Words & Works

P:"One of the great problems of [Christian] missions toward the Jews today," writes Protestant Theologian Paul Tillich in Christianity & Crisis, "is that we often have the feeling that it is by historical providence that the Jews have an everlasting function in history . . . [This function] would be to criticize, in the power of the prophetic spirit, those tendencies in Christianity which drive toward paganism and idolatry. Judaism always stood against them as a witness and as a critic, and perhaps it is the meaning of historical providence that this shall remain so, as long as there is history. Individual Jews will always come to Christianity; but the question whether Christianity should try to convert Judaism as a whole is at least an open question, and a question about which many Biblical theologians of today are extremely skeptical ..." P: In the German town of Darmstadt-Eberstadt (pop. 15,000), Protestant and Roman Catholic church bells rang out in new ecumenical harmony. The Catholic bells' low C,D,F,G and the Evangelical bells' higher G,B,C,D formed (more or less) the tune of the Te Deum composed in the 4th century and one of the most famous hymns in history. P: Appointed dean of the newly gingered-up Harvard Divinity School: the Rev. Douglas Horton, 63, Brooklyn-born, Princeton-educated ecumenical leader, who was until recently moderator of the International Congregational Council. With his wife, the former Mildred McAfee, sometime (1936-49) president of Wellesley and wartime head of the WAVES, Dr. Horton will live in Cambridge, Mass. His prime job: a $5,000,000 expansion for Harvard Divinity. P:The U.S. is "getting a lot of scientists" who start "philosophizing at the age of 40" without being trained to do so, complained the Rev. Robert Henle, dean of St. Louis University Graduate School, at the annual convention of the National Catholic Educational Association. Ein stein, for one, has been speculating out loud about the "nature and existence of God," and Father Henle objects "to his making an authoritative statement about an absolute. He has no training to talk about the existence ... of God." Philosophy Professor Henle also does not expect "scientists to have sufficient wisdom to make moral judgments about the use of the atomic bomb . . ." P: Japan's 1,139-year-old Buddhist Shingon (True Word) sect became the first in the country to form a labor union with priests as members. Twelve shaven-headed apprentice priests last week joined office clerks in the "Temple of the Paramount Summit Labor Union" and drew up a contract complete with a strike clause. Main purpose: job security and better working conditions.

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