Religion: Presbyterians

Of the nine U. S. Presbyterian bodies, the three largest held annual conferences last week—Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (northern, largest) in Cincinnati; Presbyterian Church in the United States (southern, next largest) at Charlottesville, Va.; United Presbyterian Church of North America (middle western) in Des Moines. The imminence of the 1900th Pentecost (June 8) made general church union a prayed-for but no more practical topic than usual at each one of these meetings. Although the Presbyterians have been an exceedingly divisive denomination, most of them have approved and adhere to the general council of the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches in America and to the alliance of Reformed Churches throughout the world holding the Presbyterian system. In willingness to join an organic union Presbyterian Churches may be grouped as follows: United Presbyterians (eager), Presbyterians in the U. S. A., and Reformed (Dutch) Church in America. Relatively reluctant are the Presbyterians in the U. S., and the Reformed (German) Church in the U. S. However, all three Presbyterian groups last week made some tenders toward such merger and all authorized more confabulations on the subject.

Nonetheless Dr. Cleland Boyd McAfee, retiring Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., went so far as to note that although “it is certain that for some reason, perhaps the Pentecostal spirit, church union is now a living issue,” the hope of ecumenical union, including the Catholic group, seemed practically at an end, and that he was unaware of any valid steps having been taken during the past year, except in local situations, to encompass a Protestant union as a whole. Yet every minister of his organization, if he followed instructions, prayed and preached last Sunday for some such union of “the Presbyterian and Reformed family.”

Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. By union, division, reunion, more division, and more reunions, since before the American Revolution this sect has the greatest concentration east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio rivers. Its churches spot the whole U. S., its missions the whole world. So largely were its communicants represented in the Revolution that to this church the articles of the U. S. Constitution have always been almost as sacrosanct as the tenets of the Westminster Confession. This attitude gave righteousness to the national loyalty commission which reported to the church General Assembly at Cincinnati last week how it had called upon President Hoover and . . . given him “encouragement in carrying out the policies he has so courageously announced in behalf of the observance and enforcement of the law.” The General Assembly, with Prohibition in its thoughts, viewed “with indignation and alarm the efforts of those who are seeking by sinister and subtle means to overthrow the Constitution, whether by intrigue, evasion or nullification.” The Church “will stand squarely against any proposal that would in any way invalidate or weaken the outlawry of the [liquor] traffic.” To approve this the 1,000 commissioners—half ministers, half elders—at Cincinnati stood up and yea-ed most heartily.

Before that happened Dr. Hugh Thomp son Kerr of Pittsburgh, candidate to succeed Moderator Dr. Cleland Boyd McAfee of Chicago, displayed his qualifications by an ingenious address. Dr. Kerr, 58, is pastor of Pittsburgh’s Shadyside Presbyterian Church. The past five years, since the reorganization of his church’s boards, he has been president of its board of Christian education. In Presbyterian theology neither the Liberal nor Conservativegroups can claim him. He is a congenial “middle-of-the-roader.” The last two years he gained reputation outside his denomination by daily radio talks over Westinghouse’s station KDKA, including midnight addresses to Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd and other explorers.

The ingenuity of his General Assembly speech lay in his references to seven businesslike charts which he displayed. The charts were graphs of the periodic growth and decline of leading Protestant denominations. Apparently all rise and fall together, influenced by the same things. Commented Dr. Kerr: “When God blesses the Presbyterians, he blesses also the Methodists and the Episcopalians and the Baptists.” Because “today the line [of religious vitality] shows a decline,” he expects a period of robust Evangelism to commence very soon, perhaps this 1900th. Pentecostal year. One means of rousing religious vigor which he recommended: let businessmen pray a half-hour during their luncheon recesses. The general assembly elected Dr. Kerr Moderator, to succeed Dr. McAfee.

Presbyterian Church in the U. S, This sect was for a time called the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America. That was before it acquired other dissident Presbyterian groups in the southern and southwestern states. At Charlottesville last week it emphatically declared against any immediate merger with other Presbyterians. This, despite the offer of the Limited Presbyterian Church, a minor body, and the definite tenors of the United Presbyterian Church of N. A. However it was difficult to override the prudent arguments of Dr. John McNaugher, president of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Moderator of the United Presbyterians and their emissary to Charlottesville—that if the Southern and United Presbyterians joined now, they could dictate terms of merger with the Northerns.

Whereas the “U. S. A.” Presbyterians elected a radio preacher their Moderator, the “U. S.” Presbyterians displayed anger with another — Dr. Samuel Parkes Cadman,radio minister of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America. The southern Presbyterians consider Dr. Cadman’s broadcast beliefs at variance with their doctrines. Vexing them profoundly was something which he wrote recently: “The infallibilities of the Bible are no longer accepted by reasoning men.”

The new Moderator elected was Dr. Thomas White Currie, 51, president of Austin (Tex.) Presbyterian Theological Seminary; to succeed Dr. William Ray Dobyns, 69, of Birmingham, Ala.

United Presbyterian Church of N. A. In theology this organization is more conservative than the other two. Their Moderator,Dr. John McNaugher, was snubbed at Charlottesville too late for the United Presbyterians to deny their eagerness to merge with the Southern Presbyterians. Elected successor to Dr. McNaugher was Thomas C. Atchison, Pastor of the United Presbyterian Church of Lawrence, Mass.