Religion: Merger Deferred

“We Congregationalists are proud of being free churches with our own local autonomy . . . I’m not one who likes to be bossed.” So testified grey, capable Moderator Helen Kenyon of the General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches before New York Supreme Court Justice Meier Steinbrink. But last week,

Justice Steinbrink decided that boss-hating Moderator Kenyon and her General Council associates had been a bit too bossy themselves.

Since 1942 the Congregational Christian Churches (membership: 1,173,625) and the Evangelical and Reformed Church (membership: 695,000) had been planning a merger. A “Basis of Union” was drawn up and sent out in 1947 for approval by U.S. Congregationalists. Last winter at the Congregational General Council meeting in Cleveland (TIME, Feb. 14), the council voted 757 to 172 that the 72.2% approval from the voting churches was enough to get the merger under way.

Promptly the Rev. James W. Fifield of Los Angeles’ 4,200-member First Congregational Church (largest Congregational church in the U.S.) organized a fight against the council’s ruling. As a test, the Cadman Memorial Church in Brooklyn, N.Y. filed suit, and for 23 court days and 3,000 pages of testimony Justice Stein brink listened to the subdued wrangling of ministerial witnesses.

Last week he delivered his oral decision. Calling the proposed Basis of Union a “conglomeration of confusion and conflicting statements with a cacophony of ideas,” he held that the General Council “has not now, and never had power or authority” to bind the Congregational churches.

Said stunned Moderator Kenyon: “We will await the formal writing of the judgment before determining our future course.” Crowed victorious Pastor Arthur Acy Rouner of Cadman Memorial: “Our idea in the beginning was to save Congregationalism. We feel we have done that.”

In St. Louis, two other Protestant churches took a cautious step toward what they hope will eventually be a happy marriage. The ultra-conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (membership: 1,690,000) and the middle-of-the-road American Lutheran Church (membership: 689,310) announced an “agreement on doctrine,” subject to approval of the two churches’ national conventions. Said Dr. William Arndt of the Missouri Synod: “There may be some details of the unification that will have to be worked out later, but at least this is a start.”