Religion: World Council at Work

We commit ourselves to Thee . . . confident that Thou are working more wisely and more powerfully among us than we understand.

So prayed 131 delegates, consultants and guests of the World Council of Churches' Central Committee at the close of its annual meeting in New Haven, Conn. During the nine-day meeting, the committee:

> Approved a controversial statement (TIME, Aug. 12) urging that nations testing nuclear weapons stop such tests for a trial period, even lacking international agreements, in hopes that other governments might follow their example.

> Decided not to accuse the Roman Catholic Church directly of violating religious liberty in Colombia and other South American countries, but to make a quiet study of the situation first.

> Agreed not to change the criterion for membership in the World Council from simple belief in Jesus Christ to include more complex credos, e.g., the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.

> Decided to hire a consultant in racial and ethnic tensions to troubleshoot "intergroup relations'' among member churches in tension areas.

> Admitted five new member churches: the U.S.'s Evangelical Lutheran Church (1,000,000 members), the Burma Baptist Convention (200,000 members), the Presbyterian Church of East Africa (20,000 members), the Christian Reformed Churches in Indonesia (2,300 members) and the Presbyterian Church of Jamaica, B.W.I. (12,000 members).

> Re-elected the entire executive committee, including—despite objections—Communist-collaborating Dr. Josef Hromadka of Czechoslovakia.

> Designated Copenhagen as the site of the next meeting of the Central Committee in August 1958.