Federal Council Scotched

Scotchmen as represented in the two larger U. S. Presbyterian bodies got after the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America last week. Immediate excitement of attack was the Federal Council's recent report to the 27 Protestant Churches for which it performs social research, that U. S. churchmen advised a tolerant attitude toward Birth Control (TIME, March 30).

That Birth Control report enraged the Patriarch of the Northwest, Dr. Mark Allison Matthews of Seattle. Dr. Matthews is lawyer as well as preacher. As soon as he was called to Seattle (1902) he began cleaning up that wicked stopover towards the Klondike goldfields. He disrupted the brothels in the valleys and smashed the gambling dens on the hills. He brought the regenerate to God, and now with a congregation of 7,886 and with 27 branch Sunday Schools has the largest Presbyterian Church in the world on his hands. He is a tall, slender, white-haired Lion of Judah, 63. He habitually wears a frock coat and, like the late William Jennings Bryan whom he much resembles in dogmatic religious zeal, he affects a broad-brimmed slouch hat.

Before the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. at Pittsburgh last week. Dr. Matthews rose to his full height and, with the authority of a onetime (1912) moderator and an everlasting warrior, denunciated: "The Federal Council must be taught to under stand that the Presbyterian Church is not going to stand for ill-advised utterances on moral subjects, and if it cannot be taught, our financial support [$18,000] will be withdrawn. [Let] the Federal Council be instructed to hold its peace on questions of delicacy, morality and integrity until we have an opportunity to talk them over."

Others voted with Dr. Matthews to applaud those who carry through "the biggest job in the world . . . of making a successful home" and to flay those who "pandering to the weaknesses of human nature for thirty pieces of silver . . . unfortunately find ways to gratify their passions without the responsibilities of marriage and who, like the harlot of old, wipe their mouths, and say I have not sinned."

So the Presbyterians at Pittsburgh pocketed Birth Control.

Cool heads, however, guided by retiring Moderator Hugh Thomson Kerr,* prevented the Pittsburgh General Assembly withholding its $18,000 from the Federal Council.

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (South) at Montreat, N. C., last week made no such ado about Birth Control and the Council. Forthright conservatives who know their own minds, they simply denounced Birth Control, refused to allot their annual scot of $750 to the Federal Council, and voted complete severance from that interdenominational organization, although expressing for it unanimous "fraternal love."

The Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America was a first step, taken 23 years ago, toward co-operation of U. S. Protestant denominations. It was hoped that it might at least give to Protestantism a united voice on moral, not theological, questions. For the long distant future there was hope that eventually all the Protestant bodies flourishing in the U. S. would merge into one staunch Protestant Church.

Deliberately the Federal Council has avoided any gesture toward such organic union. Few critics of the Federal Council know that there is written into its constitution this article: "This Federal Council shall have no authority over the constituent bodies adhering to it; but its province shall be limited to the expression of its counsel and the recommending of a course of action in matters of common interest to the churches, local councils and individual Christians. It has no authority to draw up a common creed or form of government or of worship, or in any way to limit the full autonomy of the Christian bodies adhering to it."

Nonetheless, the Federal Council has on record in its golden book the happy union of the Christian Church with the National Council of Congregational Churches. On another leaf of that metaphorical book are written the names of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (South), the United Presbyterian Church, the Reformed Church in America (Dutch) and the Reformed Church in the U. S. (German) who, it was hoped, might unite.

Last week the Southern Presbyterians and the Dutch Reformed ordered their names stricken from the list. They will, for at least the time being, hear nothing more about union with the other Presbyterian Churches.

*New Moderator is Dr. Lewis Seymour Mudge, who was also re-elected Stated Clerk for a third five-year term.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.