelistic work;

that they encourage their people to seek for brotherly contact with and understanding of their Jewish neighbours, and co-operation in agencies combating misunderstanding and prejudice;

that in mission work among the Jews they scrupulously avoid all unworthy pressures or inducements;

that they give thought to the preparation of ministers well fitted to interpret the Gospel to Jewish people and to the provision of literature which will aid in such a ministry.

2. To the World Council of Churches we recommend:

that it should give careful thought as to how it can best stimulate and assist the member churches in the carrying out of this aspect of their mission;

that it give careful consideration to the suggestion made by the International Missionary Council that the World Council of Churches share with it a joint responsibility for the Christian approach to the Jews;

that it be RESOLVED

That, in receiving the report of this Committee, the Assembly recognise the need for more detailed study by the World Council of Churches of the many complex problems which exist in the field of relations between Christians and Jews, and in particular of the following:

(a) the historical and present factors which have contributed to the growth and persistence of anti-semitism, and the most effective means of combating this evil;

(b) the need and opportunity in this present historical situation for the development of co-operation between Christians and Jews in civic and social affairs;

(c) the many and varied problems created by establishment of a State of Israel in Palestine.

The Assembly therefore asks that these and related questions be referred to the Central Committee for further examination.
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Re: A Friend of the Devil: Inside a famous Cold War deceptio

Postby admin » Mon Apr 08, 2019 10:45 pm

New Delhi, 1961
by World council of Churches
Accessed: 4/8/19



New Delhi Statement on Unity

This is the report of the Section on Unity at the WCC 3rd Assembly. Particularly in paragraph 2 -- probably the greatest run-on sentence in ecumenical history -- we have one of the seminal and enduring statements on the nature of "organic unity".

New Delhi Statement on Unity
by World Council of Churches
31 December 1961

WCC 3rd Assembly, New Delhi, 1961

This is the report of the Section on Unity at the New Delhi assembly. Particularly in paragraph 2 we have one of the seminal and enduring statements on the nature of "organic unity". Please see also the response to this report from the Orthodox participants, which illustrates the ways in which differences in ecclesiological understanding entail different visions of unity.

I. The Church's unity

1. The love of the Father and the Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit is the source and goal of the unity which the Triune God wills for all men and creation. We believe that we share in this unity in the Church of Jesus Christ, who is before all things and in whom all things hold together. In him alone, given by the Father to be Head of the Body, the Church has its true unity. The reality of this unity was manifest at Pentecost in the gift of the Holy Spirit, through whom we know in this present age the first fruits of that perfect union of the Son with his Father, which will be known in its fullness only when all things are consummated by Christ in his glory. The Lord who is bringing all things into full unity at the last is he who constrains us to seek the unity which he wills for his Church on earth here and now.

2. We believe that the unity which is both God’s will and his gift to his Church is being made visible as all in each place who are baptized into Jesus Christ and confess him as Lord and Saviour are brought by the Holy Spirit into one fully committed fellowship, holding the one apostolic faith preaching the one Gospel, breaking the one bread, joining in common prayer, and having a corporate life reaching out in witness and service to all and who at the same time are united with the whole Christian fellowship in all places and all ages in such wise that ministry and members are accepted by all, and that all can act and speak together as occasion requires for the tasks to which God calls his people.

It is for such unity that we believe we must pray and work.

3. This brief description of our objective leaves many questions unanswered. We are not yet of a common mind on the interpretation and the means of achieving the goal we have described. We are clear that unity does not imply simple uniformity of organization, rite or expression. We all confess that sinful self-will operates to keep us separated and that in our human ignorance we cannot discern clearly the lines of God’s design for the future. But it is our firm hope that through the Holy Spirit God’s will as it is witnessed to in Holy Scripture will be more and more disclosed to us and in us. The achievement of unity will involve nothing less than a death and rebirth of many forms of church life as we have known them. We believe that nothing less costly can finally suffice....
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