Page "religion" Paragraph 193

The progressive closing of Afro-Asian ears to the Christian message is epitomized in a conversation I had three years ago while flying from Jerusalem to Cairo.

I was seated next to the director of the Seventh Day Adventists' world radio program.

He said that on his tour the preceding year a considerable number of hours would have been available to him on Japanese radio networks, but that he had then lacked the funds to contract for them.

After returning to the United States and raising the money, he discovered on getting back to Japan that the hours were no longer available.

It was not that they had been contracted for during the interval ; ;

they simply could no longer be purchased for missionary purposes.

It is not unfair to add on the other side that the crude and almost vitriolic approach of certain fundamentalist sects toward the cultures and religions among which they work has contributed measurably to this heightening of anti-Christian sentiment.

Ironically, these are the groups which have doubled or tripled their missionary efforts since World War 2,, while the more established denominations are barely maintaining pre-war staffs.