Now Is the Time

Church unity is a subject that has dominated the thinking of 20th Century Protestantism. Last week a leading Protestant told U.S. Christians that the time had come to stop thinking about it and do something.

"This is a call to action," said Dr. Truman B. Douglass, executive vice president of the Board of Home Missions of the Congregational Christian Churches, in the Woman's Home Companion. "The penalty for failure is greater than any Christian would like to contemplate. The time may come--it has already come in many communities--when millions of Christians actually will have no churches to go to!"

Today, according to Dr. Douglass, there are "more than 700 new communities in the United States--all of them towns with at least 2,500 population--which do not have a single church . . . In the midst of a highly mobile population, a church which is immobilized by denominational divisions just doesn't make sense."

U.S. Protestantism's excessive fragmentation, says Dr. Douglass, is also responsible for a crisis in the theological seminaries. "So long as most of the 250 Protestant denominations try to train their own ministers, the quality of the training must suffer ... Even more serious is the fact that many young ministers are discouraged by the whole pattern of Protestant disunity. They are disheartened at the prospect of starting their life work in a community of competing churches--where there are not enough members of their own denomination to give them a man-sized job . . ."

Unity has already been proved possible, Dr. Douglass points out. "In 1925, the United Church of Canada was formed. Joining in this mutual effort were the Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and the Local Union of Churches in Western Canada. The United Church of South India was formed, bringing together Episcopalians, Methodists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians and members of the Reformed Church. .

"I believe that the whole task of the Church in America is one which must be performed by churches working in unity. Otherwise it will not be done at all . . . The slogan . . . may well be: 'Let those who can, unite; do it--now!' "

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