In a Tent

Few U. S. Protestants were ever more zealous in faith, more peppery in talk, more beloved by their followers, than the late Rev. Dr. John Gresham Machen, Presbyterian Fundamentalist of Philadelphia. A rough-&-tumble polemicist and theologian, Dr. Machen spent a lifetime fighting what he called the "Modernist Machine" government of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. He accused the Church of deserting its parent faith by questioning the divinity and resurrection of Christ, toning down essential doctrines ike the Blood Atonement. Result: Dr. Machen and his followers were read out of the Church, founded their own, which they called the Presbyterian Church in America.

This small but vigorous "rebel" church, a vexation to the Presbyterian Church from which it split, was lately ordered by a Philadelphia court to give up its too-similar name (TIME, Jan. 31), but has continued to use it pending an appeal. Last week the rebel church was again thrown for a loss by a New Jersey court decision which had nationwide significance. New Jersey's Vice Chancellor Francis B. Davis ruled that although a rebel Presbyterian congregation could secede from the parent church, it could not take its church building--which it had paid for--along with it.

Any Episcopal congregation owns its church edifice, could turn Buddhist if it pleased and still own it. So could a Jewish congregation. A Congregational group has the same freedom, but the Congregational-Christian Church--like U. S. Baptist bodies--may hold mortgages on its constituent churches so that they may not pass out of its control. Methodist churches are held by national bodies; Presbyterian churches by local trustees, reverting to local presbyteries if they are dissolved. Church laws apart, State laws of incorporation may limit a church to the activities for which it was specifically incorporated.

The Presbyterian Church of Collingswood, N. J., a quiet commuters' town near Philadelphia, is worth $250,000. For five years this church's pastor was Rev. Carl Mclntire, 31, a boyish, athletic Oklahoman who was one of Dr. Machen's star pupils at Princeton Theological Seminary, followed him into the rebel Presbyterian Church in America. All but 100 of Collingswood's 1,200 Presbyterians went along with their eloquent pastor in his Fundamentalist beliefs, but they stopped short of becoming full-fledged constituents of the rebel Church. When a handful of loyal members of the church brought suit to determine who really owned the building, the status of Collingswood Church was that of a congregation which had defied its parent body but belonged to no other organized group. And t070-odd congregations throughout the U. S. which had left the big Presbyterian Church to join the rebels, the Collingswood suit was a preview of what might happen to them. Collingswood lost, simply because Vice Chancellor Davis read what law said on the matter, and declared that Presbyterian doctrinal disputes had nothing to do with it.

Sadly two Sundays ago Collingswood's zealous Fundamentalists held their last evening service in the big stone church, sang Faith of Our Fathers on the lawn as its lights flicked out. They showered money upon Pastor Mclntire to do with as he pleased. Few days later Mr. Mclntire helped workers put up a rented tent ($250 a week), announced his first service in it for last week, declared that his congregation would have a wooden tabernacle within a few months. To Pastor Mclntire's tent next night came more than 900 people. There, warmed against the sharp spring air by gas heaters, and warmed against a world weak in faith by the smiling enthusiasm of their pastor, they heard him say: "God practically dropped this tent on us out of the sky. Isn't it wonderful? I never saw a tent that looked so pretty. . . . All my life I've taken communion out of little silver cups. But this Sunday we're going to have the great joy of taking it from paper cups."

When, on Sunday, Mr. Mclntire handed out communion grape-juice in paper cups, communion bread on paper pie plates, 1,223 people filled his tent to eat the Lord's Supper. Attendance in Collingswood Church: 150.

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