Faith of Our Fathers, 1942

The biennial General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches met last week among the placid elms, college and white. Colonial meetinghouse of Durham, N.H. (Pop.: 1,533), and:

> Took a strong stand for minorities, in war or peace. "Every time a majority deprives a minority of its civil rights, it undermines its own liberties, and the unity and worldwide influence of the nation."

> Gave full play to individual opinion in a war statement that let 409 delegates "support the present war effort of our country at whatever sacrifice of life and treasure," 135 delegates remain "convinced of the futility of war," 35 other delegates take neither a pacifist nor an interventionist stand.

> Approved for study a Statement of Social Ideals, some of whose pronouncements (e.g., ". . . Economic systems are made for men, and not men for economic systems") would have pleased the Founding Fathers.

Concern for God. Along with this concern for man, Congregationalists at Durham showed a renewed concern for God. Of late, Congregational interest in human affairs has moved divine affairs a little into the background. There is, for instance, no mention of God in the theological preamble to the present (1931) Congregational constitution. Dr. Douglas Horton, who serves as secretary both of the whole church and of its theological commission, summed up this new feeling.

Said he at Durham: "Among Congregationalists there is at present a marked move away from humanism towards a much greater emphasis on the divine initiative. This emphasis is the result of a new awareness of the sovereignty and authority of God. In liturgical terms, Congregationalism now is about where the Anglican Communion was a century ago, before the High Church Oxford Movement."

Further evidence of this liturgical shift came at the opening exhibition of the denomination's new Arts Guild "to foster religious use of the arts." This show was the first Salon of Religious Photography ever held. It featured before-&-after pictures of Congregational chancels that have been remodeled to put less emphasis on organ, organist and pulpit, make the communion table and cross the focal point.

Many a Congregational church (see cuts) now contains stained glass, a rood beam, candles on the altar, other High Church trimmings that would have sent Cotton Mather on a witch hunt.

Missions and Men. Since their 1940 meeting, Congregationalists have gained 1.5% in membership, 4% in giving. Less reassuring were the statistics on foreign missions, where, since 1929, giving has dropped 50%, the number of missionaries 41%, the average missionary's age risen from 44 to 51.4 years. Though Congregationalists need "at least 150" new missionaries for service at the close of the war, only four were on hand to be commissioned at Durham.

The report on the ministry had other disturbing statistics. Of the 730 ministers ordained in 1937-39 to serve Congregational churches, 57% had already been ministers in other denominations, and of these 417 only 25 bothered to become Congregationalists (no Congregational pastor has to subscribe to any particular creed before he is ordained).

If the new ministers are less active Congregationally, the church's laymen are more active. Lay delegates took a bigger part in the last week's meeting than they have in a generation.

Unusual among U.S. church groups is the Congregational practice of giving "ecumenical delegates" from other churches every privilege of their conventions but the vote. Six other denominations sent such representatives this year. But in overcrowded Durham there was a slight diplomatic slipup: the ecumenical delegates were quartered in the isolation ward of the local hospital.

The Congregationalists invited other Protestant communions to join with them in immediate negotiations with a view to early mutual action and ultimate corporate union, further urged Protestants to confer with Roman Catholics and Jews in an effort to secure religious unity in the settlement of post-war issues (this kind of Protestant-Catholic cooperation already exists in Britain).

This suggestion was made in the spirit of the Salem Covenant of 1629, whose recital highlighted the opening-day service at Durham:

We Covenant with the Lord and one with an other;

and doe bynd our selves in the presence of God

to walke together in all his waies,

according as he is pleased to reveals himself unto us

in his Blessed word of truth.

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