Presbyterians in Syracuse

As 1,000 Presbyterian commissioners (delegates) made ready to journey last week to Syracuse, N. Y. for the 148th annual General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., in Philadelphia a famed and zealous Fundamentalist geared for action. Dr. John Gresham Machen professes to believe he is persecuted by a "Modernist Machine" in power in the church. In his Fundamentalist Presbyterian, Guardian last fortnight Fundamentalist Machen warned his disciples not to be deceived at the General Assembly by the way the Machine would "conceal the real issues" by limitation of debate, parliamentary bullying from the moderator's chair, celebrating the Lord's Supper, reciting the Apostles' Creed, prayer ("When misused to shelve important issues or gain an unfair advantage over opponents in debate, it is a very objectionable thing") and singing such hymns as Blest Be the Tie That Binds ("When it is dragged in at unexpected times, it often marks some particularly vicious and unbrotherly act").

In Lincoln Auditorium in Syracuse last week the middle-of-the-road assembly, whether or not dominated by a Machine, fulfilled Dr. Machen's worst fears in settling the first matters before it.

Moderator. In the election of a man to head 2,000.000 U. S. Presbyterians for the next year, the comuiissioners gave 126 votes to a Machenite Fundamentalist, 251 to a Chicago preacher who was supposed to represent the rank & file of the ministry, 508 to an administration wheelhorse of a type that Presbyterians have docilely accepted in recent years--Rev. Dr. Henry Buck Master, 64, secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Pensions since 1919. A portly, florid Princeton man (1895) who held pastorates in Buffalo and Fort Wayne, Ind. and went to War as a stretcher-bearer, Dr. Master lives affluently on Philadelphia's Main Line, attends the swankest Presbyterian Church, at Bryn Mawr. Conservative in theology, he has never been involved in church fights, has been pleasantly identified with the Pension Board whose assets were $6,000,000 when he joined it. Since then its rolls 'have been enlarged to include every Presbyterian minister over 65, many of them still active pastors. Such Presbyterian laymen as Andrew William Mellon and Cinema Tsar Will H. Hays have given and helped raise funds for the Board, and last year Secretary Master was able proudly to announce that with assets of $40,000,000 it had not lost a cent since 1928 (TIME, Oct. 21). Also proudly, Dr. Master announced last month that the Board has divested itself of 200 shares of du Pont stock because "2% of their stock is in powder."

Christ's Court. During the past two years, Fundamentalist Machen and a handful of his followers have defied the Presbyterian Assembly by belonging to the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions (TIME, April 23, 1934, et seq.) Tried and in most cases convicted by local presbyteries, they repeatedly appealed until last week they were before the bar of the Church's highest tribunal-- the Assembly, sitting as a "Court of Jesus Christ" and voting upon preliminary decisions made by the Permanent Judicial Commission whose head is Minnesota's Supreme Court Justice Clifford L. Hilton. To the appeals of ten Machenites this Court of Jesus Christ made a simple answer--No. Chagrined and incensed, Fundamentalist Machen appeared aware that his movement was liquidated so far as the Presbyterian General Assembly was concerned. He promptly announced he would secede, with how many adherents he would not say. He invited Fundamentalists to "the first national convention of the Presbyterian Constitutional Covenant Union" in Philadelphia next week.

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