Chungking Meeting

From bomb-battered Chungking last week came news to gladden all churchmen. The National Christian Council met in the wreckage there and from the meeting (first since 1937) all Christian churches could draw a significant fact: Christianity, still a minority religion in China, now belonged to the Chinese, was part of their national life.

No longer did Occidental missionaries dominate the proceedings of the council. Of its 147 delegates (representing all Protestant churches except Seventh Day Adventists), three-quarters were Chinese; so were three chairmen. For the first time, the language spoken was Chinese.

These items of news were more wel come than the expected fact that China's Government joined in the proceedings.

Finance Minister H. H. Kung gave a reception. Social Welfare Minister Ku Cheng-kang and Minister of Education Chen Li-fu took part in the conference.

Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek, Method ist, had the delegates in to tea, praised the work of missionaries in China.

Said practically religious Chiang: "Let the Church identify itself more intimately with the life and needs of the people . . . and build a heaven in society." To that end the conference, taking a brief look back at its achievements in Free China (100 hospitals, eleven universities, etc.), decided to raise the educational requirements for native pastors, also recommended that henceforth missionaries from abroad shall be sent to China only on invitation of the churches there.

For unity among Protestant churches, English and American Methodists have led the way by suggesting that their next conference be held jointly, as a prelude to corporate unity in 1950. Meanwhile one vehicle of interfaith cooperation among China's religions was already functioning in the All-China Inter-religious Associa tion. Its board members : Roman Catholic Bishop Paul Yu-pin (now in the U.S.), Methodist Bishop W. Y. Chen, Buddhist Abbot Tai Hsu, Moslem General Pai Chung-hsi.

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