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"What-the-Hell." The Amsterdam delegates knew that the world was watching. Since the end of the war, many people have discovered—and announced their discovery as if it were news—that political and economic problems can be solved only on a moral basis. It was up to the churches to answer this challenge—and to find an adequate response to the secularism of modern society.
Amsterdam approached its task with becoming—and typically Protestant—humility. Bishop J.W.C. Wand of London said that Britons showed a growing "what-the-hell attitude that we have to overcome if we are going to do anything about the disorder of society." Secretary Samuel McCrea Cavert of the U.S. Federal Council of Churches cited the "disturbing discrepancy" between the numerical strength of the U.S. churches and their weak influence on U.S. life. German Pastor Martin Niemöller warned that Christendom itself was in the same confused state as the rest of the world. Yenching's Dr. Chao put the question that troubled missionary leaders in many lands; he asked "whether Christianity and the Christian church have taken deep enough root in Chinese soil so they cannot be plucked out by the sway of hostile forces."
Said Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: "One has the uneasy feeling that . . . there is so little health in the whole of our modern civilization that one cannot find the island of order from which to proceed against disorder."
Equal Condemnation. Having conceded that the churches themselves were far from adequate, Amsterdam tackled the world's politico-economic problems in a controversial report, "The Church and the Disorder of Society":
"The world today is experiencing a social crisis of unparalleled proportions . . . Christians should ask why Communism in its modern totalitarian form makes so strong an appeal to great masses of people in many parts of the world. They should recognize the work of God in the revolt of multitudes against injustice that gives Communism much of its strength. They should seek to recapture for the church the original Christian solidarity with the world's distressed people . . .
"The proclamation of racial equality by Communists and their support of the cause of colonial peoples make a strong appeal to the populations of Asia and Africa and to racial minorities elsewhere . . ."*
The Amsterdam report then condemned Communism and capitalism equally: "The Christian church should reject the ideologies of both Communism and capitalism, and should seek to draw men away from the false assumption that these are the only alternatives. Each has made promises which it could not redeem. "Communist ideology puts the emphasis upon economic justice and promises that freedom will come automatically after the completion of the revolution. Capitalism puts the emphasis upon freedom and promises that justice will follow as a byproduct of free enterprise. That, too, is an ideology which has been proved false. It is the responsibility of Christians to seek new creative solutions which never allow either justice or freedom to destroy the other."