Showdown Coming on Church Divisions?

Top church leaders showed surprising new interest last month in coming to grips with the big theological cleavage in American Protestantism. In St. Louis, President Oliver Harms of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and four Synod vice-presidents conferred with officials of the State of the Church, a conservative group. In Atlanta, more than forty Southern Presbyterians assembled in a liberal-conservative confrontation arranged by Moderator Marshall C. Dendy.

At yet another meeting, an Episcopal group promoted diversion of local-church revenues—a sign of increasing lay efforts for a greater voice in how denominational funds are used.

A blanket of secrecy covered the St. Louis talks. Christian News,This journal also reported that the State of the Church executive board approved plans for a “Twentieth Century Formula of Concord” that will clearly seperate those who accept historic Christianity from those embracing today’s liberalism. A “prominent orthodox theologian” will be asked to draft the document. a conservative weekly, said the press was barred from the meetings and added that Missouri Synod officials asked State of the Church leaders “not to publicize any statement made by officials during the all-day session.”

The two-day Atlanta meeting reflected growing concern of many laymen and rising tension in the major denominations. Conservatives at the Hilton Inn sessions were represented by Concerned Presbyterians, who are eager to maintain the primary spiritual mission of the Church. Also on hand were members of the Fellowship of Concern, who like to call themselves the “progressive” element in the church and who stress social action as necessary for the Church to be relevant today.

The meeting was characterized by a Christian spirit, though neither side was willing to make any notable concessions. The background of both organizations was outlined, along with their present programs. Concerned Presbyterians is composed entirely of laymen, a fact deplored by many ministers attending the Atlanta meeting, but CP President Kenneth S. Keyes said this policy was adopted to protect ministers from “ecclesiastical reprisals.” The organization does get considerable advice and support from ministers who share the concern of the laymen. The Fellowship of Concern, originally founded to help ministers suffering pressures because of their stand against racism, has, with the lessening of that problem, shifted its emphasis to the question of church union, with United Presbyterians and also with the Consultation on Church Union, and to an activist approach to social problems.

The churchmen left Atlanta with a clearer understanding of conflicting viewpoints but showed no evidence of lessening their own emphasis within the denomination.

Dendy had called the meeting as a “consultation on reconciliation.” Personal reconciliation seemed not to be lacking, as participants recognized each other’s sincerity. But there was no reconciliation of viewpoints. One called for a return to forceful preaching of the Gospel of personal redemption, to be reflected in evangelism and missions, the other for involvement of the Church in secular issues.

Conservatives insisted that Christians, as individuals, could validate their faith only by showing love and compassion to the unfortunate, while liberals claimed they had not voided their ordination vows in favor of another gospel.

If any man in American Christendom feels the tensions that beset the major denominations, it is the 65-year-old Dendy. When he was elected moderator of the last General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. by a margin of just one vote, it was merely another demonstration of how divided the churches are.

As executive secretary of the denomination’s Board of Christian Education for fifteen years, Dendy already knew of the deep cleavage. His agency’s products, including the “Covenant Life Curriculum” and the “Layman’s Bible Commentary,” had sparked many a debate in the church courts. He also has been on the firing line as a member of the General Board of the National Council of Churches and a leader of its Division of Christian Education; in both these contexts he has often taken relatively conservative positions.

Dendy’s move to bring the conservative-liberal dispute into the open was believed to be a first. Not in recent memory, at least, has a major denominational official called such a meeting—simply to discuss differences within the church.

“There is a great deal of unhealthy unrest in the church,” Dendy said in his opening address. “This unrest grows in part out of the inevitable fact that there are individuals and groups in the denomination who hold to vastly different theological positions. We do not have the unanimous agreement as to what we mean by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the nature of evangelism, the nature of the Church, of the demands the Gospel makes upon believers, and how the Church can bear her witness corporately as well as individually to a world that is lost in sin.”

Still another sign of denominational unrest last month was a three-day meeting of Episcopalians in Phoenix, Arizona. Episcopalian Barry Goldwater was the featured speaker. Addresses were also given by Dr. Carroll E. Simcox, editor of the Living Church, and Episcopal Bishop William R. Moody of Lexington, Kentucky.

The occasion was the second annual convention of the Foundation of Christian Theology, formed in 1966 to counteract trends in the church and in the National Council of Churches toward involvement and financial commitments in socio-political activity. Foundation president Paul H. Kratzig calls for “intensified stewardship—not for social engineering cloaked in the guise of activist Christianity.”

Some 150 persons from twenty-six states attended the Phoenix meeting, including twenty-five clergymen. A main activity of the foundation is now the setting up of alternative forms of giving. A number of reports now circulating say some church agencies are being deprived of funds because of the social-activist drain.

The big question facing conservatives troubled by church trends is whether to do battle within or to withdraw. Those who withdraw have traditionally had to yield their investments in property, but a Georgia case is causing some concern among top churchmen. The Georgia Supreme Court ruled unanimously last month that two congregations that withdrew from the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. are entitled to keep their property. The attorney for the denomination has indicated that the ruling will be appealed.

SKEPTICS IN CONCERT?

An “exploration team” from three top denominations hopes soon to begin work on a joint Christian-education curriculum. A tipoff on the content of the material came last month from Dr. Gerald H. Slusser, professor of theology and education at Eden Theological Seminary. Slusser, a United Presbyterian, was quoted as saying that the vast majority of church members in America today reject the Trinity as unimportant, the divinity of Christ as irrelevant, and the Virgin Birth as unbelievable. Religious News Service said Slusser is helping to devise new resource materials for the lay-education division of the United Presbyterian Church.

Church members must recognize, Slusser said, “that biblical materials are extensively mythological.” He also asserted that post-modern man rejects “other-worldliness, and mysterious, mystical, or contradictory theological statements,” as well as “intercessory prayer, intervening providence, and imperious predestination, as inadequate, or at least inaccurate, ideas.”

United Presbyterians and Episcopalians met with representatives of the United Church of Christ in January to plan for common Christian-education programs that could go into effect in the mid-1970s. The idea was unveiled after a week-long meeting in Cleveland of 242 denominational staff members.

LUTHERAN EYES ON C.O.C.U.

The Lutheran Council in the U.S.A., formed a year ago as a cooperative vehicle by the three major Lutheran denominations, voted January 30 to send observer-consultants to the Consultation on Church Union.

The recommendation was made by council executives after the issue was raised by the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, which in 1965 became the first Lutheran body to send observers to COCU. There was little discussion among the forty-three delegates at the council’s meeting in New York City, and informational aspects of the link with COCU were stressed.

General Secretary C. Thomas Spitz said he would have to contact COCU to see whether a Lutheran team could attend the March meeting in Dayton. One issue is that the council is an agency rather than a church as such. However, COCU welcomes observers, and last year the conference of Eastern Orthodox groups sent one.

TOWARD ONE CHURCH?

Methodist missions leaders say they will no longer honor traditional agreements among denominations that divide up the world for separate efforts. The new policy of the World Division of Methodism’s Board of Missions is that of “ecumenical mission.”

At a meeting in Denver last month, the World Division put its policy into effect by approving $100,000 for each of two mission projects in the Middle East. Methodists have not had mission work in these areas before.

The step was said to have been taken on the basis that The Methodist Church “has no intention of starting new overseas mission projects on a strictly denominational basis, and would therefore do its future planning on an ecumenical basis … with other denominations.”

The announcement of the action gave no further significant details, but evangelical observers sense that it falls in line with the ecumenical movement’s “Joint Action for Mission” concept, hopefully described in the International Review of Missions as a stimulus for one great church.

UNITY WEAK

The annual Christian unity week brought pulpit exchanges to uncounted U. S. congregations. In New York, Episcopal Bishop J. Stuart Wetmore became the first non-Catholic to speak in St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

In Britain, Archbishop of Canterbury A. Michael Ramsey passed an ecumenical milestone by giving the first address by an Anglican in the Roman Catholic cathedral at Westminster. His meeting with Cardinal Heenan brought a spontaneous burst of applause from the congregation of about 5,000.

When the archbishop arrived for the service, however, the reception was mixed. Across the narrow street from the entrance a group of diehard Protestants staged a protest, despite the cold weather. Some thirty banners were seen, with such slogans as “Jesus Saves, Rome Enslaves” and “Through Christ to Glory, Through Rome to Purgatory.” Their numbers had been reinforced earlier by the dramatic arrival of a vehicle clearly marked “Ambulance” from which emerged more protesters.

Cardinal Heenan said that when he was enthroned in 1963 he had spoken of a bishop as a bridge-builder—“and one of these bridges will span the River Thames to Lambeth where a dear friend resides.”

The friend from Lambeth exclaimed, “What a time to be alive in!” While acknowledging that “a long ecumenical journey lies ahead,” he saw a new era, especially in the “great emphasis” of Vatican II on baptism, through which “we share already in a brotherhood in Christ.” Ramsey also made references to “the blessed Sacrament” and “fellowship with Blessed Mary.”

The previous Sunday Ramsey had preached in Hinde Street Methodist Church and thanked God for John Wesley in the sermon. He said, “The Christians in England are meant to be one Church, the ecclesia of God in England in communion with the ecclesia of God in Uganda or Ceylon or New Zealand or where you will.” Some found it significant that he did not include South India, with which ecclesia no Anglicans are yet in communion.

The official press release said Ramsey then said the new united church “will be the Church of England in continuity with the Church of St. Augustine of Canterbury; it will be the Church into which John Wesley was born.” The words, staggering in their implication, were not uttered in the actual sermon. The church publicists offered what amounts to an admission that the archbishop had thought better of his original words and that a correction had been sent out.

Even more bedlam accompanied the appearance of Roman Catholic Archbishop James Scanlan at the Church of Scotland cathedral in Glasgow. As soon as he approached the lectern for a Scripture reading, demonstrators rose and started to shout things like, “You will go to Hell with the Pope.” Scuffles broke out between protesters and members of the congregation, the Scotsman reported, and the service was delayed for twenty minutes. There was even shouting during a prayer after the Scripture reading.

Afterwards, a minister from the Sovereign Grace Baptist Church in Glasgow identified himself as the protest leader and said: “I feel it was tremendously successful. We will keep up this sort of thing until the whole ecumenical movement is abandoned.”

RETREAT EAST OF SUEZ

The British government’s decision last month to withdraw all troops stationed east of Suez by 1971 is causing a revolution for Christian work among servicemen overseas. Societies are rethinking strategy, some are closing down foreign work completely, and some face considerable financial loss.

Besides this, it has never been so hard to find Christians willing to work overseas with servicemen, since the job would last only four years.

The head of the Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Scripture Readers Association, Lieutenant Colonel G. G. S. Clarke, said the work in Singapore will be closed, but he thinks there should be greater opportunity to reach the increasing number of servicemen in Britain.

He said the government move is a “great loss,” however, because “the soldier overseas is much easier to reach with the Gospel than the one at a home base. In Britain he is a soldier only from 8:30 A.M. to 5:30 P.M., and then he goes into town for the evening. But overseas you will always find men hanging around the barracks. We also find that a man is more ready to consider the facts of life when he is away from home.”

Clarke also noted the loss of mission opportunities among native peoples where troops are stationed. In Aden, for instance, an Arab employed to work in an Army canteen was converted to Christ and is now training in Lebanon, planning to return as a missionary to his people. Clarke’s mission has had to scrap plans for a new work in the Persian Gulf area.

Lieutenant Commander F. M. Savage of the Royal Sailors Rest said his group’s seventy-two-room hotel at the Singapore navy base will close. It was the agency’s first overseas effort when it was opened four and one-half years ago. The hotel is on land leased from the British Admirality and cannot be sold, so financial loss is expected. A previous government decision to close the Royal Air Force station in Ballykelly, Northern Ireland, will close the mission’s fifty-room hotel nearby.

James Campbell, veteran secretary of the Mission to Mediterranean Garrisons, said a new operation opened in Iran just a few weeks ago must now be closed by 1971. But he added philosophically, “Four years’ work is all that any missionary can be sure of in any area these days.” His agency has had to close twenty-eight centers for political reasons since World War II.

J. ERIC MAYER

A CLERGYMAN VINDICATED

In the tatty, faded, and ill-lit courtroom in Chatham, Ontario (population 30,000), the atmosphere was bleak, but for 50-year-old Russell D. Horsburgh it was the stage for a personal triumph on January 18.

He was cleared of criminal charges that he encouraged sexual acts among teen-agers at the city’s largest church, Park Street United. He had been charged and convicted in 1964. The clergyman served about one-third of his one-year prison term while a high-priced lawyer fought appeals in the courts.

At first unsuccessful, the lawyer eventually won a 4–3 decision for a new trial from the Supreme Court of Canada. The judge at the latest trial ruled there was insufficient evidence.

Horsburgh angrily quit the United Church, claiming it deserted him, though the denomination’s social-service board voted $5,000 toward his legal expenses. While out of jail the preacher lived a hand-to-mouth existence that included work as a parking-lot attendant.

Horsburgh, claiming his faith is now stronger than ever, has decided to work in Toronto among teens who have had brushes with the law—the same activity that led to the trouble in Chatham. This time he may follow advice he gave a year ago to other ministers who want to work with teen-agers in trouble: “Never work alone with them. It’s suicide.”

AUBREY WICE

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