Protestantism's Voice

Nearest thing to a voice which U. S. Protestantism possesses is the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. That voice is often a timid stammer, since any of the 24 member churches of the F. C. of C. may secede at a hat's drop. Last week the Federal Council took a big red heckling from a Lutheran, whose church has never joined it--Professor Theodore Graebner of Concordia Theological Seminary in St. Louis.

Professor Graebner told the Dies Committee in Washington that the Federal Council "meddled incessantly in political affairs, invariably sponsoring the ideals of radical groups." The Federal Council then holding its biennial meeting in Buffalo, did not tell Heckler Graebner or Congressman Dies to go chase himself. Instead it telegraphed a long defense, listing the "distinguished church leaders" who were present at its deliberations.

The church leaders heard speeches and reports last week, of which the most outspoken was the report of the Committee on the State of the Church, headed by President John Alexander Mackay of Princeton Theological Seminary. Critical of present-day church life ("smug and complacent"), the report said: "The churches as we know them are at a great disadvantage in the new spiritual conflict that begins to loom before us. . . ." Of current preaching: "Multitudes who are aware of moral weakness and realize their sinful enmeshment in situations they cannot change are being goaded to despair by moralistic sermons."

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