Signs of the Times

with contributions from C. W. Sowby, Charles Wheeler Scott

Rev. C. W. Sowby, D. D.
in the Globe and Mail
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

There have been complaints because the astronauts said a prayer during their broadcast from Apollo VIII at Christmas time. As they were approaching the total darkness on the far side of the moon, they read, with great simplicity, a passage from Genesis which many people thought appropriate and moving....

A short time ago, I was privileged to spend a weekend in the parish of Satellite Beach. It is a completely new parish. Before the space program it was inhabited only by alligators and snakes. The parish was set up, on their own initiative, by a number of youngish first-class scientists....

Some of the congregation told me that they had become Christians only since they had had the opportunity to see and consider the magnitude, the magnificence and the sheer efficiency of nature, which they called Creation. They believed that it must have a Creator.

Perhaps before proceeding with their plan for outlawing prayer in space and for expelling the Creator from His Creation, those who complained might do well to visit the church at Satellite Beach and meet some of the scientists who worship there. The protesters might then feel that they themselves, and not the scientists, were slightly out of date in this matter.

From an editorial
by Charles Wheeler Scott
in Pulpit Digest
Manhasset, New York

There is considerable evidence that ecclesiastical authority has less effect upon public behavior and attitudes than formerly....

The influence of religion in tomorrow's world may not be that of authority but rather that of example. If this is so, then there is no cause for despair. The Church, even though shorn of prestige and power accumulated over the centuries, may rediscover its original source of strength. The apostolic Church, though a persecuted and dispossessed minority group, lived and grew in the power of the Holy Spirit. Christians, loving one another and rendering to no man evil for evil, showed the world a better Way than that of hate and oppression. To follow in that Way is to proclaim to the world, in a manner it cannot ignore, a message that has survived the defeat of armies and the collapse of empires.

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