Religion: Protest in South Africa

At the memorable Evanston conference TIME, Sept. 13), the World Council of Churches solemnly enjoined Christians in all lands to protest against racial discrimination as "an unutterable offense against God." Last week in South Africa, where discrimination is practiced in God's name, Christians bravely obeyed.

Before the annual conference of South Africa's Methodist Church, the Rev. Joseph B. Webb, Bishop of Transvaal and Swaziland, lashed out at those "Apostles of Apartheid" in the Dutch Reformed Church who provide the Nationalist government with "gospel authority" for its persecution of the blacks. South Africa's Anglican Church joined in with an even stronger attack on two new racialist bills: one designed to take the teaching of black children out of the hands of the Christian missions, the other threatening to cancel the leases on churches whose pastors deplore Apartheid. Said Anglican Bishop Richard A. Reeves of Johannesburg: "We have no alternative but to declare the truth as God has given us to see the truth [even though] our churches [may] be closed by ... the State.''