Religion: The Spirit in Evanston

The Methodist Federation for Social Action is a small (membership: 4,000), unofficial organization of bishops, ministers and laymen founded 43 years ago "to promote social action in the spirit of Jesus." Many a distressed Methodist has come to think that its real aim is to promote Karl Marx. The Un-American Activities Committee has used a short, ugly name for the federation: tool of the Communist Party. Last week, under the severest accumulated criticism in federation history, 56 of the 4,000 members turned up for the annual meeting in Evanston, Ill. Main question: Should they save, or sack, the Rev. Jack R. McMichael, 34, their executive secretary since 1945?

The case against McMichael rested on two main grounds: 1) his membership in such Communist-backed outfits as the Civil Rights Congress and the Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy, and 2) the line he has followed as editor of the federation Bulletin, e.g., running a burbling report on the Communist Warsaw "Peace" conference. But Jack McMichael did not have to worry last week: he was among friends.

The Rev. Albert Barnett, professor of New Testament at Atlanta's Emory University, insisted that the worst thing that anybody could say about McMichael is that he is a "naive, noble Christian." Said Dr. Henry Hitt Crane of Detroit's Central Methodist Church: "His is a crystal-clear Christianity which we must cherish. He is the one symbol on whom we can all agree. He is our flag. If you haul down this flag, you virtually capitulate the liberal cause in the Methodist Church."

By a vote of 50 to 6, the federation decided not to haul down Jack McMichael. Before adjourning, the federation attended to some other matters. With McMichael's vigorous backing, the convention's Commission on Prophetic Religion and the Struggle for Peace reported out a resolution calling for U.S. recognition of Communist China. But there were objections. Said a California layman: "I couldn't conscientiously vote for immediate recognition while we have our boys in Korea giving their lives and limbs." Said the Rev. William B. Waltmire of Madison, Wis.: "It would be sheer political idiocy . . . at this time." The resolution was voted down.

One conservative offered a resolution of his own: "The [federation] is strongly opposed to the totalitarian dictatorship of the Soviet Union." The federation for the promotion of social action in the spirit of Jesus voted that one down, too.

The federation, once upon a time a source of public pride to "liberal" Methodists—as if it were a sort of vanguard of tomorrow's Christianity—has now become a subject of denominational embarrassment. It is a subject sure to be waiting on the doorstep when U.S. Methodism holds its General Conference next spring.