Religion: Reaching the Unreached

To men of piety the greatest misfortune of the U. S. is that less than half its inhabitants (some 60,000,000 out of 130,000,000 people) belong to any church or actively practice any religion. Last week the best-organized drive in U. S. history to revive the nation’s spiritual life was launched in Kansas City. If outward means could bring inward grace, the National Christian Mission was set to do it. Even bigger than the National Preaching Mission of 1936, the National Christian Mission will tour 23 cities before next Easter in its crusade to “reach the un-reached.”

Director of the Mission is grave, slow-smiling Dr. Jesse Moren Bader of the Federal Council of Churches. At Kansas City he laid down its blueprint: “The National Christian Mission . . . seeks to restore the inner resources of the nation through repentance, faith, devotion and responsible citizenship. … The Mission is united in seeking a new world order of justice and peace. The Mission is united also in its belief that the democratic way of life, to which it is devoted, requires spiritual foundations.”

Keynoter of the Mission is the world’s No. 1 missionary, lean, fervid, greying E. (for Eli) Stanley Jones, who humbly calls himself “evangelist to the high castes of India.” Dr. Jones went to India as a Methodist missionary in 1907, has since converted many a Brahman, written nine books (best-known: The Christ of the Indian Road, with sales past the 600,000 mark), founded at Lucknow the first Christian Ashram (from an Indian word meaning “a forest colony for spiritual fellowship and meditation”). In Indian costume—a long white cloak, tight trousers, sandals—Dr. Jones last summer led two Ashrams at Saugatuck, Mich, and Blue Ridge, N. C. as part of the spiritual preparation for the National Christian Mission. At Kansas City last week Missionary Jones set the themes which will echo and re-echo in the Mission’s hundreds of meetings to come:

“The future of the country is in the hands of disciplined people. Those who can subordinate a present desire to further discipline are the people who will control the destiny of the world. … It was a small group which made Germany Nazi, Italy Fascist and Russia Communist. . . Less than 100 people created the Reformation in Europe, and less than 100 people created the Renaissance. … A small disciplined minority group could change the history of our nation. . . . Somebody has said that the whole evolution of American goals is to get the policeman off the street corner and put him in your heart. … We are to be disciplined to the Kingdom of God. . . . But what we do we must do quickly, for this country is going either Communist, or Fascist, or Christian. The decision is at our doors.”

Thorough is the Mission’s routine. The preaching team in Kansas City followed the regular program laid out for future missions in 22 other cities: contact with every minister and with as many other people in the town as possible, particularly influential laymen. To reach them it held: 1) morning meetings of ministers and women; 2) noonday services in a downtown church or theatre; 3) luncheons for businessmen, women’s clubs, labor, Governmental and professional groups; 4) afternoon seminars for ministers and laymen; 5) meetings in shops, factories, department stores, high schools, colleges; 6) radio programs; 7) evening mass meetings and sings; 8) a weekend Youth Mission; 9) huge Sunday popular mass meetings. Over 120,000 people heard from the Mission in eight crowded days.

The National Preaching Mission of 1936 may have attracted people who went to church anyway. The National Christian Mission is running no such risk. More than 2,500 laymen were enrolled in Kansas City to go out in pairs and bring in the unchurched. Women organized telephone teams for the same purpose. Every other city on the Mission schedule will do the same, and this Home Visitation Evangelism work will be followed up with further calls. By Easter 1941, when the Mission’s offensive ends, it expects the tide of new churchgoers to be at flood.