Gatherings for God (Cont'd)

In Philadelphia last week the Northern Baptist Convention wound up its annual gathering (TIME, May 31) after paying its respects to its late benefactor, John D. Rockefeller (see p. 65), and declaring itself in favor of Government-fixed minimum wages, Government-limited incomes. Elsewhere African Methodists (Albany, N. Y.), United Lutherans (Manhattan), United Presbyterians (Chicago), Catho lic Daughters of America (Elmira, N. Y.), Knights of Columbus (Geneva, N. Y.), members of a Movement for World Christianity (Rochester, N. Y.), a Fellowship of Southern Churchmen (Nashville, Tenn.) deliberated, prayed, resolved. Most news worthy conventions of the week:

Presbyterians-- For the sixth time since the Civil War, Columbus, Ohio was host last week to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. Among the 900 "commissioners" to the Assembly was one who had stayed away from its last meeting in Columbus four years ago, because of the "controversy and acrimony" he knew would arise over the schism led by Fundamentalist Dr. J. Gresham Machen. This absentee was Rev. Dr. William Hiram Foulkes, moderate Presbyterian, sonorous orator, pastor of Old First Church in Newark, N. J. By last week the acrimony had subsided, Dr. Machen had died, his rebel church was rent by theological squabbles over millennialism,* and Dr. Foulkes turned up in Columbus as a commissioner. The Assembly was marked by businesslike calm. Commissioner Foulkes and his colleagues learned that the Presbyterian Church had recovered $1,600,000 in property, and counted on $400,000 more, which Dr. Machen's church had tried to take with it when it split off from the parent body. And to Dr. Foulkes, 59, big, well-beloved leader of youth, writer of hymns and Presbyterian mission board member, there went without fuss the office--moderator-ship of the General Assembly--which year after year is handed around among members of the inner circle which runs the Presbyterian Church from the top.

During the year past, Presbyterian pacifists worked to get two-thirds of the Church's 276 presbyteries to vote to delete from its Confession of Faith the following: "Christians may lawfully under the New Testament, wage war." Last week they learned that the repealer had failed of adoption by nine votes.

Rabbis. Two hundred members of the world's largest rabbinical assembly, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (Reform Jews), also met last week in Columbus, exchanged greetings with the Presbyterians. Rabbi Samuel Marcus Gup told the Christians: "The world needs just this sort of demonstration in which you and we are taking part today."

Unitarians. For a century the American Unitarian Association, which annually brings together representatives of U. S. and Canadian Unitarian churches, has elected its presidents simply by ratifying the choice of a nominating committee. Two months ago Unitarians embarked on a lively row, out of which loomed the probability that the annual meeting would have to choose between two candidates for president. The committee's nominee was Dr. Frederick May Eliot, Boston-born pastor for the past 20 years of Unity Church in St. Paul, Minn., chairman of an appraisal commission which worked for two years on a 348-page report detailing the ills of organized Unitarianism. That report irked the vice president of the Association, Dr. Charles Rhind Joy, for among other things it suggested he be transferred to the Unitarian Department of the Ministry. Friends of Dr. Joy nominated him, made an issue of the report and what they called the "Humanism" of Dr. Eliot. So great was the outcry they aroused, so voluminous the letter-writing in Unitarian journals, that Dr. Joy withdrew his candidacy on the eve of the Association meeting in Boston last week, and the presidency went to Dr. Eliot as scheduled. Only acrimony at the meeting was when a resolution was introduced expressing Unitarian satisfaction with the gaining power of U. S. Labor. Ordinarily as liberal as any U. S. churchmen, the Unitarians voted down the resolution after many a delegate had argued that Labor was not a proper concern of a religious convention.

*Premillennialists believe that Christ's return to earth will be followed by 1,000 years of peace. Postmillennialists believe there must be 1,000 years of peace before Christ returns.

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