Religion: Tidings

>There is no love lost between the liberal National Council of Churches and the right-wing Christian Echoes Ministry of the Rev. Billy James Hargis, but both believe it is their Christian duty to speak out on public issues. Because of that mutual concern, lawyers of the two organizations are huddled this week to plan strategy against a common crisis: a ruling of the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver denying Hargis’ organization its federal income tax exemption because it attempted to exert “political” influence. In 1966 the Internal Revenue Service revoked Christian Echoes’ exemption for the same reason, but in 1971 a federal court in Tulsa overruled the IRS. In reversing the Tulsa decision, 3-0, the Denver court prohibited tax-exempt organizations from “direct and indirect appeals to legislators and the public in general”—a sweeping restriction that many churchmen consider unconstitutional. Christian Echoes, backed by the N.C.C. and other church groups, will carry the case to the Supreme Court.

>In the Galilean-like foothills of California’s Santa Susana Mountains, the Brandeis Institute has become an internationally famous retreat (TIME, July 5, 1971) where young secular Jews’ learn the Jewish heritage of their forefathers. From its beginnings, Brandeis has had some generous friends; one was Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who helped back Founder Shlomo Bardin when the institute began three decades ago. The newest benefactor is not Jewish at all but a Protestant. He is Actor James Arness, longtime star of Gunsmoke, whose 950-acre ranch is adjacent to Brandeis’ grounds. Arness has given Brandeis the entire ranch—$2 million worth of land, corrals, houses and barns. Said Bardin: “It was a splendid ecumenical act.”

>Ever since the November screenings of two Maude episodes on CBS-TV, the show has been assailed for its humorous (and sympathetic) treatment of abortion and vasectomy. The most prominent critic so far is St. Louis’ John Cardinal Carberry, who wrote to CBS Executives William Paley, Frank Stanton and Fred Silverman—and FCC Chairman Dean Burch—last month. Mass media have an obligation to treat controversial subjects, the cardinal conceded, but Maude “injected CBS-TV as advocate of a moral and political position that many not only oppose but find positively offensive as immoral.” In any case, Carberry wrote, the themes were no laughing matter. “The decision to secure an abortion or the decision to have a vasectomy, even for those who choose them, is hardly a joke.”