Strong Stands

PRESBYTERIANS STRONG STANDS

"The core of the racial situation in the United States lies in the all-white residential communities that circle our cities," said the Rev. Marshal Scott of Chicago, moderator of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. "It is precisely in those neighborhoods where Presbyterianism flourishes that the center of the evil lives."

Moved by such forthright oratory, the 840 commissioners (delegates) at the 175th Presbyterian General Assembly in Des Moines last week overwhelmingly approved a proposed amendment to the church constitution, declaring that Presbyterians "are obligated to welcome into fellowship" anyone who desires to share in their worship, and that refusal on the basis of "color, origin or worldly condition" causes "a scandal to the Gospel." With less unanimity, they went on to take a strong stand, roughly like the U.S. Supreme Court's, against Bible-reading and prayers in public schools.

Cash Backing. The United Presbyterian Church, whose membership of 3,277,787 is less than 5% Negro, has traditionally been opposed to racial segregation. This year the commissioners, as one of them said, "put their money where their mouth is." They unanimously voted to set up a commission on religion and race, with a first-year budget of $500,000. It will work with other denominations in stamping out segregation in churches, assist individual ministers in combatting prejudice among parishioners. The assembly's stand on race, exulted the Rev. Edler Hawkins, a Negro and pastor of St. Augustine's Church in The Bronx, is "tremendously significant. It gives the church the ability to move together for the first time."

The stand for separation of church and state was similarly straightforward and detailed. Besides opposing prayers and Bible reading (except in history or literature classes) in public schools, the church objected to the use of public property for religious displays of any kind, opposed federal aid for church-related schools. The report adopted by the assembly also recommended that existing Sunday-closing laws be changed to free Jews and Seventh-day Adventists from observance, urged that tax exemptions be stripped from commercial enterprises operated by church institutions.

"The Real Crisis." To an angry minority of commissioners, the church-state report seemed a weak surrender to secularism. But Dr. Elwyn Smith of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, who headed the committee that wrote the report, argued that "the question in all the matters we discussed is this: Is it or is it not an effective witness of Jesus Christ? Our conclusion was that the present practices of Bible-reading and prayer are not an effective witness." Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, who was re-elected without opposition to a third term as the church's Stated Clerk, concurred in the decision. "I think it has been a great assembly," he said. "The real crisis is that the Christian church, unless it changes, will be bypassed."

In other business of the seven-day assembly, the commissioners:

> Heard Ecumenicist Blake give a mildly encouraging report on the progress of his one-big-church proposal. Within two years, he said, there may be a definite plan for joining the United Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians, Evangelical United Brethren, Disciples of Christ and the United Church of Christ in a new Protestant denomination with 22 million members.

> Elected Dr. Silas G. Kessler, 51, of Hastings, Neb., to replace Dr. Scott in the ceremonial office of moderator until the 176th convention in Oklahoma City next year.

> Noted the increasing warmth of Presbyterian relations with Roman Catholics, and recommended that laymen and ministers form parish-level ecumenical groups to discuss with Catholics such problems as mixed marriages, legalized gambling, religious liberty, family planning, educational policy.

> Upheld the right of the New York presbytery to dismiss eccentric Fundamentalist Dr. Stuart Merriam (TIME, June 15, 1962) as pastor of Manhattan's Broadway Church, but decided that the presbyters had exceeded their authority in the summary way in which they ousted the Merriam-supporting ruling elders. Merriam, who has been without a pulpit for twelve months, is currently in Pakistan on a pleasure jaunt.

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