A Gentle Fundamentalist

To the office at 8 a.m. A day jammed with work: writing editorials, reading books for recommendation by the Christian Herald's book club, meeting with the boards of charities that operate a house for Manhattan's derelicts and five orphanages on the rim of Asia. And that night, a birthday get-together with friends to note that he, the Rev. Daniel Poling, editor of the Christian Herald, is 80 years old.

From Kenneth Wilson, the Christian Herald's executive editor, the octogenarian and the guests heard a eulogy of affection tempered with humor: "If there's a banner to be waved, he'll wave it. If he doesn't have an opinion, he'll get one while you are waiting. When everyone knows it is safer to let the dust settle first, often as not he is helping to create the dust. He has the uncanny knack 99% of the time of being found, when the dust does settle, on the side of the saints. The 1% represents, of course, his vote for Goldwater."

But Not Reactionary. In his four score years, Dan Poling has whipped up a mountain of dust. When he was a high school student in Oregon, his father told him: "Make your life count for the most." For Poling that meant becoming an ordained minister. In 1912 he was the Prohibition Party candidate for Governor of Ohio (he lost, but remains an unwavering teetotaler). A Dutch Reformed clergyman, he has served at Manhattan's Marble Collegiate Church, first as pastor and, since 1960, as minister emeritus. For the past 37 years, he has been editor of the Christian Herald, pulling it out of financial shambles, and building up its circulation to 450,000.

Poling, dubbed a "gentle fundamentalist," says he is "conservative though not reactionary in theological matters." During the 1960 presidential campaign, he publicly doubted that John Kennedy, if elected, could resist Vatican pressure on his official acts. Later, after Kennedy made an unequivocal statement for the separation of church and state, Poling declared himself satisfied, and the two men kept up a warm personal correspondence. In the past few years. he has taken up a crusade for family planning. The Christian Herald sometimes raps Catholic knuckles, but Poling employs several Roman Catholics and Jews in key jobs.

"But That's Negative!" When one of Poling's grandchildren asked him, "How does it feel to be old?" he replied, "How should I know?" He is fit and trim. Light brown eyes twinkle beneath great bushy eyebrows. Says he of his approach to life: "I have always had faith in God, and trust in Him. Daily I repeat to myself, 'I believe.' I could say, 'I doubt, I deny'--but that's negative. It's a tragedy that we should spend our living on the negative side."

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