Ecclesiastical Affairs: COCU to Outline Six-Way Merger

The symbolic focus of the fourth annual meeting of the Consultation on Church Union (Blake merger proposal) shone upon an eighteenth-century log church building where Barton W. Stone in 1804 launched one wing of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) unity movement. Three years before, one of America’s greatest revivals had taken place in the area surrounding this Cane Ridge Meeting House in the rolling country near Paris, Kentucky.

This month, most of the fifty-four representatives of the six church bodies engaged in merger talks (besides the Disciples, these are the Episcopal Church, Methodist, Church, Evangelical United Brethren Church, United Church of Christ, and United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.) journeyed from Lexington for a singular meeting that saw Episcopal bishops take communion at a service presided over by Disciple lay elders.

Though Stone’s call to unity was in part a reaction against many of the ecclesiastical features proposed thus far by COCU, the point of historical continuity of ecumenical concern was made on the same day on which the consultation, now back in Lexington, got down to concrete action. Without discussion or dissent, it established a special commission to draw up “the outline of a possible plan of union” before next year’s meeting. In related action, COCU said that this is “a critical time” for those churches that have been sending observer-consultants to the meetings to become participants. Word would be welcome from any such church “that it desires an invitation to appoint a member” to the plan-of-union commission, provided that the church “expresses at the same time its desire to become a participant.”

The six communions quickly named their commission members: Disciples—Dr. George G. Beazley of Indianapolis, president of the Disciples’ Council on Christian Unity; EUB—Dr. Paul Washburn of Dayton, Ohio, executive director of his denomination’s Commission on Church Union; Methodist—Bishop F. Gerald Ensley of Columbus, Ohio, pro tem appointee until the Methodists’ Commission on Ecumenical Affairs meets to make an official appointment; Episcopal—the Rt. Rev. Stephen F. Bayne, Jr., director of the Overseas Department and first vice-president of his church; UCC—Dr. Paul S. Minear, professor of New Testament at Yale Divinity School; UPUSA—Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, stated clerk of his denomination and originator of COCU.

It was generally agreed that all of this constituted a signal recovery from the acknowledged setback at last year’s Princeton meeting, where Methodist and Episcopal representatives were restive under the pace of the merger proposal. At that time, Methodists listed a series of stumbling blocks. But this year both Methodist and Episcopal ecumenical commissions had been changed, and the outlook of each delegation was more positive toward COCU, though the Methodists spoke with two voices. Their delegation chairman, Bishop James K. Mathews of Boston, was agreeable to the point of “lively expectation” to the procedure toward a plan of union. But Ensley, chairman of the Methodist Commission on Ecumenical Affairs, spoke forbiddingly of any quick merger developments concerning Methodists apart from their proposed union with the EUB Church, which appears near confirmation. He indicated that if this union succeeded, it would be hard to get Methodists excited enough to vote on another one for a number of years. This sort of opinion is of great concern to COCU leaders, for Methodists constitute nearly half of the almost 22 million church members involved in the consultation.

The thorniest problem for the consultation was what to do with the historic episcopate. In seeking a passage between Scylla and Charybdis, the consultation approved a report which said: “We have reached the point where we are willing to explore the outlines of a united church which accepts the historic episcopate as symbol and agent of the continuity of the Church and its ministry with the witnesses of our Lord’s resurrection.”

But the commission report, denying an exclusiveness to the historic episcopate, refers to a broader “continuity” that would encompass the traditions of all the participating churches. While some churches consider the historic episcopate the essential guardian of the Christian tradition, the document points out, others depend on “a continuity in apostolic teaching, guarded by a presbyterial succession,” or a continuity maintained “through the apostolic faith, worship and witness of congregations and associations.… We are convinced that these positions are not incompatible.”

A rite would be developed to “symbolize and effect the uniting of the various ministerial traditions.”

Before conclusion of the four-day meeting, three Negro churches—the African Methodist Episcopal, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion, and the Christian Methodist Episcopal—indicated their intention to become full participants in COCU. The three, which have a combined membership of 2.5 million, have been engaged in unity talks among themselves for over two years.

Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox observers noted their doctrinal differences with COCU, the former indicating that the Church of Rome takes doctrine rather more seriously than the consultation does.

Dr. Horace L. Villee of Columbus, Mississippi, of the Presbyterian Church U. S. (Southern), said: “We have always had one holy, catholic Church which includes all true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. I question the necessity of organized unity because faith binds us together.”

Dr. Blake said that agreement to draw up a plan of union does not even mean participants favor a united church, but that something more concrete is now needed to find where consultation members actually do stand in this regard.

Predictions on this seemed not as freely forthcoming as formerly. The meeting had taken place in the Crystal Ballroom of Lexington’s Phoenix Hotel. There was no evident reason for changing the name to the Crystal Ball Room.

Mountaintop Merger

In a converted resort hotel now occupied by Covenant College at Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, the General Synods of the Evangelical Presbyterian and Reformed Presbyterian Churches consummated a merger this month. The new denomination, to be known as the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod, embraces some 100 congregations. Dr. Marion D. Barnes was chosen president of the college.

Statues Vs. Fire Extinguishers

A fog of dissension seemed to be settling over Roman Catholicism this month. Non-Catholics saw the big issue as birth control (see page 45), but many Catholics were becoming increasing vocal about such things as liturgy reform, and some regarded the transition as tantamount to “Protestantizing” the church.

The infighting continued to build up despite the rebuke given by Pope Paul VI on March 31 to elements in Roman Catholicism that “seem to have nothing else to give Catholic life than bitter, destructive and systematic criticism.” He appealed for unity.

The liturgy reform is particularly repugnant to Roman Catholic traditionalists. Niches in sanctuary walls are beginning to house more fire extinguishers than statues, priests face the people, the congregation stands more frequently than it kneels, and hymns composed by Protestants are frequently heard.

Father Gommar Albert DePauw, Belgian-born professor of moral theology at St. Mary’s Seminary, Emmitsburg, Maryland, conducted a short-lived campaign in behalf of a so-called Catholic Traditionalist Movement, charging that Roman Catholic churchgoers are being “brainwashed” into acceptance of reforms they do not want.

After a flurry of publicity, DePauw announced he had “disassociated” himself from the movement on orders from his superior, Lawrence Cardinal Shehan, Archbishop of Baltimore.

Earlier, DePauw had said that a “high-ranking Vatican official” had sent him his “blessings.”

He also had claimed the support of thirty bishops. But he never did identify a prelate backer.

Liturgical reform was permissive, said DePauw, not mandatory. He urged a national referendum among Roman Catholics to determine their “exact sentiments” on liturgical reform.

DePauw had a variety of comments during a news conference in New York. He said extremists are trying to curtail devotion to the Virgin Mary and to downgrade the supremacy of the pope.

On Mass changes: “No longer the sacrament of Calvary but a songfest with the overtones of a hootenanny.”

Art, Missions, And Finances

A Lutheran clergyman in Germany proposes that churches sell their art treasures to finance mission work in developing countries.

Pastor Erwin Haberer of Nuremberg, in an article in the Gazette of the Lutheran Church of Bavaria, called it “grotesque” that some Protestant churches possess valuable art treasures while other churches are hardly able to finance vital needs.

He asked whether a medieval wood-carved madonna valued at $25, 000 must remain in the possession of and be displayed in a church. Sale of such works would make it possible to keep the churches, he said, instead of turning them into “museums with grilled windows and alarm systems.” He referred to security measures to curb the growing number of thefts of art objects.

The ‘Wretched’ Evangelicals

The Archbishop of Canterbury unleashed an attack on evangelicals during his Australian tour last month. Referring to the Sydney diocese, Dr. Michael Ramsey said, “It needs something done about its partisanship immediately.”

According to a widely publicized press interview, the archbishop described as “very unhealthy” the overwhelmingly evangelical character of the diocese. “Now that I’ve seen it for myself,” he said, “I think something must be done as soon as possible. There can be no room within our church for wretched, narrow-minded, out-of-date partisanship.”

The prospect of action by the English primate against Anglican evangelicals in Sydney raised the eyebrows of many an observer. They contend that he has no jurisdiction to take any action. The primate of the Anglican church in Australia is Dr. Hugh Gough, Archbishop of Sydney.

Comments an editorial in the Anglican, an Australian independent weekly that has criticized Dr. Gough on occasion, “Dr. Ramsey only said openly … what almost every other distinguished overseas visitor to Sydney has said privately for at least fifteen years past.” At the same time, it continues, Sydney holds no monopoly of partisanship and has a splendid record in mission work; “these are the things, not churchmanship, which truly matter.”

There are dioceses in Australia as pronouncedly high church as Sydney is evangelical, said a prominent English evangelical, the Rev. John R. Sertin, secretary of Church Society; the fact that the archbishop in visiting them sounded no corresponding warning indicated that Dr. Ramsey himself is not free of the partisanship which he professes to dislike so much, and of which English evangelicals could speak so feelingly.

Paying tribute to Dr. Ramsey’s biblical and pastoral messages to church people in the diocese of Sydney, Moore Theological College’s vice-principal, the Rev. Donald Robinson, added, “It seems a pity he left us with these one-sided words of criticism.”

J. D. DOUGLAS

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