Religion: Re-Thinking Missions

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in the Orient, with unity among the various Christian sects (which is no new recommendation—unity has long been sought, and achieved in such organizations as the 16-denominational Church of Christ in China). Abroad, responsibility must be transferred from missionaries to natives. At home, all Protestant missionary boards should in the Commission's opinion be consolidated in a single administrative unit.

What U. S. Protestant churches would do about the Appraisal Commission's report was not at once apparent. They were not obliged to do anything, for the Commission specifically disclaimed any intention of asking the various missionary boards to adopt or reject it. First U. S. Protestant body to repudiate it flatly was the American Lutheran Conference, a large Midwestern federation of synods formed in 1930. Last week the Midwestern Lutherans passed a resolution condemning the Commission's statement that Christianity "has become less concerned in any land to save men from eternal punishment than from the danger of losing the supreme good." The resolution announced that the American Lutheran Church would continue to "preach to all the world the gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ alone."

Of the seven churches concerned in the joint inquiry the Methodist Board of Foreign Missions last week led off with a pledge of greater co-operation with the Commission but warily added it did not necessarily "swallow the whole report." It seemed likely that the Baptist and Congregationalist churches would favor the report. If the other four churches balked at the report it would be because of one fundamental difference of opinion. The whole theological problem both for home churches and for foreign missions is: A God-centred or a Christ-centred religion? The report emphasizes God and makes no mention whatever of "Preach Christ and Him Crucified" or "Preach the Blood." This omission more than any other would infuriate fundamentalists.

The Appraisal Commission had its big evening last week, and no one heckled its members as they arose in the ballroom of Manhattan's Hotel Roosevelt to explain Re-Thinking Missions. Necks were craned for a look at two outstanding visitors: John D Rockefeller Jr.. the man who started it all, and Mrs. Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (The Good Earth), whose intense, quietly emotional appreciation of Re-Thinking Missions, reprinted from this week's Christian Century and handed to the guests, called it "a great monument, dividing the dying past from a glorious new movement in Christian life."

There was no discussion of the report from the floor, but guests could write out questions for Commission members to answer. One question hit at a point which had disturbed many a U. S. churchman. Why had the Commission rushed into print with its findings before giving mission boards a chance to peruse the full report? It was replied that the excerpts were publicized (by Ivy Lee) in order to bang them home to the people who needed most to be told, the laymen.