COCU Wings Away

Working papers for what could be the world’s biggest Protestant church floated to finality with surprisingly little trouble at this month’s Consultation on Church Union in Dallas.

Delegates from eight churches with 24 million members (see chart, next page) gave the “Outline Plan of Union” the less troublesome title “Principles of Church Union,” passed most of it as proposed, and amputated the controversial last two chapters on structure and the time table for the united church. These two “papers” will be distributed, then discussed further at next year’s meeting in Boston.

The consultation is on the wing. The open letter to churches, preamble, and chapters on faith, worship, sacraments, and ministry form a basis for design. The effort to unite the eight denominations is now somewhere in limbo between Stage 2, acceptance of the outline, and Stage 3, negotiation of a specific plan of union.

Three of the eight denominations have authority to proceed with negotiations: The United Presbyterian Church, the United Church of Christ, and the Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ). The commitment of each to joining the proposed church is clear.

At Dallas, the consultation “urgently invited” the other five denominations to get authority to enter into preparation of a union plan.

The Evangelical United Brethren and The Methodist Church will hold joint conferences in November, principally to decide on their own bilateral union, but COCU will be in the wind. The Brethren may vote authority, but their ultimate destiny probably will rest with the Methodists, who are not expected to act until the 1968 general conference.

Who’S Next?

Supporters of the Consultation on Church Union (story above) hope the surprise entry of the Southern Presbyterians may break a logjam. COCU’s new secretary, George G. Beazley, Jr. (Disciples of Christ), predicts that now that there is “a good chance of success,” other churches will join this year.

He didn’t name possibilities, but the COCU executive committee hopes for two more Negro denominations, the Christian Methodist Episcopal and African Methodist Episcopal Zion Churches, and reports that the Church of the Brethren “has the matter under advisement.”

COCU Executive Secretary George L. Hunt said other churches are welcome to join on the basis of agreements already reached, “but we are not going to go soliciting any more.”

The two major groupings outside the unity talks are 8.8 million Lutherans and 23.7 million Baptists. The American Baptist Convention’s General Council has voted to stay out, and President Robert G. Torbet expressed doubt in Dallas that this month’s national convention would reverse the decision. Torbet came the closest yet to personal endorsement of COCU.

The Dallas meeting drew COCU’s first formal Lutheran observers, from (in a surprise to most) the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Richard Jungkuntz, executive secretary of the denomination’s Commission on Theology and Church Relations, said, “I see no proximate possibility of our participating actively.”

Jungkuntz thinks COCU is “ambivalent” in stating that one church already exists and then identifying this concept with structural unity. He questioned the “premise that growing Christian unity is best achieved through structural union first, rather than after a consultation which works from a theological platform.” His approach to unity would start with pulpit exchange, intercommunion, and development of unified spirit. This prior unity, he said, might then give rise to’ structural unity “for more efficiency and effective missions.”

Episcopalians hold their triennial conference next year, and a COCU decision is likely. The other two denominations—African Methodist Episcopal and Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (Southern)—have just joined COCU and face a less leisurely consideration of strategy than the old-timers have had.

Consultation leaders are committed to two points of strategy: pressure on churches for an in-or-out decision on COCU as soon as possible, and organic union before details are worked out.

Methodist delegate Albert Outler of Perkins School of Theology said there are “carefully drafted ambiguities throughout” the Dallas “principles.” Many points will remain unclear as churches vote on irreversible commitment to union plans in the next few years. Some will await formulation of a constitution after churches vote to enter the united church.

Most controversies on belief and strategy were handled in closed-door meetings of chapter discussion groups, denominational delegations, and the executive committee. Corridor chatter indicated some gritty debates in those sessions, revolving in particular around Methodist intentions. Some COCU eager beavers questioned the commitment of Methodists. The Methodist delegation (changed completely since the 1964 meeting, when Methodists raised serious doubts about COCU) insisted it was not stalling but was concerned about getting the plan approved. The title switch from “outline plan” to “principles” reportedly was made to ease Methodist problems.

The hottest unanswered question at Dallas was how much power bishops will have. Free churches and even some Presbyterians swallowed hard when they agreed to have bishops in the united church. Now the Methodists, AMEs, and EUBs, who provide more than half COCU’s constituency, are pushing for their system, in which bishops appoint ministers.

On closing day, the bishop-appointment question sparked the only semblance of public discussion at Dallas. Methodist Bishop James K. Mathews of Boston, without consulting his colleagues, introduced an amendment to add “appointment of ministers to their tasks” to the bishop’s functions.

Mathews said he had “no particular content” in mind but wanted to make sure that the appointment system was still an open question, and that bishops would at least have some voice in appointment. But during debate, Mathews and two other bishops told how democratic and consultative their system was, and all about its practical advantages. This marked a “substantive debate,” which had been outlawed in advance by COCU steerers and could not be squeezed into the closing hours.

Mathews hit the heart of the matter when he said Methodists needed “something meaningful to take to the brethren back home. There are great constitutional hurdles to overcome if something like this is not in.” Some wondered quietly whether the folks back home had as much interest in episcopal power as bishops.

After a recess, the following compromise amendment was approved: bishops will provide, “together with other agencies and office-bearers of the church, for the education, ordination, and appointment to their tasks of ministers whom God calls.” It is still an open question who has the final say. Another controversy on the horizon is ordination of women.

There were few significant changes between the outline released a month before Dallas and the final versions approved for distribution. Reporters had noted a “halo” put around bishops, and it faded from view in the rewriting. A member of the drafting committee explained the halo had been put there “because we took most of their power away.”

Also gone is stress on the united church as a product of and for America. But stated or not, the national church concept is obvious. Roman Catholic historian George Tavard warned that “the concept of nation may be obsolete in forty years, even in politics. The reduction of [Christian] divisions is good, but new types of divisions may occur.”

In most cases, one ecumenical choice negates another. The united church raises some problems for already existing worldwide confessional bodies. For the Southern Presbyterians, the last-minute decision to join COCU (see previous issue, page 43) endangers the well-advanced plan for merger with the Reformed Church in America. After the Southern Presbyterians acted, RCA pulpit exchanges were hastily canceled, and the negotiating teams from the two churches moved their Atlanta meeting up a month, to mid-May.

The Southern Presbyterian group at Dallas was in some disarray, mainly because of the last-minute nature of its decision to join the consultation. Stated Clerk James Millard, Jr., said other commitments kept him from attending, and he withheld any comment on the COCU design.

Delegation Chairman William Ben-field, a Charleston, West Virginia, pastor, also was absent. A moderate who is sympathetic to COCU, Benfield said it would be “very difficult for us to take the next step within the next few years.” He also doubted whether the necessary three-fourths of the church’s presbyteries would approve the eventual merger.

The Episcopalians had once been considered to be as reluctant ecumenical dragons as the Methodists. There is potential discontent among Anglo-Catholics, but Episcopal leaders are generally favorable. Presiding Bishop John Hines, attending his first COCU meeting, said he hopes the outline “won’t be tampered with very much.” He called the Dallas meeting the “core,” warned of the danger of “degenerating into deliberation,” and predicted his church’s 1967 conference would approve negotiation.

He warned against “twiddling our thumbs for the next eighteen months” while denominations decide on the next step. Methodist delegates saw no obstacle to further work on unsettled areas like structure, even though final authorization is also pending in their case.

The COCU delegates now face a selling job (or “interpretation,” in COCU parlance). There is some residual opposition in each denomination and, more important, a vast amount of ignorance about what has been going on in the ecumenical stratosphere. Yet the slightly unrealistic ecumenical euphoria at Dallas had some empirical basis. A Gallup poll released on the eve of the meeting showed that only 45 per cent of the nation’s Protestants have heard of the COCU plan. But among this minority, 41 per cent favor the idea, while 36 per cent are opposed and 23 per cent are undecided. Gallup said “Catholics, Jews, and other non-Protestants apparently anticipate no challenge in such a merger, and among those who know of the plan, views are favorable by the ratio of 4 to 1.”

The Dallas meeting signaled the end of an era in leadership as well as the end of a phase. Eugene Carson Blake, who proposed the multi-church merger in a 1960 sermon and has been the most important COCU leader, takes over the World Council of Churches secretariat later this year. The COCU chairman for the past two years, slim, gentlemanly Episcopal Bishop Robert Gibson, Jr., of Richmond, handed the reins to a crew-cut United Church of Christ minister, David G. Colwell of Washington, D. C. Mathews will be vice chairman.

‘Politeness’ From Psychiatry

There is “careful interdisciplinary politeness” between psychiatry and religion but hardly any real dialogue, said psychiatrist Elihu S. Howland on the opening day of the meeting of the Academy of Religion and Mental Health. There is a determination to believe the relationship is better, but it isn’t, said Howland, a pastoral consultant to First Presbyterian Church, Evanston, Illinois.

After attending many such interdisciplinary meetings, Howland concludes they travel a familiar, one-way street, with psychiatrist leading clergyman. Dialogue cannot come, he said, until the psychiatrist “sees the necessity of a reorientation for himself, and becomes aware of a spiritual dimension which, until now, he has not realized was any of his business.”

But the Rev. George C. Anderson, honorary president of the academy, put some blame on churchmen during the organization’s seventh annual meeting in Chicago last month. He called a recent gathering of sixty-five leading psychiatrists and theologians sponsored in Geneva by the World Council of Churches “a major landmark.” But many of the theologians there, he said, had a “narrow, provincial attitude.… Many of them are trying to incorporate all psychiatric and psychological insights into a narrow Christian framework.”

Dr. Charles Stinnette, joint professor of theology and psychiatry at the University of Chicago, challenged the pragmatic use of religion as an adjunct to psychotherapy. He insisted that the pastoral function is to help persons find meaning whether they live or die, rather than to become healers.

Despite these critical notes, the prevailing tone was amicable. The heavy majority of clergymen were obviously reluctant to offer overt criticisms of psychiatry in discussion periods.

Britain’S New-Style ‘Sunday’

Bikini-clad girls on the cover, a papal blessing, and a circulation goal of half a million—these are features of the new British ecumenical magazine Sunday, which had its first issue this month. With an Anglican chief editor, flanked by Roman Catholic and Methodist associates, it tilts at “the Sabbath of prohibition,” advocating a policy of live-and-let-live; deprecates the “false image” of Britain as “a land of empty churches and pagan people” (some bewildering statistics are pressed into service here); and sees itself as marking “a further step towards greater understanding and unity between the Churches.”

Evident throughout the forty-eight pages is a desperate desire to exorcise the Ghost of Sunday Past. People come-of-age have a right to spend the day “according to their conscience and inclination,” argues Lord Willis. There is a piece on Roman Catholic Patrick McGoohan, star of the TV thriller Secret Agent, usually seen in Britain early Sunday evening (although it appears the day before in America). Five whole pages are devoted to an article on Pope Paul VI, except for one corner announcing a profile of Billy Graham for next month.

The articles are well presented and illustrated, and no one will complain of a surfeit of religion. Apart from a short word on the Lord’s Prayer by a Baptist minister, there is little theology apparent. In “Question Time,” however, Richard Tatlock tries to reconcile eternal damnation and God’s love, by beginning; “If I were to tell you that a girl had ‘melted into tears’ you wouldn’t for one minute suppose that she had suddenly turned into three or four buckets of salty water. And it’s essential to use the same kind of commonsense when you read and interpret the Bible.” Commented an evangelical minister on Sunday: “This will rock neither the ecumenical ship nor hell’s foundations.”

J. D. DOUGLAS

One optimist on interdisciplinary cooperation was keynoter Earl Dahl-strom, professor of pastoral care at North Park Seminary. He spoke of the dangers of materialism, professionalism, and cynicism, and warned pastors against practicing pastoral care as a means of satisfying their own unrecognized needs.

The psychiatry chief at Harvard University’s Health Service, Graham Blaine, condemned parents who fail to provide guidelines and limits. “We are becoming afraid of our children,” he concluded. “We are fooled by their verbal statements and fail to pick up the opposite message in their non-verbal cues.” He also deplored the new morality and situational ethics popularized by some bishops and other clergymen, declaring that young people need a firm voice of authority defining right and wrong.

ORVILLE S. WALTERS

Forecast For Guyana

On May 26 the Crown Colony of British Guiana on the northeast coast of South America becomes the sovereign nation of Guyana. It will probably be the last new nation in the Western hemisphere. In recent years, British Guiana, despite a population of little more than half a million, has made news around the world because of strong Communist elements that sometimes have held the reins of government. While Guyana enters independence with a government friendly toward the free world, there is considerable doubt about the new nation’s future.

Guyana is of special interest to Christians because it is perhaps the most thoroughly “churched” of the developing new nations. Mainline denominations and many independent groups from the United States, England, and Canada have been working in British Guiana for many years. There are strong national churches. The capital city, Georgetown, is a city of churches, and every small town has at least one Protestant church. A national hero, Martyr Smith, came from the London Missionary Society. Smith died in prison in 1823 while under sentence of death for inciting the slaves to revolt. (In truth Smith’s crime was teaching the slaves to read the Bible. A slave who could read the New Testament for himself was not likely to remain content with his lot in life.)

British Guiana’s last prime minister and Guyana’s first prime minister is Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham, a big, handsome, Negro lawyer who was a Methodist lay preacher before his law school days. Though friendly toward the West, Burnham is an avowed socialist. He frequently refers to the Scriptures in his speeches. Asked if he was a Christian, he replied that he is well aware that bishops of the Church of England owned some of his ancestors, but that people need an ethic to live by, and the Christian religion offers the best ethic.

Burnham’s political enemy is Dr. Cheddi Jagan, an American-educated dentist who is married to an American, the former Janet Rosenberg. Both Jagans are openly Marxist. Jagan’s People’s Progressive Party is the largest party in Guyana and has controlled the government three times. The first two times the Crown became so alarmed over the actions of the Jaganites that it suspended the constitution. The third time, Jagan was removed from office by a constitutional change that prevents total rule by a simple plurality. Jagan, who is of East Indian extraction and a nominal Hindu, is suspicious of and hostile toward the Christian churches, partly because of their opposition.

Informed observers tend to be pessimistic about the future of Guyana. Most of Jagan’s followers are descendants of laborers imported from India in the nineteenth century. Curiously, few of the East Indians are Communists. They just vote for their race. The East Indian segment of the population is increasing at a much faster rate than Guyana’s other ethnic groups. The pessimists say it is just a matter of time until Jagan’s party gains permanent control.

Burnham’s problems are gigantic. He must maintain a coalition with the United Force, a small party committed to free enterprise. He must break down the racial loyalties of the Guyanese, particularly the East Indians. He must attract badly needed foreign capital to a shaky young country. And he must guard against a Communist-inspired revolution. If Burnham’s coalition government can be maintained, the future for Guyana is bright. If Jagan’s party regains control, Cuba might have an ideological ally in the New World.

ALAN MARK FLETCHER

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