Shape

Gradually extra-creedal Christianity begins to put its substance into shape. Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick has long preached the "religion of Jesus" in contrast to the "religion about Jesus," and the public is beginning to acquire a fair idea of what he means.

Last week brought forth the first concrete lesson in Dr. Fosdick's idea of a church. He will accept the pastorate of the Park Avenue Baptist Church, Manhattan, on one major condition: it must be "inclusive." This general idea, translated into specific requirements, meant:

1) That membership must be open to all who profess themselves Christians according to the so-called "evangelical" manner-i.e., Baptist, Congregationalist, Methodist, Presbyterian and the like.

2) That rites or doctrines which distinguish Baptists from other evangelicals are not to be de rigueur. (Of these, the most picturesque is the Baptist belief that the body of a convert must be totally immersed in water-either running water such as the River Jordan or a pool constructed in the church. Most other churches from Catholic to Calvinist are content with symbolical sprinkling of water on the forehead.)

"Inclusiveness" was acceptable to the retiring pastor, Dr. Cornelius Woelfkin, to John Davison Rockefeller Jr., to other deacons and trustees of the church.

Dr. Fosdick made minor conditions which were also accepted: his salary is not to exceed $5,000; he must continue his teaching at Union Theological Seminary; a larger church, seating 2,500, must be built in the neighborhood of Columbia University, several miles from the residential district in which the church is now located. And also, as a graceful gesture, Dr. Fosdick could not accept until the Presbyterian General Assembly officially refused to permit the First Presbyterian Church, Manhattan, to take him back into its pulpit. It was thought that the church members would follow their leaders in accepting the Fosdick conditions.