Tidings

>One of the world's most important religious broadcasting stations, Radio Voice of the Gospel in Addis Ababa, was built by the Lutheran World Federation in 1963 and has a 200,000-watt transmitter that can reach about 1 billion people in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The station, worth an estimated $12 million, was known not only for spreading the Gospel but also for broadcasting the most reliable news and educational programs of any Africa-based outlet. Since the downfall of the Christian monarchy in 1974, Radio Voice has been under increasing pressure from Ethiopia's military rulers, and on March 12 they finally seized it. Broadcasts last week were haranguing the former owners for promoting "bourgeois ideology" and "imperialism, the archenemy of the oppressed peoples."

>When the American Bible Society issued its homespun Good News Bible translation (TIME, Dec. 6), some critics responded in sorrow. Championing the King James Version, the Philadelphia Inquirer stated that "Good News is bad news, in terms of poetry, of grace, of charm and thus of beauty." Many readers apparently disagree. In three months the new version has sold 1.5 million copies at $2.50.

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