At Buck Hill Falls

Union of the Protestant sects, nowadays the major topic of Protestant discussions, received further advancement at the Christian Herald Conference for laymen and churchmen (TIME, June 10), which closed last week at Buck Hill Falls, Pa.

To this conference went many a famed church-unionist and several non-unionists. Among famed churchmen present were Dr. Joseph Ross Stevenson. President of Princeton Theological Seminary; Yale's Divinity Dean Luther Allan Weigle; Dr. Samuel McCrea Cavert, General Secretary of the Federal Council of Churches; Dr. Daniel Alfred Poling, editor-in-chief of the Christian Herald; Dr. William Adams Brown, Vice President of Union Theological Seminary, who recently married Col. Lindbergh and Miss Anne Morrow; Bishop James Cannon Jr.; Dr. Samuel Parkes Cadman. Outstanding among laymen were Swarthmore's Philosopher-Professor Jesse Herman Holmes and President Frank A. Home of Merchants' Refrigerating Co., Methodist Board of Missions, often referred to as the "greatest lay Methodist."

The conference was designed to make the layman articulate in church affairs, was founded on the belief that "there is much to be gained in the realm of religious progress by free discussion among religious leaders of all denominations of the common problems that confront them. The perils that face Christianity have no regard for denominational lines. The problems that most vitally confront Christians are nonsectarian. . . ."

The following decisions gave the Christian Herald conference its significance:

1) Future annual conferences at Buck Hill Falls will not be a series of conferences on general religious topics but on union exclusively.

2) Delegates to other religious conferences at Lausanne, Stockholm, Jerusalem, will be invited to Buck Hill Falls next year.

3) The conference intends to establish a business service to cut down on denominational waste, balance U. S. "over-churching'' and "under-churching."

4) Efforts will be made to establish cooperation and union between existing denominational church union boards, and to prepare sample constitutions to be considered at future meetings.

The goal of the conference is largely patterned after Canada's United Church which has welded Canadian Methodists, Congregationalists and most Presbyterians and hopes to include Anglicans, Baptists. Of this union, Gershom W. Mason, general counsel for Canada's United Church last week said: "[Its benefits are] a feeling of freedom to restate and interpret the doctrine of the church from time to time in the light of present day conditions, an enriched sense of fellowship, an increase of 40% in donations to the church over the aggregate amounts before the union, and the great economic savings and spiritual gains resulting from the merger of weak and competing churches. . . ."

U. S. failure to achieve such a union was partly ascribed by Methodist Frank A. Horne to economic inefficiency. Said he: "Waste in church administration and unproductive expenditure constitutes a collective sin of the churches. The losses due to inefficiency are shown by the surplus of Protestant church edifices, with three times as many sittings as there are adherents. Under Roman Catholic unity that communion has an approximate proportion of two and a half communicants for every sitting. . . ."

The rationalization idea underlying church-union plans had its most extreme expressions in the words of Philosophy Professor Holmes: "The terms you use do not mean anything to many young people; they sound to them, sentimental and vague. I have taken down a few statements made by other speakers such as

'spiritual character,' 'spiritual value,' and 'joint worship at the Lord's table.' I have never heard anyone explain what those things mean. "We need to talk out of our own experience, not in the language of the past. Instead of saying 'The Lord is my shepherd' you ought to be saying 'God is my storage battery that renews my strength' or 'God is my low gear that takes me up the hills.' "I do not believe the Church now, or its representatives look upon its function as saving men from hell and getting them into heaven. The real values are human welfare and the method of getting it is by human goodwill--I will not say love for that word too has been greatly overworked."

From Bishop James Cannon Jr. of the Methodist-Episcopal Church, South, the delegates received little hope of a Methodist union. Said the Bishop: "I don't know as we of the South could join a church union which did not teach a judgment to come and punishment for sin. I am not narrow and bigoted, and if the other fellow can get along without these beliefs it is all right with me. What I say is give me the fundamental message of the gospel and I can join with anyone and go anywhere with them. I must have a belief in the Lord Jesus, the repentance of sin, and the what-shall-I-do-to-be-saved religion. That is the attitude of the real oldtime Southern fundamentalist." To many a liberal delegate the Cannon attitude seemed close to Catholicism, from which Bishop Cannon acknowledged having occasionally gained inspiration. Organizing the Buck Hill Falls conference was almost entirely the work of one young man, Stanley Horlund High, editor of the Christian Herald, interdenominational weekly. Recently his magazine adopted colored covers. Its circulation, huge for a church periodical, hovers a little above 235,000.

Born in Chicago 33 years ago, Editor High took an A.B. from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1917, later an S.T.B. from Boston University's Theological School. During the War he served as a second lieutenant of aviation. He was a member of Europe's Reconstruction Committee in 1919, and later a member of the Methodist Mission to China. For a time he wrote dispatches for the Christian Science Monitor from Russia and other parts of Europe.

President of the Christian Herald Corporation is Chain-Storeman James Cash Penney, friend of President Hoover, avid Dry. To please Mr. Penney, and also because it is his own conviction. Editor High often pens editorials loudly decrying the evils of drink, lauding the benison of Prohibition.