Religion: Common Causes

Dedicated “to all the common causes of Protestantism,” a new 16-page tabloid newspaper called the Protestant World ($3 for 52 issues) was mailed last week to 15,000 subscribers. The newspaper’s major aim: “To present fairly, comprehensively, concisely and accurately the news of what Protestant churches, denominations, leaders, boards and agencies are doing and saying, together with reports of such secular news as may bear upon the moral and spiritual life of the nation.”

Banner headlines of the first issue proclaim the formation of the National Council of Churches (TIME, Dec. 11) and recent disclosures in the New York Herald Tribune of Communist plans to infiltrate U.S. church groups. A full inside page is devoted to the problems of Protestants in Europe. The relief needs of European children are dramatized in a page of photographs, and the World also boasts two exclusive comic strips: Lucy Lou, the Kangaroo (“Can jump across the fence, can you?”) and Rusty Gates and His Little U.N. Gang.

Editor in chief of the Protestant World is New Jersey-born Robert W. Searle, 56, onetime associate pastor of Manhattan’s Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church and a longtime leader in the city’s interdenominational activities. With veteran Newsman James E. Craig, former chief editorial writer of the old New York Sun, he has been working the paper into shape for over a year. Plans call for weekly publication, but the early issues will be on a monthly basis.