wfn.org | Stated Clerk Elections Were Not Always Contested

[PCUSA_NEWS@ecunet.org]

Date: 27Jun-96 
 
96249    Stated Clerk Elections Were Not Always Contested 
 
                          by Alexa Smith 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--Despite jokes insisting that a surefire way not to be 
elected stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is to be the 
nominee of the denomination's search committee, history tells a different 
story. 
 
     In both the former Northern and Southern streams, the search committee 
nominee was elected with little or no opposition from the floor for at 
least 32 years prior to reunion of the two denominations in 1983. 
 
     Only two men in the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of 
America (UPCUSA) -- Eugene Carson Blake and William P. Thompson -- held the 
job over those 32 years.  In the Presbyterian Church in the United States 
(PCUS), there were only three:  E.C. Scott, James A. Millard Jr. and James 
E. Andrews. 
 
     It is in the Assemblies after reunion -- 1984, 1988 and 1992 -- where 
the story gets more complicated and where the search committee's nominee 
was defeated or, in 1984, withdrew before ever making it to the floor at 
all. 
 
     The reasons why depend on who you ask and how you interpret the facts. 
Some say it is old tensions still simmering after reunion; others say it is 
mistrust of committee authority.  Others say simply that the deciding 
factor is the competence of the candidates.  Still others contend that 
personalities, gender and platform charisma all play a part. 
 
     "The last two elections were exceptions to the rule if you look at our 
history for the last 40 years in both predecessor denominations," according 
to Fred Heuser, director of the denomination's Philadelphia-based 
Department of History, whose staff researched elections back to 1951.  "It 
is just that our memory is short.  We remember 1988 and 1992. ... 
 
     "But I don't think we're as contentious as we like to think we are," 
said Heuser, who believes that what some call postreunion tension is 
temporary rather than ingrained.  
 
     Though politicking wasn't unfamiliar in either the UPCUSA or the PCUS, 
stated clerk elections didn't seem -- at least openly -- as contentious as 
the upsets that began in 1984, about the same time that negative 
campaigning became a political fact of life in secular elections.  
 
      "It's very clear that it's not a reunion phenomenon that we're having 
these battles," said New Castle Presbytery executive the Rev. Patricia 
McClurg, who withdrew her name from the stated clerk's race in 1984 when 
the Assembly's search committee nominated the two incumbents, Andrews and 
Thompson, after a pre-Assembly search had recommended McClurg for the job. 
"The clerk's position is more important than it was 50 years ago," she 
said, stressing that the PC(USA) office is modeled more along the lines of 
the office in the former Northern church.  "So the stakes are higher in 
some people's minds." 
 
     Southern Presbyterians typically insist that the clerk's job was 
primarily clerical in the former PCUS -- with the clerk serving as a record 
keeper and parliamentarian who spoke only when asked for rulings.  The same 
office in the North, they say, was molded into a much more powerful 
position that was visible in public debates during the Blake and Thompson 
years.  It was that power that placed the officeholder under more scrutiny 
and ultimately gave the denomination's agenda makers more worries about who 
was elected. 
 
     With that backdrop, the tensions of reunion can only be credited for 
part of the emotion surrounding what appears to be a deeper cultural 
transition. 
 
     "Across the board, the whole matter of authority is an issue in 
society," said the Rev. James Costen of Atlanta, who was moderator of the 
PCUS just prior to reunion and who remembers the desire for less authority 
being built into national structures. 
 
      But skepticism about authority in general, he said, puts in "serious 
jeopardy" a Presbyterian tradition that has long entrusted committees with 
decision making that is then reviewed by the wider body.  "Now everything 
is subject to serious scrutiny from the body. ... 
 
     "I'm quite concerned about our willingness to be Presbyterian today. 
We're basically congregational [in our thinking] ... and we're beginning to 
act Baptist and congregationalist." 
 
     McClurg is quick to say that the 1984 election had its share of 
cultural baggage, but remnants of regional loyalties were visible too. 
"There were struggles out there. ... Will it be one of ours, one of theirs? 
There was that going on, worrying and talking about what it would mean," 
she said, adding that the election was further politicized when it became 
clear the two incumbents intended to run -- with two staffs full of people 
who wanted to keep their jobs.  
 
      1984 was, she says, a "real horse race." 
 
     So was the 1992 race.  Andrews -- the committee nominee -- was upset 
by the Rev. W. Clark Chamberlain of Houston, one of two floor nominees, the 
other being the Rev. Charles Hammond, Philadelphia Presbytery's executive. 
Chamberlain later declined the election, after allegations of sexual 
misconduct against him surfaced just hours after his election.  Chamberlain 
was later cleared of the charges. 
 
     In 1988, Andrews defeated search committee nominee former Moderator 
Harriet Nelson in a bid from the floor. 
 
     Both votes, onlookers say, had more to do with perceived competency of 
the nominees than with reunion or with a longer-standing distrust of the 
nominating process itself. 
 
     "Everything has to do with the platform performance," former PC(USA) 
moderator the Rev. Ken Hall of Butler, Pa., told the Presbyterian News 
Service.  "It isn't due to any prejudice due to committee recommendations. 
 
     "The office is just won or lost on the platform," he said, stressing 
that politicking may go on among the Assembly's "groupies," who plot and 
strategize, but it is commissioners who make decisions by watching the 
candidates themselves. 
      
     Elder Otto Finkbeiner of Bryn Mawr, Pa., an associate stated clerk in 
the UPCUSA for 18 years and for four in the PC(USA), shares that opinion. 
But he also acknowledges that other factors come into play. 
 
       Looking back at 1984, for instance, Finkbeiner wonders if the 
denomination simply wanted the continuity represented by Thompson or 
Andrews after a long reunion process.  "But I think there's trust [in the 
process]," he said.  "Look how many times the nominating committee's 
nominee was selected." 
 
     Prior to 1984, the only time the search committee's nominee was not 
elected was in 1966, when Thompson, a former moderator, ran against the 
Rev. John W. Meister from the floor. 
 
     Assembly watchers are willing to guarantee that blatant contention 
between candidates is not well received by commissioners.  
 
     "The question becomes," Heuser said, "why during the last three 
elections has there been a willingness to attack?  Perhaps it has something 
to do with the culture legitimating negative campaigning. ... We may not 
have stooped to the level of national politics, but we are affected by it. 
We could very well be dealing with a cultural thing. ... 
 
     "Maybe these [elections] have gotten too politicized," Heuser said, 
pausing. "That is a cultural ignorance -- seeing an election as something 
to be won." 

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