Whither the Southern Presbyterians?
“I am one of a majority who is caught in the middle of a conflict.… The gap is widening. I’m afraid I’m going to be split.”
A perplexed commissioner to the 109th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S., held April 24–29 in Mobile, Alabama, made that statement in the midst of one of a dozen impassioned debates that sharpened conservative-liberal cleavage during the meeting of the Southern Presbyterians. Professor Walter Johnson of Austin Theological Seminary described the meeting as “pivotal,” one in which the one-million-member denomination ceased “tipping its head to the right.”
After floor fireworks had subsided on such subjects as evolution and conscientious objection, unresolved issues left for future assemblies to decide gave commissioners plenty to brood over in assessing the trend of their church. Touchy topics include reunion with the sister United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., inclusion in the 25-million-member united church proposed by the Consultation on Church Union, and first steps toward a new Confession of Faith. The latter may in the long run prove to be this assembly’s most far-reaching action.
Some conservatives voiced fear that the “New Confession” may in fact turn out to be the United Presbyterian Confession of 1967, thereby slickly paving the road to quicker reunion between the two bodies.
Long before the commissioners gathered in usually balmy Mobile—which greeted them with unseasonably cool weather—battle lines had been drawn between conservatives and liberals. Through letters, periodicals, and verbal jousts, debate had raged the entire year over alleged assaults on the “peace and purity” of the church, controversial worship services, and programs of PCUS boards and agencies.
As one of their first acts, the commissioners elected as moderator an elfin Midland, Texas, minister, the Rev. Matthew Lynn. The 65-year-old pastor of Midland’s First Presbyterian Church wasted no time stating as his chief objectives unity and healing of “illness” in the PCUS.
The unity Lynn said he was seeking was not only unity within the Presbyterian and Reformed family. “We should not only say ‘brother,’ but should mean it when we meet Methodists, Roman Catholics, or Orthodox,” he said.
Apparently the commissioners were listening. In its first instruction to sessions on the matter, the assembly sanctioned Roman Catholic baptism. (Previously, sessions individually determined whether rebaptism was necessary.) It also took what was described as the “first concrete action” in this decade toward reunion with the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., a body from which the PCUS bolted during the Civil War.
The assembly proposed that the two denominations each send twelve representatives to compose a committee to talk over differences, to begin reporting to the General Assemblies of the churches in 1970, and ultimately to negotiate union. United Presbyterian director of information Frank Heinze, present at the assembly, noted that was what his church has been urging for the past ten years and predicted his denomination would welcome the PCUS action “with a doxology” when it convened in San Antonio, Texas, this month.
The PCUS also amended its constitution to permit union presbyteries. Under the arrangement, PCUS presbyteries bordering those of the UPUSA may link with them. Union presbyteries would then fall under the jurisdiction of both denominations.
The measure passed after lengthy debate centering on the constitutional legality of voting procedures under which three presbyteries had switched their votes on the amendment. (See News, May 9, page 43. The Northeast Texas Presbytery reversed its vote after press time for that issue.)
In another ecumenical swoop, the PCUS rejected an overture that it withdraw from the Consultation on Church Union, whose Plan of Union Committee happens to be chaired by PCUS minister William Benfield. Controversy was so sharp that conservative commissioners requested that Benfield not be allowed to report on COCU’s progress, saying they feared he might try to “persuade” as well as report.
There was little consensus on any union matter. Conservatives opposed most of the ecumenical measures, liberals favored them. In the end the victories went to the liberals, but some by queasily small margins.
After marathon debate, the assembly declared that the Bible and the theory of evolution are not contradictory. It also endorsed selective conscientious objection, and urged an easing in the nuclear-arms race and caution on development of the anti-ballistic missile system. While condemning violence in campus dissent, the assembly urged college officials to give ear to “responsible” protest.
Commissioners refused requests to chastise the Board of National Ministries for a controversial jazz worship and communion service last August at Montreat, North Carolina, though four presbyteries had asked for official criticism of the affair. But it did spank—ever so slightly—Concerned Presbyterians Incorporated, a staunchly conservative organization accused of not promoting the “peace, unity, edification and purity” of the church. A statement gently admonished Concerned Presbyterians to “speak the truth in love.…”
The Presbytery of Northeast Texas overtured that the moderator appoint a committee to investigate the Presbyterian Journal, an independent publication whose staff members, said the overture, “do continually strive to divide” the PCUS. The assembly, on recommendation of a General Council standing committee, rejected that bid, saying it did not have “original jurisdiction over the accused parties.”
The real significance of the 109th General Assembly rested in its undertone of division and unrest. Hardly any issue arose that was free of liberal-conservative division. A committee was formed to study “unrest” in the church. One of its first targets will be independent Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, a school of conservative leaning.
Although the RCA rejected union with the PCUS earlier this spring, merger was definitely on the minds of the commissioners when they authorized a committee of ten to begin study for a new Confession of Faith, “together with a Book of Confessions.” No time limit was set to complete the work, but conceivably it could be ready by next year’s assembly. More likely, it won’t be voted upon until constitutional amendments are made allowing a two-thirds rather than a three-fourths majority vote for such actions—probably live or six years away.
A move to compose the confession committee of members nominated by lower judicatories failed, 187–229. Instead, the moderator will name the ten.
Moderator Lynn, exhausted at the end of the week-long session, said the issues, which sometimes became prolonged agony, “indicated a new clarity of the various positions and their place in the church.” That new clarity may have been a clearer view of just how sharply divided the church is. As the commissioners caravaned out of Mobile, many frankly wondered where their wounded church would go next.
Wcc: More In The Fold
Dr. John Coventry Smith, outgoing moderator of the United Presbyterian Church and one of six presidents of the World Council of Churches, told delegates to the annual meeting of the council’s U. S. Conference that the Roman Catholic Church formally will come into the huge ecumenical body in one way or another by the next WCC assembly. (Not later than 1975.)
The upcoming visit next month by Pope Paul to WCC headquarters in Geneva was hailed as a dramatic step forward in the ecumenical dialogue.1Meanwhile, however, the visit drew the ire of Father Gommar A. DePauw, president of the Catholic Traditionalist Movement. Catholic membership in the WCC would be “a big mistake,” said he, “because the Holy Father will then be only one of two or three bishops in authority.” And delegates at the Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania, meeting last month waxed enthusiastic over the recent appointment of Jan Cardinal Willebrands to the Roman Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity.
There was elation over the apparent numerical growth of ecumenism, as evidenced by the presence of Catholics in many WCC agencies and the application for WCC membership by a Brazilian Pentecostal church with just under a million members.
But noted Episcopal laywoman Mrs. Cynthia Wedel—who wears leadership hats for both the WCC and the National Council of Churches—voiced the frustration some feel over denominational foot-dragging on full ecumenical involvement. Mrs. Wedel—who also announced she is stepping down from her two posts—noted that the NCC and the WCC are part of the same movement. Why, then, is a WCC member like the American Lutheran Church not in the NCC?
ALC suspicions about the NCC undoubtedly have not been overcome, but some observers find it hard to see why a denomination should not be either in both or in neither.
The conference generated little concrete action and raised no new issues. The closest thing to a confrontation was a letter from a Czech national asking why the WCC Executive Committee at its Tulsa meeting didn’t say a word about the occupation of his country, particularly since the presence of Metropolitan Nikodim of Russia would have made a condemnatory statement particularly appropriate.
The Rev. Blahoslav Hruby of the NCC, who read the letter, said there was no satisfactory answer to the question, but it was stated that the highest leadership levels of the Russian Orthodox Church supported Soviet intervention.
One session considered the increasing polarization over gospel preaching versus social action, described in a position paper entitled “Verticalism and Horizontalism in the Ecumenical Movement.” It was obvious nobody favored either extreme. Left unclear was how the two could be yoked without compromise.
Buck Hill Falls signaled no retreat in the WCC’s drive for more member churches, and optimism prevailed that leading American holdouts will soon be in the fold.
HAROLD LINDSELL
Canadian Union A Disaster Area?
The proposed union by 1974 of the Anglican and United Churches of Canada is coming under fire rarely made public in the usually placid United Church. An outspoken critic and former denominational bigwig has hit hard at the union scheme, seeing it not only falling apart but, in the process, causing catastrophic damage to the whole ecumenical movement.
Some substance to this prediction by fiery Ottawa pastor Dr. W. G. Berry materialized when a vote at a public debate in Toronto showed that more than half of 400 persons opposed the merger.
Berry contends there is a groundswell of opposition to union in both churches and that “a conspiracy of silence” surrounds the issue. If union architects would heed the opposition, damage to ecumenicity could be averted, he argues.
Further evidence of a “ho-hum” attitude toward merger was a recent attempt by a large United Church presbytery to recruit nine members to discuss the union with nine from an Anglican deanery. Seven eventually signed up, but they had to be pushed into it, according to a presbytery official.
The official and two principal speakers at the Toronto debate amplified mounting irritation now being heard in the pews that “headquarters” increasingly tries to thrust church union down people’s throats.
Berry says clergymen of both faiths must disregard their conscience to get around the ordination barrier for the new church: “Both must renounce their historic heritage.” Union boosters assert merger is scriptural and is God’s will.
Berry predicts that if union goes through, it will cut off the new three-million-member church from all others, such as Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans, and the Salvation Army (the non-episcopalians). Even more disturbing, in his view, would be a possible split into three churches: continuing United, continuing Anglican, and merged. Far better, he says, would be a strong federation of churches that might include Catholics.
AUBREY WICE
Accc On The Move
The American Council of Christian Churches will relocate its headquarters on a 46.7-acre tract at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, the home of the American Baptist Convention. About 100 delegates attending the ACCC Convention in Atlanta last month unanimously voted for the $200,000 purchase. Officials cited lack of space in current New York City headquarters as the reason for the move. A farmhouse is expected to become temporary headquarters for the ultra-fundamentalist group.
The ACCC executive committee issued a statement saying the semiannual convention had not gathered to “repudiate” Dr. Carl Mclntire, alienated ACCC founder who has been at odds with current leadership. Instead, the meeting was to “speak on evangelism, communism and church union.” McIntire did not attend.
JOCKEYING FOR STATE AID
Pennsylvania Catholics are betting they have at least a partial answer to the nightmarish financial crisis in parochial schools. The horses will be off and running in Philly May 31 and a new state law provides that the schools will get a good chunk of the racing revenue.
The new legislation will give nonpublic schools $4.3 million of the state’s take from harness racing this year and at least $10 million from thoroughbred flat racing for future education programs.
State legislators were spurred to mount the public-revenue racing scheme—first of its kind in the nation—after being nagged by the prospect of Catholic schools closing and dumping hundreds of thousands of students into already strained public-school systems. Nationwide, Catholic educators predict two million of their grade-school pupils will be turned away unless there is massive public support over the next six years.
Cardinals Get New Hats—And Some New Jobs
Not only was it “red hat day” for thirty-three new cardinals elevated by Pope Paul VI during elaborate Vatican ceremonies this month; it also was a red-letter day for the Roman church as the Pontiff wrote several new chapters in its history.
He established a thirty-member central theological commission representing various currents of theological thought; created two new congregations, or offices—one to handle liturgy, the other, beatification and canonization of saints; and approved sweeping changes in the Catholic missal. These include permitting spontaneous prayers at mass under certain circumstances, and eliminating the requirement that women wear veils or hats in church.
At a semi-public consistory, the new cardinals—including four from the United States—wore their scarlet robes for the first time and received the traditional red biretta from the Pope. He used the occasion to announce the naming of Jean Cardinal Villot, 63-year-old former archbishop of Lyons, France, to succeed retiring Amleto Giovanni Cicognani, 86, as secretary of state.
Newly named Cardinal John Joseph Wright was assigned a top—and sensitive—Vatican post heading 280,000 diocesan priests the world over. The former archbishop of Pittsburgh, who is socially liberal and theologically conservative, will face the delicate task of dealing with such explosive issues as birth control and clerical celibacy.
In another Vatican innovation, the new cardinals added the oath of secrecy to traditional vows. The prelates swore not to reveal information learned at the Vatican to unauthorized persons.
Charleston: New Testing Ground
The Charleston, South Carolina, Negro hospital workers’ strike has become a new testing ground for the civil-rights struggle. The Rev. Ralph David Abernathy—in a typical switch of plans—said less than a week before a Mother’s Day march that it would be held there rather than in Washington, D.C., as previously announced. Abernathy, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was jailed for the twenty-first time while leading a Charleston demonstration supporting the strikers.
He said the Mother’s Day march was switched to Charleston because “the eyes of the nation are focused here” and added that the Washington phase—the second chapter of the Poor People’s Campaign—was supposed to start the next day. One hundred persons were to march, picket, and confront high government leaders with health, welfare, and employment demands.
What Is Christian Psychiatry?
Evangelical highbrows had a “love-in” last month.
Casting off clinical and theological masks, Christian psychiatrists, ministers, and social workers cried, hugged, laughed, shared, and, in the words of one, emotionally “let it all hang out.”
The result: group therapy for therapists. The scene: convention of the Christian Association for Psychological Studies in Chicago.
Highlight was a demonstration of psychodrama (group therapy in play form in which patients act out roles relevant to their problems) directed by Frank Kaemingk, chaplain of Denver’s Bethesda Hospital.
Emotional intensity peaked as the “patient,” a social-work student who volunteered, acted out problems with her mother. “I have felt the same way toward my father,” cried out a seminarian at the end. “I identify with your mother—she needs your love,” said a woman counselor. In a burst of motherly affection, a woman professor of the “patient” bounded on stage and held her. Both cried. “I have tears in my eyes,” exclaimed re-elected CAPS president G. Roderick Youngs, Calvin College education professor. “It may take me a week to recover from the exhaustion of exhilaration.”
Such personal expressions—spontaneous “acts of faith”—were the salt of the sessions.
Two earlier presentations had prepared the some 200 counselors present for this kind of honesty. Chicago-area psychiatrist David F. Busby put himself on the line by sketching cases of two former patients, one whose therapy was deemed successful, the other a failure. Both patients appeared to give their opinions of therapy by a Christian.
The group reacted strongly to the testimony of one of them, a young woman who had failed to make progress until she underwent demon exorcism by a Chicago tongues preacher. “Psychiatry is not the answer,” she said. “Jesus Christ is.” Several counselors later called her recovery incomplete and “second best” because of her extremely nervous and defensive behavior. Another scolded them for “knocking this girl around. So she has a second-best solution. I’m glad this girl is functioning as well as she is.”
Busby, gentle, quiet-spoken, said he believes “there was demon possession in Christ’s day and there may well be now. But I don’t know how to recognize it.” His other patient, an 18-year-old Baptist minister’s son who’d had delusions that he was the anti-Christ, gave an affirmative account of his treatment. During therapy sessions, prayer and extensive use of Scripture by Busby helped bring recovery.
In the only academic debate of the convention, bushy-bearded Basil Jackson asserted that “Christian psychotherapy does not exist as a distinct brand of psychiatry any more than there is a Christian surgery or Christian mechanics.” Jackson, who teaches at Marquette and at Northern Baptist Seminary, said, “There are evangelicals who practice good psychotherapy. If you want to call that Christian psychotherapy, fine.” He granted, however, that the Christian psychiatrist is unique in having the “healing person of Jesus Christ” in his work.
Busby contended that psychiatry differs from surgery or mechanics because it deals with evaluation of human behavior. “There is a Christian psychotherapy because a Christian psychiatrist’s goal is to make men whole. The crowning point is acceptance of Christ, although with some patients it may not be right for him to play this role.”
BARBARA H. KUEHN
