The Federal Council of Churches and American Presbyterians, 1900-1950

The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America emerged in 1908 out Of a welter of interdenominational cooperative impulses and activities. It came to embody both a broad-based Protestant ecumenism based on common action and the ideals of the Social Gospel. Presbyterians' involvement in and criticism of the council reflect a widespread ambivalence in its member churches toward its blend of Protestant unity and liberal social action. Taken together, the leadership provided to the council by Presbyterians, and the intermittent membership of the Southern Presbyterian church in the council, provide striking evidence of that ambivalence.