Changing the Confession

For the first time in three centuries.

Presbyterians are substantially altering their confession of faith. A new creed has been drawn up by a committee of United Presbyterian pastors and theologians, headed by Princeton Theological Seminary's Professor Edward A. Dowey Jr.

The proposed 5,000-word "Confession of 1967" does not have to deal with predestination, the historic preoccupation of Presbyterians; an amendment to the Westminster Confession way back in 1903 effectively modified the Calvinist doctrine that some men are predestined for salvation while others are damned to hell. It challenges the "inerrancy" of the literal Bible by asserting that while Scripture is the authoritative witness to God's word, it is to be reinterpreted in each age in the light of increasing knowledge. For the first time in Presbyterian church history, the new confession gives the church a specific social mission, committing it to integration, defending interracial marriage, and calling for the preservation of peace and the abolition of poverty. The document is called the Confession of 1967 because even if it is adopted by the 177th annual general assembly in Columbus next May, it will have to be approved by two subsequent assemblies and ratified by two-thirds of the 193 presbyteries.

Schizophrenic Belief. The Westminster Confession, drawn up in England and ratified by Parliament in 1648, has been the Presbyterian creed ever since. Most members of the church have long ago rejected the predestination and the Biblical inerrancy that are the confession's basis. But United Presbyterian pastors must take an ordination oath to "sincerely receive and adopt the Confession of Faith and Catechisms," even though most do so with declared reservations. The result, says Boston Pastor Sidney Menk, is "schizophrenic" for many. In 1958, the United Presbyterian Church appointed the Dowey committee to update the confessional beliefs.

The new creed will supplement, not abolish, the Westminster Confession, says Dowey. His committee will propose to the general assembly that the church constitution include the West minster Confession, the Confession of 1967, and six other historical statements of belief, such as the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed, which predate the Protestant Reformation and are accepted by most Christians. The Westminster Confession will thus be de-emphasized and set in its historical place as the expression of 17th century Presbyterianism. "A confession is not a monument, but the tool for the present mission of the church. It is not good Calvinism to let one document stand for three centuries," says Church Historian Dowey.

Humanistic Theology? A conservative minority disagrees. The Dowey committee's proposals "will in effect replace every distinguishing doctrine of the Reformed faith with humanistically influenced theology," charges The Rev. G. Aiken Taylor, editor of the Presbyterian Journal. The nondenominational, fortnightly Christianity Today says that the changes will "legitimize contemporary church practices that violate the Westminster Standards, including the hierarchy's mounting involvement in politico-social activity."

Most United Presbyterians are backing the doctrinal updating. "We decided in the 1920s that we would not be a fundamentalist church, but a conservative, Biblically oriented church that was not rigidly literalist," says the church's chief administrative officer, the Rev. Eugene Carson Blake. And predestination? "No, I don't believe in predestination, that gloomy theory that contradicts one of Christianity's chief wellsprings--hope," says Louis Armstrong, United Presbyterian layman and Denver businessman. Dowey eloquently sums up the spirit of the renovation: "The Reformed Church, if the name means anything, must always be willing to reform."

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