At Last, the New Creed

After nine years of debate, study and revision, the United Presbyterian Church last week approved the "Confession of 1967"--the first new Presbyterian creed in 320 years. By a 4-to-l margin, the 829 delegates to the 179th General Assembly in Portland, Ore., voted to accept the Confession, a 4,500-word document that commits the church, in the name of Christ, to labor for such causes as world peace and the elimination of poverty and injustice, and describes the Bible as simply the "witness without parallel" to God's word rather than his inerrant utterance.

The new creed passed after a lively two-hour debate at which four presbyteries challenged the constitutionality of the Confession, unsuccessfully arguing that the Confession illegally eliminated the archaic, little-used Larger Catechism of 1648 from church doctrine. Still an other dispute arose over the creed's statement that the church is bound to work for peace "even at risk to national security." The Rev. Edward L. R. Elson of the Washington, D.C., presbytery proposed that the "unnecessarily provocative" passage should be expunged, since it might create security clearance problems for church members in Government service; though Elson did not say so, the words might also be used as an excuse for inciting civil disobedience.

The committee on bills and overtures ruled that the phrase was directed not at individuals but at nations, and to clinch the argument, the church's chief administrative officer, Stated Clerk William P. Thompson, read to the assembly a Defense Department memorandum declaring that "commitment to the Confession would not disqualify an individual for a position requiring access to classified information." The statement was issued with the approval of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, a Presbyterian.

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