1 For an analysis of the American churches the reader is referred to the admirable work of the Institute of Social and Religious Research, summarized in Douglas, H. Paul and Brunner, E. de S., The Protestant Church as a Social Institution, N. Y., 1935.Google Scholar This volume emphasizes the measurable changes in recent decades, but on the whole bears out the above generalization. See especially pp. 43, 53, 99, 294–302. Certain special changes will be noted below. The decline in the rural churches is partly compensated by the slight growth in the urban churches—a shift which seems to be due less to the agricultural depression, than to the automobile. See p. 66.

2 See W. W. Van Kirk: The Churches and World Peace. Pamphlet published by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. No. 304. Nov. 1934.

3 I can not refrain in this connection from quoting a militant Protestant of more than a century ago, who objected even then to such “Catholicism:” “Unity of faith is the only proper basis of unity of spirit. Christians may be and must be united in affection, so far as they are united in sentiment; but so far as they are disunited in sentiment, they are and must be disunited in affection. There is, therefore, no propriety, nor prospect of success, in attempting to unite, the professed friends of Christ in brotherly love, without first uniting them in the belief of the same essential doctrines of the gospel. “But supposing, that the whole Christian world could be brought to unite in affection, while they retain all their different and inconsistent opinions, it would be utterly wrong to attempt it. For, if Christians should form such a coalition, it would be criminal in itself, and highly injurious to the cause of religion. They would disobey the divine injunction, “to be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” They would become an unchristian combination, to countenance and support each other in all their errors and delusions. They would, in practice, justify all the errors and delusions of Deists, Atheists, and Seeptics. And they would actually exercise that same kind of catholicism, which heretics and infidels have so long been pleading for, and by which they have done more mischief to Christianity, than by any other weapon, which they have ever employed against it. Under the pretext of promoting universal toleration, they have taught multitudes and multitudes, to extend their catholicism to disbelievers, dealers, and opposers of the gospel. This unlimited catholicism naturally tends to subvert the goapel, and to involve the whole world in error and infidelity. Let none, therefore, cherish this spirit, and strengthen the hearts and hands of the enemies of truth, by attempting to unite Christians in affection, without uniting them in the belief of the great and essential doctrines of Christianity.” (Nathanael Emmons: A Sermon preached before the Convention of the Congregational Ministers in Boston, 05 31, 1804, pp. 18–19.)Google Scholar

4 See Douglas and Brunner, op. cit., pp. 163, 180.

5 Dr. Selbie in developing his thesis that “the only true eatholicity belongs to the liberal type of Protestantism,”attempts to unite the sacramental, the mystic and the social theories of catholieity when he writes: “All life is sacramental … The sacraments of the Church are symbols of inward grace.” Selbie, W. B., Positive Protestontism, 1926, p. 13.Google Scholar

6 Douglas and Brunner list no less than 33 distinct types of activities carried on by modern churches. See p. 140.

7 See the interesting analysis of the conflict between religion and secularism made by Rufus M. Jones at the Jerusalem Missionary Conference, 1928. Though this coniliet is real, in the long run it is futile, for what is secular today may be sacred tomorrow and vice versa. Even the holiest of churches keeps aloof from the world only so long as there is a secular demand for aloofness.

8 This secular ideal of Christianity is thus driven to its exteme form by such theologians as Rothe and Kutter who “predicted the disappearance of churches in the coming in of that ampler social and spiritual order known to believers as the Kingdom of God.” See Keller, Adolf and Stewart, George, Protestant Europe: its Crisis and Outlook, 1927, p. 73.Google Scholar In Germany the contrast between the ecclesiastical and the social conceptions of Christianity is stronger than in America, since there the Christian social work (Innere Mission) is an independent organization.

9 Principal Alexander Martin of New College, Edinburgh points out cannily and significantly: “In the event, the Church of Scotland has lest perhaps one sixth of its annual reyenues. In circumstances very different, as the outcome not of an amicable negotiation but of a protracted political controversy, the church of Wales… was denuded of about one-fifth.” In SirMarehant, James, The Reunion of Christendom, 1929, p. 201.Google Scholar

10 Note Archbishop Söderblom 's sophism when he reports that “the Conference unanimously avoided formal resolutions,” (in his article on “Einigungsbestrebungen” in Religion in Geschichtc und Gegenwart). The national differences that came to the surface during the discussion of tentative resolutions made it evident that it would be fatal to attempt formulae on which all could agree.

11 In 1919, when the British and American leaders of the ecumenical movement approached Archbishop Söderblom and his associates in making plans for the Stockholm Conference and suggested a union of the two movements for unity, the Archbishop promptly and wisely declined. He writes that the invitation was refused on principle (grundsätzlich abgelehnt) (see his article on “Emigungsbestrebungen” in Religion in Gesehichie und Gegenwart), but any observant student can see at once that in addition to the differences of principle animating the two movements there was an element of national jealousy and international politics.

12 Cf. Gogarten 's thesis that Proteetantism represents man in his essential relation to God, that is, as condemned before the Eternal Judgment and willing to be so judged for the sake of redeeming graes. The actual world is God's world and the Protestant does not seek to escape it and flee to some ideal world. The Protestant hates illusion and can bear to face God's condemnation. See Friedrich Gogarten, Der protestantische Mensch.

13 For diversified examples of this tendency even among American theologians I might cite Niebuhr:, ReinholdReflections on the End of an Era, 1934Google Scholar; Haxoutunian, Joseph: Piety versus Moralism, 1932Google Scholar; and Cell, George C., The Rediscovery of John Wesley, 1935.Google Scholar

14 See, e. g., Heiler, Friedrich, Evangelische Katholizität, p. 201 ff.Google Scholar

15 On this subject see Meland, Bernard E.: Modern Man's Worship, N. Y., 1934.Google Scholar