Federal Council's Biennial

Most significant fact about U. S. Protestantism during the past twelve-month has been that U. S. pastors are now beginning to admit there is something wrong with their performance, that they fail in their simplest task, which is to get people into church. To rekindle themselves and their followers, the Federal Council of Churches sent out a "Preaching Mission" of 70 crack pulpiteers last autumn. Last week, in the wake of the Mission's Manhattan windup (TIME, Dec. 14), the Federal Council held its biennial meeting in Asbury Park. N. J.

Dr. Ivan Lee Holt of St. Louis, urbane and gracious retiring president of the Council, struck the meeting's keynote in appraising the Mission. To his 300 hearers, who represent all the Protestant unity there is in the U. S.--a cautious confederation of 23 denominations with 24,000,000 communicants--Dr. Holt said: "It must be perfectly evident that the appeal of the Missioners has been that of united Protestantism. . . . American Protestantism faces reorganization or disintegration. The Federal Council occupies a more strategic position for leadership in this reorganization than ever before in its history."

Agreeing that church union is their only salvation, the 300 delegates thereupon voted to replace Dr. Holt with another lover of unity, Dr. Edgar DeWitt Jones, 60, of Detroit. This affable churchman, who will run the Federal Council for the next two years, is a Disciple of Christ. Born in Texas, he filled pastorates in rural Kentucky, Cleveland and Bloomington, Ill. before going to Detroit's Central Christian Church in 1920. That church Dr. Jones found in a run-down district, merged it with North Woodward Christian Church, raised money in 1928 for a fine new building for the united congregation. In Detroit, Dr. Jones is a civic pillar and the official Chaplain of famed Nancy Brown's column in the News. Dr. Jones possesses a roomful of Lincolniana and knows the calls of practically all U. S. birds. Dr. Jones's recipe for a good preacher: "He should get religion like a Methodist; experience it like a Baptist; be sure of it like a Disciple; stick to it like a Lutheran; pay for it like a Presbyterian; conciliate it like a Congregationalist; glorify it like a Jew; be proud of it like an Episcopalian ; practice it like a Christian Scientist; propagate it like a Roman Catholic; work for it like a Salvation Army Lassie; enjoy it like a colored man."

Notable thoughts put before the Federal Council meeting:

Stocks. Statistician Roger Babson, pious and efficient moderator of the Con-gregational-Christian Church, declared that church boards now might well put their money in stocks rather than bonds. And in view of frequent churchly criticisms of Business, the Federal Council should appoint a committee to tell the churches what companies are "run according to Jesus Christ." Moderator Babson diagnosed Protestantism's basic trouble as its declining birth rate, thus perplexing listeners who recalled that a year and a half ago he was for birth control as a cure for poverty.

Entanglement. Dr. Albert William Beaven of Rochester, onetime Federal Council president, laid the church's plight to its entanglement with "the comfortable middle class" in an insecure society. "The middle class Protestant church," said he, "is content with a vast amount of organizational activities and easy good-natured friendliness combined with a grave moral insensitiveness to the desperate issues at stake in the human situation. ... If the church will disentangle itself . . . [it] may take hold of the moral and spiritual issues of society with greater sincerity and power."

Chaplains. Year ago a Federal council commission sent a questionnaire to Army and Navy chaplains, received replies which were just the opposite from what the commission wanted. It appeared that most chaplains liked their uniforms, their officers' rank, their Government pay checks and that they heartily disapproved of the current pacifism of .the churches. Chaplains felt that they, could do best work when completely identified with the military. Unimpressed, the commission recommended, and last week the Federal council agreed, that plans be made to alter the status of chaplains, tie them more closely to their churches.

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