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After the reforms of the New Deal and postwar affluence changed the face of America, it was sometimes said that the churches' real mission was henceforth among the rich. Still, despite the wealth of the Great Society, the churches (along with everyone else) have rediscovered the poor, from the National Council's Delta Ministry organizing the Negro cotton pickers to the interdenominational California Migrant Ministry trying to better the lot of the grape pickers.
·WAR & PEACE. War always means heartbreaking decisions for the church, as it must find a precarious position somewhere between two extremes: at one end, the belief that all war is wrong, on the other, the notion that God is on the side of one's own country. It is perhaps the one area in which the churches are notably at a loss. They still recall the enthusiastic backing that both Protestants and Catholics gave the U.S. in World War I, and the excessive hopes for peace that followed; the Federal Council characterized the League of Nations as "the political expression of the kingdom of God on earth." In the disillusionment that followed World War I, pacifism grew apace. Still, when war came to the U.S. in 1941, the churches accepted it, bowing to what the Christian Century called an "unnecessary necessity."
The war in Viet Nam has given rise to what might be called selective pacifism. Relatively few clerics condemn fighting under all circumstances, but Protestant churchmen exhibit pacifist reflexes about Viet Nam. This is noticeably less true of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, although many priests have joined Protestants in peace marches, vigils and the signing of petitions. Few advocate flat-out U.S. withdrawal, and many (the number is impossible to estimate) perhaps support the U.S. stand without making themselves heard. The war often reduces the divided Protestant witness to hand-wringing statements, such as that of the National Council on December 3, 1965, which alternately stated the hawk and the dove positions: "We hold that within the spectrum of their concern, Christians can and do espouse one or the other of these views, or still other views, and should not have the integrity of their conscience faulted because they do."
It can be said for the churchmen's attitude about Viet Nam that they have shown an almost agonizingly active conscience and that a country with such pastors in its pulpits is in no danger of confusing its cause with God's.