Pastor Says Church Fails in Duty

● Asked whether religious groups were meeting the needs of the community today, a religious pastor, Owen Geer, told a Los Angeles, California, roundtable discussion group on May 29, 1950: “No, religious groups could be many times more effective in our time than they are.” R. K. Staley, prominent lay member of the Hollywood Presbyterian Church, supported Pastor Geer, stating: “The people have asked for bread, but the church has given them a stone. Creation is no chance occurrence, and so man himself is no chance development. The church should have opened the door to understanding so man could feel his relationship to the Creator.” Geer later filled out his own remarks when he said: “The question is not so much what the church has done as what the church might have done had it fulfilled its mission. The church could have been many times more effective than it has been. It could unite in all its strength to abolish war, if it would. Why don’t we do this? Why do we permit sectarianism and racialism?”