The Living Right Kit

"Say, Joe," says a new man in the company, "I'm $30 in the hole on that last business trip I made. The cashier says it's common practice to make it up on the expense account by putting it in as entertainment or something. What do you think--should I?" Does Joe say that it is common practice and let it go at that? Or does he tell the new man it is wrong and should not be done? Or does he lay the issue on the line and tell him to make up his own mind?

An executive urges a company president to install the latest new safety devices in the plant. Another executive says this is unnecessary, points out that without them the plant has got away without an accident, argues that the company has better use for the money. What does the president decide?

It is in such Monday-to-Saturday decisions that a man's Sunday religion is tried in the balance, and often it is found wanting--a well-known fact that does the cause of religion no good. Last week the National Council of Churches, on the occasion of a television operetta on ethics, plugged a new idea for attacking this perennial problem. Its good grey flannel name: the Living Right Kit.

The Living Right Kit is a handsome blue and white box containing five filmstrips, five LP recordings and five discussion manuals on five subjects: Right Choice, Right Attitude, Right Counsel, Right Outlook, Right Leadership. The kits were designed for the use of discussion leaders, who are instructed to organize gatherings of laymen, run off the problem-posing filmstrips and the accompanying recordings, then turn up the lights for a discussion of how best to play the often tricky game of weekday life. The discussions, not the kits, are supposed to supply the answers.

"This is a new missionary field," says the National Council. "America today is a business society. Often our most meaningful experiences in life occur at work. Because of its increasingly competitive tempo, our business life is one area in which religious principles are in danger of being excluded."

The Living Right theme was conceived at the first joint gathering of the National Council and the Canadian Council of Churches at Buffalo in 1952. Since then more than 25 similar laymen's conferences have been held in the U.S. to discuss com mon problems, much as the Evangelical Academies in Western Germany have done (TIME, March 5).

Even before last week's TV plug, the kits had begun to catch on, and hundreds of laymen's groups, from the General Electric plant at Erie, Pa., to the New York Civil Air Patrol, to soldiers at Ft. Belvoir, Va., were discussing common, everyday problems of conduct. As a result of the TV promotion, the National Council's Department of the Church and Economic Life got a fat flood of requests for the kits, plans to distribute thousands by year's end.

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