Protestants: The Gentle Demurrers

The Southern Presbyterian Church is a gently, insistently conservative group, both theologically and politically. Its 928,056 members, 99% white, officially support racial integration, applaud those of their churches that practice it, do not chide those that don't. They see merit in testing the literal Bible by scholarship—yet many quietly hold that every word is true. They hearken more closely to Calvin than do their more numerous Northern Presbyterian cousins. They anxiously question the need to lose their identity in ecumenicism. Last week, though under the pervading pressures of world Christianity to become a bit more liberal,...

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