Religion: Words & Works

¶ There is too much "noisy religiosity on the public level" in the U.S., said Dean James A. Pike of the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine (New York City). "When we put 'In God We Trust' on our postage stamps, open up a meditation room in the U.S. capitol, and make constant reference to spiritual values and then fail to live up to our words with our deeds, we give an impression of hypocrisy to the rest of the world."

¶ The Southern Baptist Convention (membership: 8,000,000) announced a "multimilliondollar" expansion program in radio-TV to reach 65 million unchurched people. Projects: extension of The Baptist Hour radio program to five new metropolitan areas, including New York City; a series of half-hour color-television programs; distribution of "pretested scripts" for live local TV programs to 30,000 Southern Baptist churches; construction of a $200,000 Radio-Television City at Fort Worth.

¶ Reporting on an advertising campaign for the Roman Catholic Church that used car cards in Chicago buses, streetcars, subway and elevated trains for two months in 1954! Paulist Father Maurice Fitzgerald gave this score: of 5,339 people who responded by asking for information on Catholicism, 150 became converts. Average cost per convert, including textbooks, tests and diplomas: about $80. "There's nothing wrong with using advertising," said Father Fitzgerald. "It's basic to American life—it's the way we do things."