The biennial meeting of the General Council of Congregational Churches was held in Berkeley, Calif., in August 1940, and elected former Governor Sweet of Colorado as Moderator. The meeting completed a decade of the union of the Congregational and the Christian Churches, and the two names had since been carried in the title of the Church. By action of the Council its name will hereafter read simply, 'The General Council of Congregational Churches.' The Council passed a resolution asking for the early termination of the Taylor appointment to the Vatican. It called for the cooperation of all religious faiths against forces undermining democracy, religious freedom, and the American way of life, particularly denouncing religious bigotry. It tabled a resolution calling the country to 'searching debate and mature deliberation' before adopting military conscription, but demanded civilian control of the services of conscientious objectors drafted under the Selective Service Act. The Council took novel action in behalf of interchurch relations by amending its constitution so as to provide for a class of 'ecumenical members' to be appointed by other denominations, primarily those affiliated with the Federal Council, but including also the Unitarian and Universalist Churches.
1939: Congregational Church
The National Council of the Congregational and Christian Churches reported 1,943,276 members in the denomination in 1939.
The Congregational churches of New England suffered a loss of more than $2,000,000 as a result of the hurricane of September 1938. The past year has seen the completion of the program of rebuilding and repairing the edifices which suffered from the hurricane.
The foreign missionary work of the Congregational Churches, which is strong in both Japan and China, has been seriously affected by the war in the Far East. Rev. Wynn C. Fairfield, one of the secretaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (one of the historic agencies of the Congregational Churches) was the organizing executive of the Church Committee for China Relief during the first half of the year. This was set up for the purpose of securing emergency funds for suffering civilian Chinese.
The National Council, through which independent local congregations are associated with one another in cooperative activities, was strengthened at the last biennial meeting by the election of Dr. Douglas Horton of Chicago as general 'Minister.' The change of title from 'General Secretary' to 'Minister' was designed to emphasize the function of this chief officer in inspirational and educational leadership as distinctive from merely promotional activities.
American Congregationalists had invited the next decennial meeting of the International Congregational Churches to be held in Wellesley, Mass., in 1940, but on account of war conditions the gathering has been postponed. The work of the Council for Social Action, which was organized to give national expression to the interest of the Congregational Churches in social and international problems, has been marked during the year by a strong emphasis upon its relation to Christian evangelism and Christian worship.
As a means of stimulating a process of study of the permanent significance of the Congregational heritage and especially of its connection with the democratic spirit, a movement known as 'Re-thinking Congregationalism' has been carried out through the circulation of papers and statements by organized discussion groups in important centers.
The denomination's missionary magazine, The Missionary Herald, has been combined with twenty state publications for the purpose of securing a more effective and widely-circulated journal.