Conference on Church, Society and International Affairs Held
Diocesan Press Service. May 10, 1966 [43-4]
The issues of revolution, nationalism, racism, colonialism and the East-West power struggle absorbed the attention of churchmen attending a conference in preparation for U. S. participation in the World Council of Churches' Conference on Church and Society this July in Geneva, Switzerland.
The delegates to the U. S. Conference on Church, Society and International Affairs April 11-12 at New York's Church Center for the United Nations took a long hard look at American policy, particularly in relation to the Third World, the emerging countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The more than 80 delegates from 11 states, the District of Columbia and the New York area and several foreign countries were briefed by United Nations diplomats, U. S. foreign affairs specialists, theologians and missionaries.
Peace and economic development stood out as priorities for the churches in today's world, and this concern was reflected in several addresses.
This year the U.S. allocated $13 billion for the war in Vietnam and $3.8 billion for foreign aid, said Dr. John N. Plank of Washington, D.C., director of political developments studies for the Brookings Institution and one of the conference speakers.
On the same subject Judge Frank M. Coffin of Portland, Me., judge of the First Circuit Court of Appeals, and a former congressman, said in the closing address that if present trends continue, the growth rate of the U. S. per capita income will be 30 times that of the developing nations by the year 2000. He also pointed our that "hard loans at high rates of interest and short periods of repayment" will within 15 years result in poorer nations repaying the rich powers more than received.
He lamented the fact that no one in Washington is really fighting for a deeper commitment to foreign aid and called upon the National Council of Churches to establish in conjunction with similar Roman Catholic and Jewish agencies a program aimed at "reawakening the American public to the rightness of shouldering its share of the development aid burden."
Many speakers and participants felt that the American government suffered from a form of tunnel vision. As Dr. Plank stated, "Washington has permitted the Cold War to dominate its thinking, so as to... lead it to a grossly distorted perception of the Third World."
A keynote speaker, U. N. Ambassador Gershon B.O. Collier of Sierra Leone, told delegates that "myths of the Western world" were color biased, again resulting in a distortion of reality.
Mr. Collier, controversial chairman of the UN "Committee of 24" on colonialism, held that Africans wish to align neither with the West nor the Communist bloc, and find it difficult to distinguish between Western "neo colonialism" and Sino-Soviet exploitation.
As did others, Mr. Collier pointed at the difficulties of trying to force one's ideologies on others and of the need of emerging nations to overthrow Western ideologies as part of the process of independence.