Lutherans & Mr. Protestant

At 6:15 p.m. the debaters in Room 222 of the parish house of Minneapolis' Central Lutheran Church sent out for sandwiches. At 8:30 a rumpled young minister emerged to empty a piled-high wastebasket. At 9 130 another minister came out in his stocking feet, tieless and bleary-eyed. "They are still quibbling over two words," he said. Twenty-five minutes later the door opened again and the U.S.'s No. i Protestant churchman stood there, his 6-ft., 1 1/2-in. frame a little more stooped than usual and his face a little paler.

"It was touch and go," said Dr. Franklin Clark Fry. "I had grave doubts that we would be able to do it. But we have."

Four Freedoms & Unity. What Dr. Fry, together with 20 discussion-group leaders, 20 recorders and three theological consultants, had accomplished last week at the Third Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation was to hammer out 51 "theses" representing a meeting of minds of 50 million Lutherans on the role of their church in the world.

The theses were stated in 3,400 words under five general headings. Excerpts:

THE FREEDOM WE HAVE IN CHRIST: Man's struggles-toward earthly freedom all too easily "become occasions for the demonic: social solidarity tempts to idolatry, power tempts to tyranny . . . God alone can free."

THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH IN CHRIST: In a divided Christendom "the Lutheran churches are called back to their confession: 'To the true unity of the church it is enough to agree concerning the doctrine of the Gospel and the administration of the sacraments; nor is it necessary that human traditions, the rites and ceremonies instituted by man, should be everywhere alike.' "

THE FREEDOM TO REFORM THE CHURCH: The church in every age must undergo reformation and "boldly face the mass of revolutionary facts of her time. Among these are anti-Christian ideologies, political turmoil, social ruthlessness, ethical relativism ... In this situation the Church cannot be content with timid lamentations."

FREED FOR SERVICE IN THE WORLD: Love and compassion must be translated "into the structures of justice . . . We are also redeemed from the pressures of conformity. God's word often questions what our environment takes for granted. The Spirit gives us the courage to stand alone."

FREE AND UNITED IN HOPE: "Hope is a glorious 'must' for a church under pressure and persecution." But in times when such bracing persecution is replaced by good will, the "Church's spiritual integrity is often threatened. Therefore the Church is to be cleansed from all that would transform [it] into a society for the preservation and promotion of Christianity" and of whatever would transform Christianity itself into a mere "philosophy and ideology."

Traveling Man. The tall man in the clerical collar and pectoral cross who shepherded the theses through the word-splitting session in Room 222 and later through the plenary session of the assembly in the 10,000-seat Minneapolis Auditorium is entitled, if anyone is, to be called Mr. Protestant. He is president of the 2,270,000-member United Lutheran Church in America and chairman of the policymaking central committee of the World Council of Churches. He is a member of the general board of the National Council of Churches and a member of the executive committee of the National

Lutheran Council. The World Federation elected him its president last week. And next November in St. Louis, Franklin Clark Fry will very likely be elected president of the National Council of Churches.

The third generation of Lutheran pastors in his family (his son is pastor of St. Philip's Lutheran Church in Brooklyn), Dr. Fry, 56, is a Yankee fan, an ardent Democrat, and a purposeful pinochle player--he has frequently trounced the Archbishop of Canterbury. Regarded as one of the ablest administrators in Protestantism, buoyant Dr. Fry is usually somewhere else in the world than his Manhattan office (which used to be J. P. Morgan's Madison Avenue mansion) or his house in suburban New Rochelle. In the last two years he has circled the globe, visited Russia, India, Australia, Hungary in line of duty. And in the U.S. he makes a field trip about once a month to visit some of his denomination's 4,050 churches.

Tired Dr. Fry was pleased last week with the ten-day assembly's action in urging a ban on nuclear-weapon tests, voting to study the effects of mixed marriages with Roman Catholics and to strengthen Lutheran efforts in Latin America. But he was most pleased of all at the theses. "At Lund, Sweden, in 1947, Lutherans learned to march together," he said. "At Hannover, Germany, in 1952, they learned to worship together. At Minneapolis in 1957, they learned to think together."

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