Plight?

Last week the Christian Century, moderately liberal church organ but for the moment wrathful, without ambiguous language set out to examine the exploitation of childhood by religious zealots. Said this crusader

"Elements in the Christian church to which the community has a right to look for enlightened spiritual guidance are scrambling to exploit childhood in the hope of profits as illicit, of their kind, as any ever wrung by a conscienceless manufacturer from the labor of children at the loom. In the name of evangelism -- that sacred word that has been defiled so often that it is at last almost a common butt -- this horrible thing is being done." Readers wondered what the Christian Century was driving at. The author of the piece quickly made it clear that he was discussing the case of 14-year-old Uldine Utley, whose evangelical struggles had lately been endorsed by such stalwarts of the church as Dr. John Roach Straton and the Rev. Samuel Parkes Cadman, President of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America (TIME, Feb. 28). Commented the Christian Century: "When Dr. Cadman steps forth to champion the return of this child to New York, and lends the weight of his endorsement to her proposed union campaign there -- what is there to be said that is adequate?" The Christian Century continued: "The worst sufferer of all, however, is not the child nor the public, but the church. A performance of this kind is fair notice to all ... of the desperate plight in which the leaders of the church feel themselves to be." The Christian Century also said: "For the sake of the child herself, for the sake of the public conception of religion, for the sake of the church, this crass exploitation should be stopped."