Cleveland Conclave

Protestantism had its biggest meeting in U.S. history last week. Despite the war, more leaders came from more denominations to Cleveland than had ever before gathered at once. Before the conclave of seven big interchurch groups closed its participants had:

> Endorsed and sent to the constituent churches for approval a plan for a North American Council of the Churches of Christ which will merge eight interdenominational agencies into the largest church ' body in the Western Hemisphere.

> Elected Presiding Bishop Henry St. George Tucker of the Protestant Episcopal Church as President of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America (see col. 3).

> Refused to bless U.S. participation in the war, but asserted that Axis aims "are not merely unChristian; they are positively anti-Christian."

>Took a sizzling potshot at Roman Catholic attempts to interfere with Protestant proselytizing in Latin America (see p. 74).

> Declared Protestantism is not all it ought to be. Said a report on The State of the Church: "It has been slow to reorganize its life to meet new needs. . . . Large sections of the community are outside the direct influence of the Church, particularly those people associated with what is popularly known as the intelligentsia and with organized labor."

> Directed key churchmen to keep in close touch with governmental leaders (U.S. dealings with France's Admiral Jean Franc,ois Darlan were assailed by both U.S. and Canadian churchmen).

Protestant Problems. At Cleveland it was painfully evident that American Protestantism can accomplish little until it is more united. It has denounced unrestricted sovereignty among nations (TIME, June 16, 1941), but each of the 44 U.S. Protestant denominations with 50,000 or more members has unrestricted sovereignty itself--and no Balkans eye each other more suspiciously than do some of these sects.

The North American Council, which moved a long way towards reality last week, may still--thanks largely to red tape--not get organized until 1945.* Even then it will be largely administrative and advisory. It will have little financial and no doctrinal power over its member churches. The advantages are that it will provide one body instead of eight for church cooperation, will be a better sounding board for policy statements. The N.A.C. may also aid indirectly the small but steady steps U.S. Protestantism has taken toward doctrinal union in the last decade.

War & Peace. Last month the U.S. Roman Catholic hierarchy declared that America was fighting a righteous war. Last week U.S. Protestants made no such assertion, since there was much pacifist strength present. But both the outgoing and incoming presidents of the Federal Council spoke out. "Without war today and without victory for the United Nations," said outgoing Dean Luther A. Weigle (Yale Divinity School), "human freedom will be lost." Said incoming Bishop Tucker: "At the very least the possibility of maintaining our Christian standards in human society depends upon the defeat of those who openly and defiantly repudiate them."

But on the subject of peace the Protestants at Cleveland were really able to get together. They were for it as unanimously as they were against sin. Manhattan lawyer John Foster Dulles, head of the Federal Council's Commission to Study the Bases of a Just & Durable Peace, declared:

"We face the dilemma which always faces distinctively Christian bodies. We must ... not confine ourselves to uttering mere platitudes. We must . . . avoid seeming to put the authority of Christ and His Church behind political and economic schemes which, however laudable in purpose, may be presently impracticable. . . . Actually, I believe that Christ was the great realist. ... He did not propound specific reforms and advocate specific revolts. But what He taught operated as political and social dynamite, because those that believed His word were forced to adopt a revolutionary attitude toward the social and political systems under which they lived.

"Christianity has, in the past, worked that way in this country. We can find periods during the preceding 200 years when the men who gave our nation its character and its direction were men who were keenly aware that they were sons of God. . . . Our political institutions and our foreign policies were then moulded by that fact. To be sure, what our nation did was, at best, imperfect and was diluted by much hypocrisy and materialism. But the churches had driven basic Christian principles into the consciousness of a sufficient number of persons so that they could and did lift our national action onto a somewhat moral plane. That is what I desire to see happen again."

The chief assertions advocated by the Dulles Commission and endorsed at Cleveland: disregard of the moral law brings affliction; revenge and retaliation bring ' no relief; economic resources must be looked upon as a trust to promote the general welfare; military establishments should be internationally controlled.

* It is planned to include in the new organization: the Council of Church Boards of Education the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, the Foreign Missions Conference of North America, the Home Missions Council of North America, the International Council of Religious Education, the Missionary Education Movement of the U.S. and Canada, the United Council of Church Women and the United Stewardship Council.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.