Religion: Red China: Further Study

A rain of protest has drummed against the National Council of Churches ever since its Fifth World Order Study Conference in Cleveland advocated recognition of Red China and admission to the U.N. (TIME, Dec. 1) In Hartford, Conn, last week, before a meeting of the policymaking General Board, National Council President Dr. Edwin T. (for Theodore) Dahlberg stiffly rose to answer the critics. Actually he sidestepped them by defending the church's right to take a stand on international issues, rather than specifically commenting on the China stand. Said he: "The church must in a sense function as the conscience of the nation. We are Biblically authorized to do this. It was the vigorous pronouncements Jesus made on controversial matters that sent him to the cross. If he had confined himself to little Mickey Mouse morals, he would never have been heard of ...

"The cold war ... is nothing less than a war against God. We are changing our very nature into a thing of evil. The blood of our fellow men and the guilt of the ages will be upon our hands if we do not warn men to return to the reconciling realities of the cross. What the world needs is not more military hardware, but more food, more love, more hope, more trade, more schools and medical care . . ."

The General Board's 150 delegates were not ready to apply the "reconciling realities" to Red China in a political sense. They approved a stern official denial that the council had ever been, or intended to be, "soft toward Communism," voted unanimously to "receive" the Cleveland meeting's Red China recommendation. This means neither approval nor disapproval, but simply further study.