Religion: A Single, Pointed Power

A grand old man among U.S. missionaries is a rugged Methodist preacher named Eli Stanley Jones. Baltimore-born Missionary Jones went to India in 1907, and his 35 busy years there made him one of India's best known and most respected Americans. His preaching has converted many a Hindu and Moslem to Christianity; his 14 books (best known: The Christ of the Indian Road) have quickened the faith of Christians all over the world. For a decade, he has been working for unity among Protestantism's 256 U.S. denominations.

Last week Dr. Jones, 63, wound up a labor of love that would have staggered many a younger man. Through 30 cities, at the rate of almost one a day, he has toured the U.S. urging his fellow Protestants to unite at once in a common church of Christ.* Says he: "A world seeking unity, knowing that it must find it or perish, will pay only marginal heed to a church unable or unwilling to show the way to unity. . . . We think it is possible to find a form of union which will preserve all the good in the denominational emphases, and yet give the church a single, pointed power of witness to the nation and the world."

Dr. Jones thinks that his current campaign has been a success. Nearly 90% of the 75,000-odd who came to hear him, he estimates, favor his plan. Its specifications: present denominations would become autonomous branches represented in a national assembly; the national assembly, in turn, would send delegates to an international world assembly.