Religion: Missionaries

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The Team was in Oklahoma City last week, on the last leg of their trip which is to end in Philadelphia Dec. 15. As they have in other cities, they began their first day by breakfasting with the Oklahoma churchmen who had made arrangements for their visit. Then followed a crowded mass meeting at First Presbyterian Church. Later the Team deployed to speak in separate churches. Finally another mass meeting in Oklahoma City College auditorium where students presented a missionary play, Ba Thane.

Throughout the tour, little has been said of the Laymen's Report on missions which raised deepest theological questions, such as whether or not Christ should be proclaimed to the heathen as God (TIME, Nov. 28, 1932 et seq.). Nothing has been said of oldtime ''Hell-fire for heathens"; much of good works for all humans. Missionary Jones loves the Cross (which the Report does not mention), distrusts syncretism (fusion of religions, which he believes the Report advocates). In Boston he cried: '"Our syncretism is not a patchwork but a Personality. Not our Western civilization but Christ is our message and what the world needs. ..."

Incidents of the tour:

¶ In Rochester over 60 separate meetings were held. Lake Avenue Baptist Church resolved to raise $1,000 for Dr. Liu's University.

¶ Chicago has four "Gold Coast" churches—the Fourth Presbyterian, New England Congregational, St. James Episcopal, St. Chrysostom's Episcopal. The missionary Team united these for the first time in a community service.

¶ Said a Sioux City pastor: "We can never be the same men and women that we were; there just must be a deeper intensity in our devotion and love for our Lord; more of passionate desire for the redemption of man and of society—of yearning for the coming of His Kingdom, and a clearer understanding of our part in that work."