nineteen hundred and forty-six - Amazon Web Services

266 SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
sending the "good news" to those who are waiting for the light of the gospel;
the different fields are increasing their contributions; churches are asking for
information. . . . In 1946 we will have greater resources than ever for the
distribution of God's Word."
Miss Letha Saunders gives her time to the work of the Brazilian Home
Mission Board as director of propaganda.
The Brazilian Bible Press. Of the Brazilian Bible Press—organized in 1940
and printing New Testaments and Bibles since 1943—we give the following
facts we believe every Baptist would like to know:
1) This organization has made it possible for Baptists and other evangeli
cals to have Bibles at a time when war conditions made this otherwise impossble.
2) The B.B.P. has been the first organization to publish the entire
Bible in Brazil. 3) The B.B.P. has printed four editions of the Bible and New
Testament, totalling 82,000 copies. 4) It was the first organization to publish
the Bible in Brazil's current orthography. 5) It has given to Brazilians a Bible
and New Testament inferior to none in printing and binding. 6) The B.B.P.
has another translation almost ready to go on the press which has taken years
to prepare, and which is the product of the best scholarship in Brazil. 7) The
new translation will be printed in a teacher's Bible with notes and helps for
Sunday school teachers. 8) The Brazilian Bible Press is already far in advance
of other organizations which hope to print a new translation with simplified
spelling. 9) The B.B.P. has organized its funds on a revolving basis, so that
any accumulation of profits goes back into the printing of popular editions at
prices which would be impossible if printed out of Brazil. 10) The Brazilian
Bible Press is already a working actuality and is seeing the fruits of its labor.
In 1945 alone they sold 13,986 Bibles and 1,367 New Testaments.
Publicity Committee. In 1942 the South Brazil Mission, recognizing the
need for greater and more concentrated efforts for religious publicity in Brazil,
appointed a publicity committee.
The necessity of such a committee is self-evident. This is a day of propa
ganda, some of it good and lots of it bad. We live by it. We eat by its music
and sleep to the drone of its broadcasts. We are swamped by its volume in
the newspapers, on the radio, and in the cinema. New directions are being
applied to these channels of information which are, as someone recently put it.
"to entertain, to inform, and to confuse."
From a former report of this committee we quote:
"We have come to recognize the part a conservative but efficient and comp
hensive publicity plays in carrying on the kingdom work. Press publicity,
radio preaching, and informational propaganda are playing a greater and greater
part in the spreading of the gospel. The opportunities for such publicity are
evident and their possibilities are limitless. These are the forces which the
builders of public opinion and the promoters of national and international
unity nowhere ignore."
Atlas News Service has been organized by the South Brazil Mission and the
Foreign Mission Board as a medium for the work of the Publicity Committee.
The general aims of that committee have been set forth as follows:
1) To co-operate with the Foreign Mission Board in the diffusion of infor
mation about mission work in Brazil. 2) To make our contribution to the
unification of Brazilian Baptists, among themselves, with the missionaries, and
with Southern Baptists, through an organized exchange of ideas in our denominational
publications. 3) To find a more effective way of responding to the
numerous requests of churches, and especially of the Young People's organization
back home, for definite information about our work. 4) To clarify the
position of Baptists before the Brazilian public
The scope of the work of Atlas News Service has been enlarged to include
radio and visual education, just as fast as it is possible to open up these fields.
Mr. and Mrs. William H. Berry have recently moved to Rio where he, as chairman
of the Publicity Committee, will make this the center of his activities. Working
with him on the committee are Miss Minnie Landrum, Mrs. E. F. Hallock, W. B.
McNealy, and T. N. Clinkscales.