The Dean's Newest Job

A busy church executive started work last week on a job that will probably lead to the biggest merger in the history of U. S. Protestantism. The man: Dean Luther Allan Weigle of the Yale Divinity School. The job: presidency of the Federal Council of Churches. The merger: a fusion of the Federal Council with six other major interchurch agencies.*

At the same meeting in Atlantic City last fortnight where preliminary plans were made for the merger, Dean Weigle was elected to the job. Looking younger than his 60 years, alert, square-set Dean Weigle, a longtime leader of the Federal Council, the International Council of Religious Education and a dozen similar organizations, is persuasive rather than oratorical.

When constituted, the new "North American Council of Churches" will carry on and correlate throughout the U. S. and Canada (with many a friendly contact elsewhere around the globe) the work now done by the boards to be merged into it. Its four main divisions will be departments on faith and life, Christian education, missions at home, abroad. No mere federation of federations, it will get its powers directly from its constituent churches.

Clear and positive are Dean Weigle's views on the Church's responsibilities. He considers worship, evangelism, education and community welfare in that order the four primary functions of the Church. His views on each:

Worship of God. "I mean more than liturgy by that. I mean active acknowledgment by men of the will of God, the moral law of God, the justice and love of God--in their own lives and in the life of the world. The function of the Church is to prevent men from taking anything less than God as their ultimate concern."

Evangelism. "The real spirit of evangelism is not a spirit of conquest, of going out and winning souls as trophies, but of going out to share with others the values we have found real and enduring."

Religious Education. "People must be taught what the facts are upon which Christian faith rests. The Church must give children and young people an environment in which they can grow up as Christians, and help its members everywhere to look at the problems of their lives in the light of their relation to God."

Community Welfare. "We must distinguish between the welfare activities which the Church undertakes in its own name and those which it helps to inspire and maintain through the service of people who themselves are inspired by the Church. The second is more important."

*The International Council of Religious Education, Home Missions Council of North America, Foreign Missions Conference of North America, Missionary Education Movement, National Council of Church Women, United Stewardship Council.

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