5,800 Mainline Presbyterians Seek Renewal in Dallas

Questions of identity and pluralism confront the Presbyterian Church (USA).

In the 1700s, Presbyterians found themselves divided between “Old Side” traditionalists and “New Side” revivalists. Today’s Presbyterians lay claim to a much greater variety of identities, many of which were represented last month in Dallas at the Presbyterian Congress on Renewal.

The meeting confronted head-on the chief problem plaguing the Presbyterian Church (USA)—a steady decline in membership. Competing explanations and solutions for that problem came into focus, and they bear more than a passing resemblance to the pre-Great Awakening days of John Witherspoon and other pioneers of Presbyterianism.

Questions of identity are much on the mind of the Presbyterian Church (USA), a denomination formed in 1983 from a merger of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and the Presbyterian Church in the U.S., a southern denomination. The latter group was formed as a result of a split at the time of the Civil War. As the New York and Atlanta offices of these two groups decide how to put reunion into practice, a third power base, including evangelicals and charismatics, wants to speak up about doctrinal issues and program agendas. The congress in Dallas paved the way.

Four “Chapter Nine” organizations—official special-interest groups within the denomination—began in 1982 to plan the congress. B. Clayton Bell, pastor of Dallas’s 7,600-member Highland Park Presbyterian Church, served on the executive committee. “Several of the evangelicals felt we should plan an event that would provide some direction, some input for the new denomination, emphasizing the core theology of the church,” he said.

“The basic theology, the confessions of our church, are very sound, very orthodox. What has happened is that in the day-to-day emphasis, some of us feel the peripheral issues have become the dominant issues, and have tended to set the programmatic agenda for the church,” Bell said. “Our hope is that this congress will reemphasize the core issues of the church’s theology and mission and help the church get back on an even keel.”

Some 5,800 clergy and lay people attended the congress. They heard messages from prominent Presbyterians, including Lloyd John Ogilvie, senior pastor of Hollywood Presbyterian Church; Thomas Gillespie, president of Princeton Theological Seminary; Bruce Larson, senior pastor of University Presbyterian Church in Seattle; Roberta Hestenes, an associate professor at Fuller Theological Seminary; and evangelist Leighton Ford. More than 200 workshops, taught by Presbyterians as well as a generous sprinkling of others, covered such pastoral how-tos as preaching, new member orientation, and training of lay counselors, and addressed issues that included abortion, Central America, pornography, and poverty.

Sessions devoted to personal and congregational renewal attracted enthusiastic throngs of the predominantly young, white participants. Television preacher Robert Schuller, pastor of the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, taught four sessions in three days. He emphasized self-esteem as the fundamental need among contemporary Americans and outlined ways to make the gospel palatable to nonbelievers. Separated from Schuller by a ballroom partition and a much-wider gulf of theological understanding, British author Os Guinness warned against using “sales principles” in evangelism. “The ultimate persuasion is a life so entered into the consecrated life of Christ that the manifestations are evident,” he insisted. Both seminar leaders drew rapt crowds of several hundred.

Guinness’s remark could serve as a working definition of the corporate identity evangelicals desire for Presbyterians as a whole. They emphasize that spiritual oneness based on personal commitment to Christ must take priority over secondary identifications that may include region, culture, and race. That was the thrust of Ogilvie’s emotional appeal to the congress. He said all the church’s factions, evangelicals included, should cast off their cliquishness and reach out to one another.

“Each of us has found some measure of security that has become almost more important to us than the Lord himself,” he said. “I believe that the great need in the church right now is for us to surrender our commitment to pluralism and dare to receive from each other.”

From denominational officials comes a different understanding of, and commitment to, pluralism. Robert Miller, director of national missions for the church’s Atlanta office, reflected a mainline Protestant view. He said he sees Presbyterians as “a Mexican fabric”—suggesting pluralism that extends even to theological understanding. It is a fabric he hopes will stay colorfast. Evangelicals, he said, “are one room in a large house. They clearly want to identify themselves as Presbyterians, get a sense of who they are, and find their place in the church.”

Most denominational officials maintained an uneasy silence about the congress, and the Presbyterian General Assembly did not endorse it because, according to one spokesman, “we were not convinced it would be truly representative of the plurality of the life of the church.” Publicity and support for the event were sporadic at best, and often unenthusiastic. A woman from Long Island dubbed it the “mystery congress” because her presbytery (a regional grouping of several congregations) gave it no mention. Only six individuals from northern New Jersey attended, and of the 113 Presbyterian Church (USA) congregations in metropolitan Washington, D.C., only four were known to be represented. However, the denomination’s New York office supplied the congress with its communications staff, in a move signaling keen interest if not support.

Miller, director of national missions, said he went to the congress fearing a power play by evangelicals—an encore of troubles that led to such past splits as the establishment of the Presbyterian Church in America in 1973 and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in 1980. But he and others said their fears were unfounded.

The congress took place at a time when the denomination is particularly vulnerable and perhaps open to change. Since 1965, Presbyterian membership has declined, with an exodus of 35,000 in 1984. The reunited denomination includes about 3.2 million people in 12,000 churches, but congregations from the former Presbyterian Church in the U.S. have an “escape clause” they may use to opt out during the next six years.

Many of the southern churches grew up in the shadow of large Southern Baptist congregations and took their organizational and programmatic cues from them. They are wary of the northern bureaucracy. How, or whether, the Atlanta and New York offices will merge is still unknown, and the thrust of some key program areas, such as evangelism, appears to be up for grabs.

“The very fact that we’re having the congress carries with it an implied criticism [that the church has become sidetracked on secondary issues],” Bell said. “And we are hoping to counter that with a positive, constructive purpose.” The unspoken criticism appeared to be countered as well by carefully selected workshop leaders spanning the spectrum of Presbyterian belief. Sessions on abortion and Central America were organized as debates, with pro and con arguments given equal play. The congress endorsed no positions and issued no statements.

The same held true on theological topics close to evangelicals’ hearts—particularly evangelism. It is there that the old “revivalist” spirit comes to life.

Foster Shannon, president of Presbyterians United for Biblical Concerns (PUBC), said evangelicals are eager to see the denomination make a clear commitment to the task of winning people to Christ. The Presbyterian Church (USA) “elevated other priorities so people got the message it [evangelism] wasn’t that important,” he said. “When PUBC and other [evangelical] groups talk evangelism, they talk about winning people to Christ who do not have a commitment.… The denomination’s prevailing emphasis has been on membership recruitment rather than on winning people to Christ.”

The church’s approach to evangelism is outlined in a five-year plan called New Age Dawning, developed by Grady Allison, program director for evangelism in the New York office. The plan defines conversion as “a dynamic and ongoing process which involves a turning from and a turning to. It is conversion from a life characterized by sin, separation from God, and unfulfilled potential to a new life characterized by forgiveness, obedience, love, and outreach.”

Allison led a workshop at the congress that illustrated the differences in approach and understanding that plague Presbyterians. “God sent Jesus into the world to show us the way to him. ‘Us’ used in this sense refers to all humankind,” he said. “Jesus did not come to make people better Pharisees but to make us better children of God. Everyone is on the ‘God-line’ somewhere. That is to say, everyone has some relationship to God, even if it is one of alienation or rebellion. It is not our business to treat people as sinners, but to help them recognize their relationship with God, to see the potential they have in God, and to rise to the height of the full stature of the man Jesus Christ.”

Allison insisted that his differences with evangelicals in the church are primarily semantic and methodological. “We ought not to limit the truth to particular ways of saying it. Some people believe if I don’t use the words they want to hear, then I don’t know the gospel.” He cited definitions from the Presbyterian Book of Order that are soundly orthodox as the basis for his program thrust, and said it must be understood as being directed at people who are professing believers.

Skepticism among evangelicals remains high, however. Matthew Welde, executive director of PUBC, said a survey of ten Presbyterian seminaries indicates that only one has a required course in evangelism and about half offer it as an elective. “How in the world do we expect pastors to lead their congregations in evangelism if they don’t have it in seminary?” he asked.

Despite the evangelicals’ uneasiness, there was no talk of pulling out of the denomination. Shannon expressed the view shared by all the organizations that planned the congress: “We are committed to the renewal of the denomination and beyond that to the preservation of the whole Presbyterian and Reformed movement. Ours is the largest denomination in that movement. We are playing for big stakes, but doing it from within.”

There was no spirit of confrontation at Dallas, but a sense of camaraderie while Presbyterian evangelicals displayed their wares. There are no immediate plans for a second congress, but organizers expressed high hopes for a similar meeting at least once more within the next ten years. “We have tried to say that this is a gift to the church without sounding presumptuous or patronizing,” said Ernest J. Lewis, the congress’s executive director. Workshop sessions and major addresses will be published by Word Publishing and made available to churches.

Congress organizers were criticized for failing to include representatives of ethnic and racial minorities in the event’s planning. One of the few black participants and workshop leaders there, Chicago pastor Dorothy Cross, made a statement to congress officials during a press conference. “The insignificant participation of racial and ethnic minorities comes from our understanding of conservatism,” she said. Members of minority groups feel excluded because the conservatives’ agenda is perceived as lacking shared priorities with blacks and other minorities, she said. “Until your group makes a clear statement to the church about conservatism, there will be separation.” However, she added her appreciation for being invited to speak, saying, “I interpret what you are doing as an attempt to close that gap.”

Lewis responded by noting that the event is a first, and that it was pulled together by an ad hoc group. “It’s a great beginning, but that’s all it is,” he said. “We’re not happy with where we are, but we are happy with where we’re going.”

Supreme Court Prevents Shelton College From Granting Degrees

A small New Jersey school founded by fundamentalist radio preacher Carl McIntire has lost its final bid to become a degree-granting institution. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand lower court rulings that upheld the state’s right to license all colleges and universities under its jurisdiction.

Shelton College, of Cape May, New Jersey, failed to convince the high court that the New Jersey State Board of Higher Education violated its right to the free exercise of religion by canceling the school’s ability to grant bachelor of arts degrees. The revocation came in 1965 after the state agency determined that the college was not meeting minimum educational standards.

The state’s action was followed by a legal challenge, but in 1967 the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the state agency properly exercised its authority in the Shelton College dispute. Following that initial legal skirmish, the college relocated to Cape Canaveral, Florida, where it continued to grant degrees. In 1979, school officials decided to move back to New Jersey, and a new round of legal challenges began.

Over the past five years, the case has been the subject of seven legal proceedings. In each of those cases, courts ruled against the college’s contention that the First Amendment prohibits the New Jersey State Board of Higher Education from regulating it. Shelton College’s attorney, church-and-state specialist William Bentley Ball, argued in a written appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court that because the school is pervasively religious, state officials have no jurisdiction over its affairs. He asked the justices to recognize the “irrationality” of what he called the “forced destruction of this institution.”

Ball pointed out that the new round of court proceedings began in 1979, when the state tried to shut down the school altogether. While state courts agreed that New Jersey must allow the school to call itself a “college,” advertise itself as such, recruit students, teach its entire curriculum, and award credits for individual courses, the state could prohibit it from granting baccalaureate degrees.

In the state’s written brief asking the high court not to review the lower court decisions, New Jersey Attorney General Irwin Kimmelman argued that “the issuance of a bachelor’s degree is not a religious function or practice.” He contended that the state’s laws governing colleges have no “coercive impact” on an institution’s practice of religion. He also argued that “carving out a religious exception to the state’s licensure requirements would effectively destroy” the state legislature’s intent to regulate all institutions of higher learning in New Jersey.

RELIGIOUS NEWS SERVICE

DEATHS

Ruby Rhoades, 61, executive of the World Ministries Commission of the Church of the Brethren General Board, first female executive in the Church of the Brethren, who, with her husband, Benton, served as one of the first Brethren missionaries to Ecuador; January 8, in Elgin, Illinois, of cancer.

Ben Mohr Herbster, 80, first president of the 1.7-million-member United Church of Christ, minister of Zion Evangelical and Reformed Church in Norwood, Ohio, for 30 years, and active participant in the Consultation on Church Union; December 16, in Dayton, Ohio, of complications following an operation.

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