Religion: Confessional

Among Baptist ministers John Roach Straton and Harry Emerson Fosdick are antithetical—in training, personality and ways of thought. Dr. Straton's religion is absolute—his way or damnation; Dr. Fosdick's religion is expanding —it includes good things of the past as of the present. As professor of practical theology at Union Theological Seminary and pastor of Park Avenue Baptist ("Rockefeller's") Church, Dr. Fosdick has great influence on influential men.

Last week, he, with Dr. Straton and the other members of the Greater New York Federation of Churches attended the Federation's annual meeting; heard Rev. Charles C. Albertson of Brooklyn decry: "There has never been a time when people, especially young people, found it so difficult to believe in God." (In Brooklyn, 90 children, grim, last week proclaimed their membership in a "Society of the Godless"; mocked at school assembly prayers.) ". . . Whether or not professional evangelism has any future, pastoral evangelism has a great future and personal evangelism a greater one. . . ." (In Chicago, Professional Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson told her life story; raised hell for the terror of sinners; filled her heaven with the fresh ululations of 500 new "converts" and her suitcase with fractional currency; went shopping for pretty wearing apparel.)