Christian Council

In Cleveland last week the word went out that the Reds were coming. The patrioteers stiffened their sinews. The Reds were 500 delegates to an "emergency conference" of the United Christian Council for Democracy.* Among them were such innocuous clergymen as Episcopal Bishop Beverley D. Tucker of Ohio, such unsubversive characters as Methodist Bishop Francis John McConnell of New York, Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr of Union Theological Seminary (chairman of the Council)--and a couple of sure-enough fellow travelers, Methodist Rev. Dr. Harry Frederick Ward and Episcopalian Rev. William Benjamin ("Bill") Spofford. One William Ball, leader of Cleveland's Young Americanist League, fee-fi-fo-fummed for the G-Men to investigate this "Red Christian Front." An officious "Director of Americanism" of the American Legion announced: "What we want to do is to make sure that the good American churchmen and other citizens attending these meetings will be on guard so that no un-American motions or resolutions will come from the deliberations."

The churchmen--not only good, but fairly representative of U. S. churchmanship at its most intelligent--were less interested in making un-American motions than in making sense of the problems facing the churches. The biggest of these, the war, floored them at the start. Delegates could not agree on whether to oppose all wars, some wars, or just World War II. They did agree, and the conference with them, that four factors tend to push the U. S. into the war: "British propaganda. . . . Sentimental reaction to the invasion of Finland. . . . The activity of idealists--both Christian and non-Christian--trying to do what they can 'to save civilization.' . . . The economic system compelling the U. S. in the trend to war." In its stormy final session, the conference voted down a resolution holding that war is always unChristian, denounced conscription, upheld the Neutrality Act.

Although the conference could by no means be labeled Red, it did spotlight one radical: gaunt, sharp-faced, reddish-haired Harry Ward, 66, famed for his persistent defense of Russia and" Communism. Said Fellow Traveler Ward at the conference dinner: "The holy war abroad to save civilization and God from the atheist barbarians is also the holy war at home to save democracy from the Reds, to rescue Christ from the anti-Christ of materialistic Marxism. These are more powerful slogans than those which deceived and betrayed us into the slaughter of 1917. The leading voices of European imperialism, our own profiteering patriots and pothouse politicians, have suddenly all become pious."

From Cleveland Dr. Ward returned to Manhattan, made ready for a trip to Mexico and, possibly, a sabbatical year away from Union Seminary. Honest and greatly loved though he is, Methodist Ward had become an embarrassment to at least one organization, the American Civil Liberties Union, of which he has been president for 20 years. A faction in the Union, which believes it should go on record against the violation of civil liberties in Russia, has been gunning for Dr. Ward. Another group this aging clergyman heads, the American League for Peace and Democracy, began to crack up after it declined to condemn Russian aggression against Finland. With meetings of both bodies scheduled for this week, Dr. Ward last week announced that he was resigning his posts in both.

One institution has never seemed both ered by Harry Ward's bizarre (for a churchman) political views: Union Theo logical Seminary, headed by rich, well born, liberal Henry Sloane Coffin (Skull & Bones, Yale '97). At Union, Red Harry Ward may presumably go on teaching Christian Ethics so long as he is of reason ably sound mind and body.

*Coordinating body of church "social action" groups -- Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, Congregational, etc.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.