THE CHURCH ON THE URBAN FRONTIER

Excited writing meant for challenging reading! They Rev. G. Paul Musselman, now Executive Director of the Control Department of Evangelism, National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., has a concern that the Protestant Churches awake to the real problem posed by the decline of the once strong, large city churches, but especially is he disturbed by the plight of the Episcopal Churches which seem less adaptable to the changing situation than some others. Mr. Musselman has for seven years been at the service of these Episcopal Churches in the ""inner city"", helping them to understand their predicament and then to meet it by reshaping their methods and re-defining their objectives rather than retreat to suburbia. Even there, he makes clear, one set of difficulties is only exchanged for another. These things he spells out, with some sharp criticism of the inadequacies of theological education and the short-sightedness of ecclesiastical officialdom. He calls for flexibility, imagination and consecration that the Church of today may no longer be more concerned with buildings and institutions than with the souls committed to their charge because the Church is in their midst. No Episcopal city rector can afford to miss this book. He will read all of it at one sitting. But other city clergy will profit from it too, for they and their churches, in some degree, fall under the same condemnation.