Religion: America for Christ

The greatest cooperative evangelistic movement of the past half-century got under way this week. For the next 15 months—until New Year’s Eve of 1950 —38 Protestant denominations, with a membership of some 35 million, will be united in trying to persuade the unchurched (estimated at 70 million) to join one of their denominations, take part in their work and devotions. Title of this all-out effort (which is sponsored by the Federal Council of Churches): the United Evangelistic Advance.

To accomplish its mid-century task the [J.E.A. will make use of “all worthy and effective methods by which the Christian Gospel is brought to men.” Among them: the training of an estimated two million laymen to go forth two-by-two ringing doorbells, special ministers’ meetings in all important cities and communities, the organization of missions on college and senior high-school campuses, speeches and sermons by churchmen from other lands —England’s Bishop Stephen Neill, China’s T.Z. Koo, Mexico’s Baez-Camargo, Scotland’s J. Hutchison Cockburn, India’s E. Stanley Jones.

Slogan for the movement, headed by Dr. Elmer G. Homrighausen of Princeton Theological Seminary, is “America for Christ.” Combined with the Roman Catholic Holy Year, it may make 1950 the most religion-conscious twelvemonth the modern world has yet known.