Presbyterians

Often enough in the past,, the annual General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. A. has been an unfortunate uproar concerned with such things as how a god can have a mortal father. Fundamentalists have blown and stamped, Modernists have scoffed and reasoned, Moderates have explained and pleaded. This year, the meeting in Tulsa, Okla., had a minimum of excursions and alarms. The Fundamentalists were apparently in sufficient majority to achieve victory in the things which lay nearest their hearts and Bibles; they could not, however, expect to work their wills upon every issue. They did not try to do so : the conference opened two weeks ago like a lion's mouth and closed last week like a lamb's.

The first thing for the Presbyterians to do was to elect a moderator to succeed Dr. Robert E. Speer. This they did with rapidity on the first ballot. The new moderator is Dr. Hugh Kelso Walker, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Los Angeles, a clear thinking moderate, who has never embroiled himself in the Fundamentalist v. Modernist controversy. He beat the Fundamentalist candidate, Dr. J. Ambrose Dunkel of the Tabernacle Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, by a vote of 593 to 318. The moderate moderator named a vice moderator to help him in administering the affairs of his church. This was the Rev. Joseph M. Broady of Birmingham, Ala.

Their chief officers chosen, the commissioners of the Assembly proceeded to perilous business. What was to be done about many recent proposals for uniting the Presbyterian Church with other de nominations? The Presbyterians refused to consider amalgamation with such sects as Christian, Universalist and Congregational Churches, because doctrinal differences seemed too extreme to eliminate at this time. To the more consequential proposal which they had received from the Methodist Episcopal Church (TIME, May 21 ), the Presbyterians gave a warmer rejoinder. They elected a committee to confer during the year with a similar Methodist committee to see what could be done about joining the two huge denominations