Religion: President from India

The Chinese Communists are isolating and gagging Chinese Christians (see below). Last week an echo reached far-off Rolle, Switzerland. There, the World Council of Churches announced that one of its six presidents, Dr. T. C. Chao, had resigned last April. Dr. Chao, Anglican dean of the School of Religion at Peking’s Yenching University, had resigned in protest against the council’s stand on Korea and the Stockholm “peace” appeal.

To replace Chao, the World Council elected its first woman president, Sarah Chakko, president of Isabella Thoburn College at Lucknow, India. An indefatigable committeewoman, 46-year-old Miss Chakko is a member of India’s Mar Thoma Church, which claims to have been founded by the Apostle Thomas. Also elected a World Council president was Archbishop Athenagoras of the Greek Orthodox Church, to replace the late Archbishop Germanos.

The World Council uttered thousands of words on the world’s state. One notable passage: “Our churches are sick. The sickness is shown in their being at home in the world and conformed to the world’s standards. At the same time, the churches are sick in that they are isolated from the world and failing to speak to it . . . In many subtle ways the churches capitulate to the temptation of worldliness, as for example in relying on the protection of the state, on the support of the wealthy, on a particular form of civilization . . .”