Time was when general assemblies of the Presbyterian Church were addressed solely by august elders who had earned their right to be heard. No longer. At last month’s 182nd General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in Chicago, everyone seemed to be speaking, and the traditional form of address to delegates (“fathers and brethren”) was dropped as being singularly absurd.
The new openness allowed for a wide diversity of speakers. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development George Romney defended government policies on Southeast Asia. Presbyterian elder and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird spoke at an early-morning breakfast sponsored by the conservative Presbyterians United for Biblical Concerns.
These were highlights. But a full assessment would also include numerous youth advisory delegates (granted power to speak but not vote), the girl who did a two-step on the way to the podium to speak for women’s rights, and the spokesmen for the hippie-type Submarine Church of the West who addressed the assembly in language so vile that it made dozens of commissioners furious and caused some to weep.
Measured by the vehemence of the debate, the most controversial business of the assembly was the report on “Sexuality and the Human. Community,” prepared by a subcommittee of the Council on Church and Society. The report, accepted for study and “appropriate action” by congregations, was already a storm center before the Chicago meeting. It denies that the Bible can provide “systematic ethical guidelines for our time” and substitutes for it the approaches of situation ethics and psychology as the means for dealing with most sexual practices and norms.
The document, among other things, calls laws making homosexual acts a felony “morally unsupportable,” favors making contraceptive devices generally available, and urges that all laws against abortion be immediately dropped. The report also seems to open the door to intercourse by some couples before marriage. Although it denies giving “either tacit or explicit approval to premarital sexual intercourse,” it nevertheless says that if such couples have “taken a responsible decision to engage in premarital intercourse, the church should not convey to them the impression that their decision is in conflict with their status as members of the body of Christ.”
Defenders of the report lauded it as “a milestone in church-centered research into the subject of human sexuality.” Critics said it was in obvious opposition to clear biblical principles, “the way of hell rather than the way of heaven,” and divisive. Final vote on the document, implying a desire to study its findings but not necessarily approval of them, was 485 for and 259 against.1Some commissioners regarded as ironic the added request that the Department of Church and Society “provide further biblical rationale” for the report when it is distributed to the churches.
The significance of the vote was seen most clearly in preceding action that by a similiar majority rejected minority reports reaffirming the covenantal relationship of marriage, approving sexual union only within the bounds of marriage, and acknowledging the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality, fornication, and sexual perversions.
After the report had been received, an attachment expressing conservative views was also passed by the smallest vote margin in the week-long assembly. By only nine votes (356–347) the assembly reaffirmed its “adherence to the moral law of God as revealed in the Old and New Testaments” and acknowledged that lust, adultery, prostitution, fornication, and the practice of homosexuality are sin.
In additional action based on the study document but implying full endorsement of the assembly, the commissioners declared that artificial or induced termination of pregnancy is “a personal matter between the patient and her physician,” urged establishment of “medically sound, easily available, and low cost abortion services,” and called for elimination of laws governing the private sexual behavior of consenting adults.
In contrast to the paper on sexuality, a carefully written biblical study preceded the conclusions of the widely praised report “Work of the Holy Spirit.” The document, which deals with charismatic gifts such as tongues, healings, and exorcisms, argues that “the practice of glossolalia should be neither despised nor forbidden” but on the other hand “should not be emphasized nor made normative for the Christian experience.” The report, two years in the making, appeared to be received without dissent.
The report also reminded the ecumenical church that the new Pentecostalism may have a valid contribution to make. It told those who have had Pentecostal experiences: “Keep your neo-Pentecostal experiences in perspective. No doubt it has caused you to feel that you are a better Christian. Remember that this does not mean that you are better than other Christians, but that you are, perhaps, a better Christian than you were before.”
The assembly also responded favorably to three reports that will substantially affect the church in years to come. By adopting recommendations of the two-year-old special Committee on the Laity, commissioners endorsed in principle the equal representation of women and under-thirty adults on all church boards and sessions, and the election of elders based “on their ministry to the world, rather than solely on the basis of their service to the institutional church.”
A related report rejected the idea of a special call to a separate clerical ministry in favor of “one call of God to all the people of the earth.” Chief feature of this report: provision for the participation of laymen in the celebration of the sacraments, possible ordination of ministers in secular occupations, and an easing of the ways men may leave the ministry.
The third report, on the plan of union drafted by the Consultation on Church Union (COCU), called for its reception and transmission to the churches for study. The report was approved by voice vote, despite the most significant dissent to date by any participating COCU body.
The Reverend Leon F. Wardell from the Presbytery of Donegal, Pennsylvania, objected, saying the plan reduces lay participation in the church in clear opposition to other action by the General Assembly. According to Wardell, this can be seen in the introduction of the office of bishops coupled with the elimination of the office of elder.
Earlier in the gathering, delegates approved a report calling for a “non-punitive” approach to the use of drugs. In its original form, the paper called for a moratorium on all criminal penalties for marijuana-users until the effects of continued usage have been clearly established as dangerous. But objections by several lawyers—supported by youth delegates—led to amendments advocating that offenses be considered misdemeanors instead.
The 182nd General Assembly also:
• Approved a plan admitting baptized children to the Lord’s Supper, now to be approved by presbyteries.
• Concurred with several presbyteries in a desire to form a churchwide plan of evangelism to stem shrinking rolls (see story following).
• Urged formation of “violence review boards” in cities, but not exclusively “police community review boards” as originally requested.
• Concurred in the requested rewording of the fourth objective of the Presbyterian Lay Committee to read: “… to encourage official church bodies to seek and express the mind of God as revealed in Scripture on individual and corporate moral and spiritual matters. We therefore urge that official church bodies refrain from issuing pronouncements or taking action unless the authority to speak and act is clearly biblical, the competence of the church body has been established, and all viewpoints thoroughly considered.”
• Declared its “opposition to the continuation of military combat of the armed forces of the United States of America in southeast Asia” and called for “termination” of the war in light of the lack of declaration of war by Congress. The action came at the end of the assembly after commissioners had heard Eugene Carson Blake denounce the Indochina conflict as “morally wrong” and had heard George Romney defend it. Romney had flown to Chicago as President Nixon’s representative after commissioners had requested that the President appear personally to defend his policy. Nixon appeared instead that week at the Billy Graham crusade in Knoxville, Tennessee.
JAMES M. BOICE
Pastor Laws Heads Upusa
The old adage “a successful pastor makes the best moderator” seemed to guide again last month as commissioners to the 182nd General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church elected the Reverend William R. Laws, Jr., to head the 3.2 million-member denomination. Laws, 53, succeeds Dr. George E. Sweazey, pastor of the Webster Groves Presbyterian Church in St. Louis.
North Carolina-born pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Columbus, Indiana, Laws holds degrees from Davidson College and Louisville Presbyterian Seminary. He has been serving on the General Assembly General Council, including chairmanship of the council’s Committee on Long Range Planning, and has been moderator of both the Presbytery of Indianapolis and the Synod of Indiana.
At a press conference, Laws said he hopes COCU, the plan to unite nine Protestant denominations including the United Presbyterians, will succeed.
The new moderator also spoke on the accelerating annual drop in church membership (for the third straight year), attributing it to increasing population mobility, a “disengagement” of members because of changing worship forms, and some dissatisfaction with the activities of pastors—particularly in the social-action arena.
His remarks on membership were based on recent denominational statistics showing a drop of nearly 57,000 members in one year. Church-school enrollment declined by more than 102,000. On the positive side, overall giving to the church rose by about $3.3 million, while pledges to the denomination’s highly successful $50 Million Fund now total nearly $72 million.
Southern Baptist Recall: Broadman Too Broad
Messengers to the 125th anniversary sessions of the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Denver, Colorado, this month called on their Sunday School Board to recall volume one (Genesis and Exodus) of the “Broad-man Bible Commentary” because it “is out of harmony with the beliefs of the vast majority of Southern Baptist pastors and people.”
In the unprecedented action the messengers made it clear they were in no mood to tolerate any deviation from the traditional Southern Baptist affirmation of the infallibility and authority of Scripture. The same motion requested that the volume be rewritten “with due consideration of the conservative viewpoint.” One messenger seemed to capture the feeling of the convention when he said that making room for liberals and conservatives within the denomination was just “too much room.”
Until the vote on the Broadman Commentary, which came midway through the convention, the sessions had been characterized by restraint and moderation. In the opening session, W. A. Criswell, completing his second and last term as president of the 11.5 million-member denomination, called on fellow messengers to hold fast to the common bonds of mission commitment, doctrinal conviction, and cooperative effort.
The new SBC president is Carl E. Bates, 56, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Charlotte, North Carolina. He set a moderate tone in his first press conference as president. Carefully avoiding any statement that would fan the fires of disharmony, he voiced his personal hope for the coming year that Southern Baptists would tone down attention to extreme positions within the denomination.
In the annual convention sermon, Grady C. Cothen, president of Oklahoma Baptist University, pled with Southern Baptists to tone down criticism of one another and to practice more restraint and Christian love.
Prior to the consideration of the Broadman Commentary issue, critics of the Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission failed to eliminate or withhold budgeted funds from the denomination’s social-action agency. Action against the commission grew out of the seminar on morality it sponsored recently in Atlanta, Georgia. Speakers at the seminar included Anson Mount of Playboy magazine and Joseph Fletcher (see April 10 issue, page 45). Messengers approved a record budget for 1971 of $29,146,883, including the $200,000 allocated for the Christian Life Commission.
One of the afternoon sessions was interrupted by a visit from fifteen black youths, representing the Afro-American Student Union, who challenged white Southern Baptists to “live up to the precepts of Jesus Christ” in their attitudes toward blacks. Granted permission to address the convention, the spokesman for the group, made up of students from Metropolitan State College in Denver, led in a prayer for “bigoted Southern Baptists.” He emphasized that the union didn’t want money. One student told a reporter the group had come in love and peace as Christians.
RICHARD L. LOVE
