The American Bible Society has recently undertaken the regular, annual support of Bible translation, publication, and distribution in forty additional countries in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean area.
This expansion of its program was announced at a meeting of the Society's Advisory Council in New York City on November 13 and 14, 1962. The council is composed of representatives of fifty-six denominations that support the society. To include the new work, the council approved a budget of $5,382,000 for 1963, the highest ever adopted in the 146-year history of the society. The amount to be raised from the churches is $1,200,000, which is $100,000 more than the goal for 1962.
Included in the total expenditures is S500,000 that the society hopes to raise through a World Advance Fund. The society is placing this amount in the budget immediately, although the half-million dollars has not yet been raised. Society officials explained that the Scripture needs of the forty additional countries is so urgent that the society will work at a deficit in 1963, if necessary, rather than delay the work. The first contribution, in the form of a $10,000 check, was made at the meeting by the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. Other denominational delegates pledged support to raise "funds for the forty."
The addition of the forty countries will bring to a total of 104 the number in which the society provides regular, annual support of Bible work. The additional work will be done in twenty-five countries in Africa, six in Asia, and nine in the Caribbean area. Some of the added countries are those where the American Bible Society is joining other national Bible societies in carrying on the work. Many "consist largely of peoples who are emerging from tribalism and colonialism and are as yet uncommitted in the struggle for their allegiance."
The African countries are Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Central Africa Republic, Chad, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Upper Volta, Niger, Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, Zanzibar, Nigeria, Dahomey, Togoland, Sierra Leone, Republic of Guinea, Portuguese Guinea, Gambia, Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, and Spanish West Africa.
The Asian countries are Burma, Iran, Pakistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.
The Latin-American countries are Guadeloupe, Martinique, Jamaica, Bahamas, Bermuda, British Honduras, British Guiana, Trinidad, and Barbados.
The council reaffirmed the traditional policy of the denominations that churches, rather than government, provide Scriptures for the men and women of the armed forces and stipulated that a portion of the emergency fund be used to provide chaplains with sufficient added Scriptures to meet the demand, which now exceeds the supply.
In its official report, the Advisory Council noted that "when the Lord Jesus Christ said, 'Thy word is truth,' He gave the touchstone by which to test the conflicting claims of our age. As the church of the early centuries met the paganism of that era with the 'Word of God, so we must meet the paganism of our day with the same Inspired Word.
"In offering men the eternal ‘Word of God," the council declared, "we share with them the saving power which alone can redeem their lives and ours from destruction.
"The unfinished task of the church is to enable all men everywhere to hear and read the wonderful words of God in the tongues wherein they were born. The Bible may go where men cannot go, and may stay when men are forced to leave. The strategy of world evangelism in days like these must use the written word to make known the living Word.
"Increasing numbers of people, more and more of whom are able to read, are both the peril and the promise of the future. Appetites avid for material to read will be satisfied either with husks of half-truth and error, or with the bread of life. In this time of crisis, the God of truth calls us to make sure that providing the Word of truth to all the world shall not be 'too little and too late.' "
