Racism and Revolt

Racial militants won a major hearing from the World Council of Churches last month. They persuaded the thirty-eight churchmen attending a WCC consultation on racism to recommend that member churches encourage “reparations” and “all else failing … support resistance movements, including revolutions.”

The five-day consultation, held in London, had been called in an effort to update the World Council’s race policies. World Council spokesmen issued the usual disclaimers, saying that the consultation spoke only for itself and that the recommendations were merely for the consideration of the Central Committee, which meets in August.

Meanwhile, black-power radicals reveled in the publicity the World Council managed to attract for them. A number were outspokenly critical of the white Christian community as a whole, causing the meeting to have more than its share of tense moments.

Following a closed plenary session, U. S. Senator George McGovern, who chaired the consultation, told reporters what had been decided. The adopted statement suggested seven steps (see text following). Besides endorsing revolutions and reparations, the consultation sought to have the World Council and its member churches begin applying economic sanctions “against corporations and institutions which practice blatant racism.”

McGovern, a Methodist layman, had no qualms about the statement. “I am not a pacifist,” he said. “I participated in World War II as a combat pilot and I endorse the concept as stated in the recommendation.”

The Rev. Channing Phillips of Washington, D. C., a United Church of Christ pastor, was one of several blacks at the consultation who exchanged strong words with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Michael Ramsey. The titular head of the world Anglican community had provoked ire by refusing to allow a question to be directed to a speaker representing the British government.

Phillips, a delegate to last summer’s Democratic National Convention and the first black ever nominated for the U. S. Presidency, referred to Ramsey’s approach as “platitudinous drivel.” Ramsey later apologized to the consultation, after the would-be questioner, a Guyanese, told him: “The trouble with you bloody English is you always do things your own way.” McGovern said the incident had resulted from a misunderstanding.

The London meeting was disrupted at one point à la James Forman when five of his American supporters seized the floor to present demands for something like $144 million reparations from the wealth of the churches. WCC General Secretary Eugene Carson Blake later said he wondered whether they might also be willing to assume the churches’ debts.

Here is the complete text of the consultation’s statement on racism:

The World Council of Churches’ Consultation on Racism, meeting from the 19th to 24th May in London, was a result of a recommendation by the Fourth Assembly of the World Council in Uppsala, Sweden, last July. The Consultation clearly revealed that the Church and the world are filled with the insidious and blatant institutional racism that is producing increased polarization and threatening an escalation of the struggle for power between white and coloured races into violent conflict. More than once the Consultation itself was exposed to the pervasiveness of stereotypes, paternalism and, in the final result, attitudes of racial superiority that have developed over centuries. And the churches reflect the world.

The identification of the churches with the status quo means today, as before, that it has remained, in effect, part of the racial problem and not a means of eliminating it.

If the churches are to have any relevance in these critical times, it is imperative that they no longer concentrate their attention on the individual actions of individual Christians who are fighting racism. To the majority of Christians, the Church is a community, a group—perhaps even a movement—and it is therefore necessary that issues of racism be addressed by a group. Individual commitment is commendable—but not enough.

The patterns of racism have a universality that is frightening. UNESCO has found out even where there were laws to discourage racism the concentration of power, wealth and status in the hands of one racial group are working in favour of de facto discrimination. The situation is tragio when racism is manifested by well-intentioned, but uncritical persons and dangerous when it is practized by institutions.

It has become clear in the week’s study and dialogue that racism is in large part an outgrowth of the struggle for power that afflicts all men. Racist ideologies and propaganda are developed and disseminated as tools in economic, political and military struggles for power. Once developed they have a life of their own, finding a place in the traditions and culture of a people, unless stringent and continuous effort is made to exorcize them. The problem has been well documented in the UNESCO Report.

A second fact that has become clear is that the Church is not using the weapons it possesses to eradicate racism itself—even within its own institution. But the Church is charged with a ministry of reconciliation. And if it is to take that ministry seriously, then it must attack racism significantly—at its origins, as well as in its symptoms. Therefore, the Church must be willing to be not only an institution of love, but also an institution of action, making inputs into societies to help effect a new balance of power that render racism impotent. The Church must come to realize that in our institutionalized world, the closest approximation to love possible, is justice.

To that end, the Consultation calls upon the World Council of Churches to take the following steps:

(1) that the World Council of Churches and its member churches begin applying economic sanctions against corporations and institutions which practice blatant racism;

(2) that the World Council of Churches and its member churches use every means available to influence governments in following a similar practice of economic sanctions to promote justice;

(3) that the World Council of Churches and its member churches do support and encourage the principle of “reparations” to exploited peoples and countries (recognizing the churches’ own involvement in such exploitation and hence, reparation) to the end of producing a more favourable balance of economic power throughout the world;

(4) that the World Council of Churches should establish a unit with adequate resources to deal with the eradication of racism;

(5) to circulate among member churches the UNESCO Report as background material to enable Christians to understand why the Church and church-related institutions must enter into the struggle against racism in areas of power;

(6) that the World Council of Churches, through the initiative of its reorganized Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, serves as the co-ordinating centre for the implementation of multiple strategies for the struggle against racism in Southern Africa by the churches;

(7) that all else failing, the Church and churches support resistance movements, including revolutions, which are aimed at the elimination of political or economic tyranny which makes racism possible.

Colorful Convention Capers: ‘A Man Named Paisley’

“I’m looking for a man called Paisley,” said the policeman, as he apologetically entered the press room during the Church of Scotland General Assembly sessions in Edinburgh last month. That supporters of the militant Protestant leader were in town had become evident the previous evening when round and round went a little car with the now familiar slogan: “Jesus saves, Rome enslaves.” This was supplemented with banners next day that did not wish the Pope well. The immediate target was sitting inside the Assembly Hall with visitors from other churches as each was welcomed by name.

Things were moving doucely along till the announcement: “From the Roman Catholic Church.…” Bedlam broke loose in the public gallery as about fifty Protestants expressed their dissent in fifty different ways. There were extraordinary scenes as the menacing fist-waving coterie shouted abusive comments at the first official Roman Catholic visitor to the assembly since the Reformation.

Sir Bernard Ferguson, former governor-general of New Zealand, could be seen making his way to speak comfortable words to Father John Dalrymple. Sir Bernard was later to address the assembly as “Ladies and gentlemen—and vipers,” the latter culled from one of the more biblical epithets hurled at Father Dalrymple. Meanwhile, the moderator had suspended the sitting and left the chair while the demonstrators were persuaded to leave peacefully. Since Ian Paisley and a colleague had been permitted to hand a petition to the moderator earlier, and had professed themselves “satisfied” with this arrangement, the uproar was regarded by many as demonstrating the folly of doing a deal with the protesters.

A deal had been done because the Queen had made history by coming herself to a regular assembly meeting—the first time the sovereign had done so since the 1603 Union of the Crowns (normally she sends a representative). The business committee had wanted to avoid anything that would embarrass Her Majesty, who as it happened had left the assembly two hours before trouble started.

In addressing the 1,360 fathers and brethren, with Prince Philip on one side and the Secretary of State for Scotland on the other, the Queen had renewed her annual pledge “to preserve and uphold the rights and privileges of the Church of Scotland.” During the eight days’ business that followed, the Queen paid a number of visits to the assembly, the business of which proceeded normally in her presence, as befits a land jealous of the rights of a kirk which owns no head but Jesus Christ.

Another moment of history took place when Her Majesty, head of the Church of England, took communion in the High Kirk of St. Giles’—and in doing so received the cup from a woman elder (there were five such in the assembly this year). The latter fact did not meet with the approval of the controversial minister of St. Giles’, Dr. Harry Whitley, whose eighty-eight-man kirk session lacks female representation.

In its report to the assembly, the Panel on Doctrine took the first cautious steps toward disposing of the Westminster Confession, convinced that “the whole conception of a subordinate standard is one which the church may now feel it wise to abandon” as an anachronism. The confession was regarded by the panel as one of a number of post-Reformation statements “which led the men who drafted them to be dogmatic about mysteries which are beyond the comprehension of finite and sinful creatures.” The assembly agreed that the panel should take preliminary soundings from presbyteries before it reports again on the subject next year.

The assembly condemned the use of all forms of chemical and biological warfare but declined to make similar condemnation of all weapons of war. Similarly, it would not “deplore the action of the United States in using such weapons in Viet Nam.” The assembly also resolved to ask the government to cease the supply of arms to Nigeria.

A Gaelic scholar, Dr. T. M. Murchison, 61, was elected moderator in succession to Dr. J. B. Longmuir. In his closing address, Murchison said: “To be a church to match this hour we must be convinced of the relevance and adequacy of the Good News we profess … ‘To whom can we go but unto Thee?’ said Peter long ago.” Nobody, concluded the moderator, had ever satisfactorily answered Peter’s question.

Meanwhile, two dissident sources had directed rumblings toward the assembly. Dr. Whitley said that if the assembly did not check its ecumenical enthusiasts, the kirk would become “an unhappy province of the Anglican Communion” or be confronted with another secession. The Roman Catholic Church is quietly waiting to exploit the dismemberment of the Kirk, and the creation of a Roman Catholic cardinal in Scotland (the first since the Reformation) and the arrival of a relic of St. Andrew in Edinburgh “may be more than straws in the wind,” warned this present-day occupant of John Knox’s pulpit.

A mile away in St. George’s West church hall, a group of theological college lecturers and students had formed what they called a “Dissembly.” They felt the General Assembly was not representative of the people of Scotland, and they wanted to free the Gospel from pious religiosity and conventional morality.

J. D. DOUGLAS

Bishop Bucks Encyclical

A Roman Catholic bishop has joined the ranks of those unable to accept the official church teaching forbidding artificial contraception. The Most Rev. James P. Shannon, one of the nation’s best-known liberal prelates, is the highest official of the U. S. hierarchy to dissent publicly from the controversial birth-control encyclical, Humanae Vitae, issued last July by Pope Paul VI.

Minneapolis Star religion editor Willmar Thorkelson, in a copyrighted article, said Shannon submitted his resignation as auxiliary bishop of St. Paul-Minneapolis after an exchange of correspondence with the pontiff that began last September and “weeks of anguish, days of prayer, and hours of fear.” Shannon refused a papal proposal that would have banished him to an overseas assignment without status.

Meanwhile, the Vatican spiked persistent rumors circulating particularly in Spain, Italy, and France that the Pope would soon amend the encyclical.

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