Religion: The Commissioners

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The Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (Northern) last week proposed one way of replacing talk about racial integration with deeds. Meeting in Philadelphia, the 910 Commissioners (delegates) of the 168th General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a recommendation that all Christian churchgoers with houses for sale should offer them to "all qualified purchasers without regard to race." Studies of the effect on property values of Negroes moving into white communities, according to the Presbyterian Standing Committee on Social Education and Action, show that a decline in value is not inevitable, and that in many cases property values rise. Pastors of the 8,282 Northern Presbyterian Churches were urged to form "covenants of open occupancy" among their congregations, designed to "stem the tendency toward panic selling and stabilize their neighborhoods on a nonsegregated basis."