Disuniting Church

In 1960, in San Francisco's Grace Cathedral, Stated Clerk Eugene Carson Blake of the United Presbyterian Church made a historic proposal: that four mainstream Protestant churches should seek to merge into a single organic entity. Out of Blake's proposal came a broader, continuing series of interdenominational meetings called the Consultation on Church Union, which was fervently supported by Protestant ecumenical leaders for more than a decade. Now COCU is in serious trouble --and at the hands of none other than Blake's United Presbyterian Church. At the church's General Assembly in Denver, delegates voted 411-310 to pull out of the venture completely.

The Presbyterian move came as an unexpected shock to COCU supporters. Princeton Theological Seminary President James McCord, chairman of the United Presbyterian COCU delegation, scornfully called it "an aberration that will have to be corrected." COCU Godfather Blake, now General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, charged that the vote represented a "misunderstanding of what COCU is all about." Added the Rev. Dr. Paul A. Crow Jr., COCU General Secretary: "I still don't think it represents the United Presbyterian Church."

Historic Creeds. In fact, however, the turndown of COCU was a textbook example of Protestant church democracy. Last fall a group of about 100 conservative ministers and laymen began meeting monthly in the Presbyterian headquarters city of Philadelphia to discuss denominational issues. In April they drafted an anti-COCU motion arguing, among other things, that the union plan was trying to meld "irreconcilable viewpoints" among the participating churches and was threatening the self-determination of local congregations. One obvious problem: some of the churches adhere to historic creeds specifying their beliefs; others do not.

The motion, which sailed through the Philadelphia Presbytery, had asked only that the church reject COCU's current first-draft plan of union. But at Denver the assembly's grass-roots Bills and Overtures Committee strengthened the motion to provide for a complete pullout. The approval was all the more striking because in other respects the assembly was far from conservative; it approved a tough antiwar resolution and passed an approval of abortion-on-de-mand that goes well beyond traditional Presbyterian stands.

Despite the apparent anti-ecumenical bias of the action, the vote to withdraw from COCU--if it is not reversed at next year's meeting--could actually improve Presbyterian ecumenism in some other directions. The Rev. Matthew Welde of Norristown, Pa., who led the Philadelphia anti-COCU move, says that he and his supporters oppose "structural union" but would like to see wider "spiritual unity" in ecumenical contacts--including those with groups not now included in the COCU plan, such as the Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists and Pentecostals. Also, the Presbyterians' plans to merge with the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (Southern Presbyterians), another increasingly reluctant member of

COCU, probably would be made easier.

As for the other seven churches in COCU, the United Church of Christ has already expressed dissatisfaction with the unity concept (TIME, April 3). A poll of Episcopal Church ministers has indicated that 41% would refuse to serve as ministers of a united COCU church. The United Methodist Church reaffirmed its participation in COCU in April, but its commitment to final union is less certain. Three Black Methodist denominations are torn between the ideal of Christian unity and the new emphasis on black identity. The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) would likely be the last to abandon the movement.

In the wake of his church's action on COCU, Princeton Seminary President McCord was in Washington last week for a special occasion: the dedication of the Tower of Faith, a 173-ft. freestanding bell tower at the denomination's showcase, the $10 million National Presbyterian Church and Center. The tower was dedicated to TIME'S founder, Henry Robinson Luce, a zealous, lifelong Presbyterian, who was a major driving force behind the center. McCord delivered an address entitled "The Faith of Henry Luce," which characterized Luce as "a Calvinist who understood life as an exodus and pilgrimage." Without specifically mentioning COCU, McCord touched on a key problem facing organized ecumenism. Typical of today, he said, was a "flight away from the unity of man. Wherever you look, man seems to be seeking the smaller tribal group. He is looking for his own roots, for identity, for those characteristics that will give him the authenticity he feels he has lost or that is being imperiled in the society in which he lives."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.