In This Issue

A Quaker Weekly VOLUME 5 NOVEMBER 7, 1959 NUMBER 38 IN THIS ISSUE ~S is !he deepes! secre! of prayer: the resolute evic tion from the heart of every Finding Life without Fear thought of bitterness, and the steadfast determination to . • • . • by Barbara Hinchcliffe bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and think no evil; to suffer long Diagnosis in Dialogue and be kind, and to love even as· we are loved; prayers that • • • • • by John E. Kaltenbach rise from a heart so resolved are gathered by the angel into the golden censer, and are mingled with the fire of the Letter from Paris altar, and there follow voices . • • . by Wolf Mendl and thunderings and light- nings. -C. MILROY Friends Refugee Resettlement Program . • . by Richard Ferree Smith FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY Teen-agers and Worship and Ministry $5.00 A YEAR 598 FRIENDS JOURNAL November 7, 1959 FRIENDS JOURNAL Teen-agers and Worship and Ministry OR nearly a year and a half an unusual association Fhas existed between the high school age class in the First-day school and the Meeting on Worship and Min· istry of Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. In the class was only one child of a member of the Meeting on Worship and Ministry. A concern originated in the older group to visit the class occasionally. At least four members did so from Published weekly, but biweekly from June 13 to September time to time. The result was a request from the class 19 and December 19 to January 2, at 1615 CherrY Street, Philadelphia 2, Pennsylvania (LO S-7669) that the visitors should, for the coming year, instruct By Friends Publishing Corporation them, the general theme being "The Life and Teachings WILLIAM HUBBEN MILDRED A. PURNELL Editor and Manager Assistant Editor of Jesus." The teacher, John D. Streetz of George School, HELEN P . JANKE FREIDA L. SINGLETON and the First-day School Committee of the Monthly Advertisements Subscriptions Meeting approved the invitation. Worship and Ministry CONTRIBUTING CORRESPONDENTS RICHARD R. WOOD, Philadelphia accepted. The Sermon on the Mount was to be the first Africa . ... .......... ......... ...Maurice W~bb, Durban subject, George Otto, G. Colbert Thomas, and Amelia England .. ........ .. .....Horace B. Pointang, Londdon Joan Hewitt, Lon on W. Swayne sharing in the instruction. France . .. .. .... ........ ...... Wolf Mend!, Par.is Germa ny . .. ... ........ Brigitte Schleusener, Berlan After about six months the members of the class India .... : . ............. ........ Benjamin Polk, Ca.lc~t~a Japan ............ ............ ....... (To be appoan .e ) were invited to summarize their experience as part of Lebanon .. .... Calvin W. and Gwendolyn Schwabe, Bearut Scandinavia ................ Ole Olden, Stavanger, Norway the opening exercises of the First-day school. By coinci Switzerland ..................... Robert J. Leach, Geneva Turkey . ..... ...... .. William L. Nute, Jr., ~nkara dence the date given them was that of the Fellowship Midwest (Five Years) ...Errol T. Elliott, Indianapohs, Ind. New England ............ .... Thomas R. Bodine, Hartford Weekend, a project of the Social Order Committee of West Coast ...... ......... Ferner Nuhn, Claremont, Calif. the Monthly Meeting. This brought about 50 colored BOARD OF MANAGERS guests into the homes of Meeting members for a 24- 1966-1969: Howard H. Brinton, Sarah P. Brock, Ruth 0. Maris, Margaret L. Matthews, Lawrence McK. Miller, Jr. hour period. Some were students from abroad, but most 1967-1960: Mary R. Calhoun, Eleanor S. Clarke, Barbara L. Curtis, Arthur M. Dewees, Irving Hollingshead, Emily were well-educated married couples, in professional oc C. Johnson, Elizabeth H. Kirk. 1958-1961: J. C. Clement Alexandre, Carol P. Brainerd, Daniel D. Test, Jr., Anne cupations in Philadelphia and its suburbs. Wood. Mildred B. Young. THE JOURNAL ASSOCIATES are friends who add five Three of the high school age class spoke at the open dollars or more to their subscriptions annnal)y to help ing exercises. After both First-day school and meeting, meet the over-all cost of publication. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: United States, possessions, Can Olivia Otto, a member of the class, was asked whether ada and Mexico: $6.00 a year, $2.76 for six months. For~ign countries: $6.60 a year. Single copies: fifteen she had noticed an impressive unity of thought and feel cents. Checks should be made payable to Friends Journal. Sample copies sent on request. ing throughout the morning. She had so noticed, and Second Class Postage Paid at Philadelphia, Pa.. accepted an invitation to write it up. In submitting the following account, Olivia Otto expressed thanks "be cause writing these things down has made me under stand them better." Today the mood of the meeting seemed to have been set earlier in the opening exercises by the high Contents school class, where we spoke of our study of the Ser Page mon on the Mount. An even more important factor Teen-agers and Worship and Ministry-George A. was, perhaps, the fact that we were witnessing these Walton . .................................... 598 teachings put into action by our Fellowship Week Editorial Comments ... ............. '. 599 end, for it is in projects such as these that the natural, Finding Life without Fear-Barbara H inchcliffe .. 600 normal relationship of men, as preached in the Ser Friends Refugee Resettlement Program- Richard mon on the Mount, begins. Ferree Smith . ................ .. .............. 601 Through the meeting there seemed to be a con· Letter from Paris-Wolf Mendl ................... 602 tinuous thread of thought; each person that spoke Diagnosis in Dialogue-John E. Kaltenbach ..... .. 604 picked up and elaborated some part of it. It is Friends and Their Friends . 605 through weekends such as this that we break the nar- Letters to the Editor . 606 (Continued on page 603) FRIENDS JOURNAL Successor to THE FRIEND (1827-1955) and FRIENDS INTELLIGENCER (1844-1955) EsTABLISHED 1955 PHILADELPHIA, NOVEMBER 7, 1959 VOL. 5-No. 38 Editorial Comments A Post-Christian Era? more dramatic appeal for the renewal of faith and prac N spite of ever-mounting statistics, swelling financial tice in our own ranks? And what attempts are we I statements, and impressive church-building activities, making for reaching those who feel alienated from official the fear that all is not well with Western Christianity churchdom and are seeking a new spiritual home? keeps plaguing us. C. S. Lewis, the Cambridge Scholar, whose Screwtape Letters gave a new note to modern Anti-Semitism in Germany ? Christian writing, defines our time as a post-Christian Jews are returning to West Germany at the rate of era. But post-Christian man is not pagan, he says: man about 180 a month, and some 10,000 have returned since today is cut off from the Christian past and is therefore World War II. Most of these are elderly persons who doubly removed from the pagan past and its uncertain have found it difficult to adjust to strange conditions in consolations. Toynbee, the English historian, agrees that other countries. The total number of Jews now living in science and technology have gradually discredited tradi West Berlin and West Germany amounts to 30,000. East tional Christianity, removing it from its former domi Germany lists about 1,900. Before the advent of Hitler, nant place. And in 1958 the British Broadcasting Corpo Germany had approximately 550,000 Jews. At present a ration gave voice to the thought that England no longer constant emigration of younger German Jews to Canada had a common belief. Moral issues that divide the nation and the United States is taking place. also divide the church. Christmas or other festivals are A generation is growing up in Germany that has no "a break in the national routine" but not seasons for the knowledge of the former anti-Semitic attitude of many renewal of the common life. If applied to all Western na Germans. The young people have no contacts with Jews, tions, similar symptoms are not hard to find everywhere and one can meet some in Germany who neither know and will cause serious concern. Albert Fowler, a member who or what the Jews are, nor have any knowledge of of Radnor, Pennsylvania, Meeting, reviews this develop anti-Semitism. Their elders are living in an era of for ment in "The Lost Relevance of Religion," an article of getting and of unhealthy psychological repression of the more than ordinary interest in Approach (Summer, 1959), ghastly persecutions that marked Hitler's rule. Right a small, literary magazine of impressive standards, of after 1945 a mood of repentance and public confession which he and his wife, Helen Fowler, are the Editors. prevailed for a short time. But it will take the Germans There is more than tired pessimism behind such more than the past 14 years to arrive at an inwardly lib thoughts. The crisis of faith and the seeming impotence erating and constructive attitude toward the crimes of of a prospering church to achieve noticeable influence in the past. Fortunately, the signs indicating a change of public affairs are to be linked with the traditional theol mind are increasing constantly, and appear convincing. ogy of the large churches that give to dogma, creed, and Hardly a day passes without an appeal to the conscience ritual the dominant place in their life. He who makes coming from a religious group, a newspaper, a radio sta theology and the Bible the principal sources of religious tion, or a political leader. A good many silent signs of a enlightenment thereby removes himself from much of the change of mind are also noticeable. Almost every day mainstream of contemporary civilization. Millions of young Germans visit Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam Christians live uneasy lives within and outside their for some quiet meditation. Numerous visitors put flowers churches and feel spiritually unsheltered. Even if we on the graves of concentration camps, and most young accept the extreme statement that we are living in a post Germans cannot comprehend an anti-Semitism over Christian era, we must consider such a state a symptom which history pronounced such devastating judgment.

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