Fundamental Income

It is in the Presbyterian church-- noted for a high degree of intellectual competency--that the chasm between fundamentalists and modernists has opened most hatefully wide.

Now it appears that this gap is reflected on the ledgers of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian church--that, in fact, there is $1,000,000 between the expenditures for foreign missions and the receipts.

This deficit is attributed to the fact that Presbyterians on the Fundamentalist side of the theological chasm are beginning to suspect that their money was being used to support the work of modernist missionaries, and, consequently, are reducing their contributions. To meet this situation, all the officers of the Foreign Missions board have signed a statement the central sentence of which is " If there is one missionary who is not true to the central doctrinal convictions of our church, the board does not know him."

So sweeping a statement echoes the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal church at Dallas (TIME, Nov. 26) who declared with astounding unanimity in favor of a literal interpretation of every word of the Apostles' Creed.

But the action of the Presbyterian board is chiefly .significant for the following reason: It indicates that the Fundamentalists are more willing than the modernists to back up their faith by their pocketbooks. From whence follows a corollary: The modernists cannot make good their claim to be as sincere Christians as the Fundamentalists unless they prove to be as generous givers.