Babson & Dead Men

This year 1.33% more people belong to U. S. churches than last year, reported the Christian Herald in releasing its annual church statistics last summer (TIME, July 12). But Statistician Roger Ward Babson, Moderator of the National Council of the Congregational-Christian Church, has long believed, from a study he made of 1,000 churches, that church attendance is decreasing. Last month, in a sermon such as he delivers annually to Congregationalists at Isles of Shoals, N. H., Moderator Babson impugned the Christian, Herald figures, said that church rolls "contain not only the names of millions who have repudiated the church of their youth--but also millions who are dead and buried physically."

The Christian Herald's statistician was the late Dr. George Linn Kieffer, a respected Lutheran who died after completing the last census. So the National Lutheran Council, offended by Moderator Babson's statement, rechecked with reporting churches, last week issued a rebuttal to Moderator Babson's charge. Every church, said the Council, stuck by its figures. In many cases, however, church bodies had to take the word of local ministers as to how many parishioners were enrolled. Chief point in favor of the Christian Herald figures: church assessments and quotas, even when marked up to assure a decent return, are on a per capita basis. Thus, as one Lutheran reported: ''No pastor or secretary would dare or care to report a larger membership than actually is the fact, as this would increase the amount of money requested from the congregation. 'Dead men pay no bills.' "

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