wfn.org | Moderator's Pre-assembly Conference Continues

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

12-March-1997 
97120 
 
          Moderator's Pre-assembly Conference Continues  
            Search for Presbyterian "Common Ground" 
 
                      by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--A conference immediately preceding the upcoming General 
Assembly in Syracuse will seek to continue efforts launched by moderator 
the Rev. John Buchanan to find "common ground" in the conflict-wracked 
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). 
 
     Entitled "Common Ground: Seeking and Celebrating Our Life Together," 
the pre-Assembly conference is scheduled to begin at 9:15 a.m. and conclude 
at 5:00 p.m. on Friday, June 13.  It will feature addresses by Marian 
Wright Edelman, founder and director of the Children's Defense Fund, and 
Walter Brueggemann, professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological 
Seminary in Decatur, Ga. The $40 cost includes a Friday evening concert by 
the world-famous Paul Winter Consort. 
 
     For registration information, call 1-800-210-9371.  
 
     The pre-Assembly conference  is part of a collaboration between 
Buchanan and new General Assembly stated clerk the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick 
that began before either of them was elected at last summer's Assembly to 
the offices they now hold. 
 
     "The desire to help lead this church in spending more time exploring 
what unites rather than divides us is part of what compelled me to run for 
moderator," Buchanan, also pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, 
told the Presbyterian News Service in a March 10 interview that included 
Kirkpatrick.  "And I noticed that whenever Cliff and I showed up in the 
same place we tended to talk about the same things in that regard." 
 
     Kirkpatrick began sounding the theme long before he left his position 
as director of the Worldwide Ministries Division following his election as 
stated clerk.  "This great church has long needed to intensify its search 
for unity and reconciliation around what holds us together," he said. 
"Common ground is that which is foundational in our life together -- not 
the lowest common denominator." 
 
     In his invitation to the pre-Assembly conference, Buchanan told those 
who may be coming to Syracuse, "If you are a Presbyterian interested in 
exploring important ideas that matter for our faithful future, please 
come." 
 
     The future of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been almost as 
hotly debated as Amendment B (the so-called "fidelity and chastity" 
amendment).  But Buchanan insists that the impetus for the "common ground" 
search predates the genesis of the amendment.  He cites his reading of two 
Chicago-based theologians, Jean Bethler Elshtain and Amitai Etzioni, who 
argued in recent books that American culture -- and its churches -- are 
going to fall apart unless some unifying principles are reaffirmed. 
 
     "And then, a year ago, our General Assembly Council called us to a 
churchwide study of First Corinthians," Buchanan explained. "These are all 
serious texts about knocking off divisions and seeking instead the unity of 
society and the Christian community." 
 
     Buchanan's and Kirkpatrick's unity-seeking ideas took concrete shape 
last fall when voting on Amendment B began in the presbyteries.  "It 
occurred to me that church leaders need to be talking about what happens on 
the other side of this vote," Buchanan said.  "And those conversations need 
to include talk about what transcends this particular issue." 
 
     Adopting a model developed by the late Roman Catholic cardinal Joseph 
Bernardin, who was trying to facilitate conciliatory conversations within 
his deeply divided church at the time of his death, Buchanan and 
Kirkpatrick called together a group of about 20 Presbyterian leaders to 
serve as a starting point for similar conversations in the Presbyterian 
Church.  The group has come together twice  -- in late January and late 
February.   
 
     Buchanan said the group has "covenanted" to remain together and a 
couple of participants (besides Buchanan and Kirkpatrick) are designing the 
next conversation.  The first two gatherings, according to Kirkpatrick, 
included worship, a discussion of Bernardin's process for such 
conversations, the sharing of personal faith stories and "open discussions 
of what common ground might be for Presbyterians." 
 
     Buchanan said some have questioned whether the common-ground 
conversations are simply an attempt to appease one side or the other in the 
vociferous Amendment B debate.  "Of course we know that somebody is going 
to be unhappy whichever way the vote goes," he said.  "At our first 
meeting, Amendment B was losing and we were concerned.  By the second 
meeting, the amendment was ahead, and we're still concerned.  The point is 
that if we don't find common ground we will not be the church God wants us 
to be." 
 
     Kirkpatrick said the common-ground discussions "have found great 
resonance" with another emphasis he has introduced in the church -- that 
the next six General Assemblies focus on the "Great Ends of the Church," as 
found in the first chapter of the "Book of Order."   It appears that a 
joint resolution from the six major General Assembly entities -- the 
General Assembly Council, the Committee on the Office of the General 
Assembly, the Presbyterian Foundation, the Board of Pensions, the 
Presbyterian Investment and Loan Program and the Presbyterian Publishing 
Corporation -- will be submitted to this General Assembly endorsing the 
"Great Ends" emphasis. 
 
     "It is no secret that we have been too preoccupied with our 
disagreements and divisions," Kirkpatrick said.  "Presbyterians have a 
remarkable coherence in our confessions and  Book of Order' ... that I 
believe we take too much for granted." 
 
     It's "probably not possible" to find common ground that will "draw 
everyone in," Kirkpatrick conceded, "but I believe a vast majority of 
Presbyterians will affirm a common commitment to mission, to scripture and 
the confessions and to our historic principles as a denomination."  The 
common-ground discussions -- the ones going on now in the smaller group and 
the ones to come at the pre-Assembly conference and following -- promise, 
Kirkpatrick insisted, "that if given the opportunity to focus on core 
beliefs, Presbyterians will find substantive common ground, even with our 
differences." 
 
     Participants in the ongoing "Common Ground" group are the Rev. Joanna 
Adams, pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Atlanta; the Rev. Craig 
Barnes, pastor of National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.; the 
Rev. Eugene C. Bay, pastor of Bryn Mawr (Pa.) Presbyterian Church; 
Buchanan; the Rev. Cynthia Campbell, president of McCormick Theological 
Seminary; Youngil Cho of Raleigh, N.C., chair of the General Assembly 
Council; the Rev. James Costen, president of the Interdenominational 
Theological Center in Atlanta and former General Assembly moderator; the 
Rev.  Frank Diaz, interim executive director of the General Assembly 
Council; the Rev. Thomas Gillespie, president of Princeton Theological 
Seminary; Price Gwynn of Charlotte, N.C., former General Assembly 
moderator; the Rev. John Huffman, pastor of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church 
in Newport Beach, Calif.; Kirkpatrick; the Rev. J. Oscar McCloud, associate 
pastor of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City; Betty Moore of 
Florence, S.C.; the Rev. Harriet Nelson of Napa, Calif., former General 
Assembly moderator; the Rev. Douglas Oldenburg, president of Columbia 
Theological Seminary; Alfred Warren of Detroit; the Rev. Barbara Wheeler, 
president of Auburn Theological Seminary; and the Rev. Frank Harrington, 
pastor of Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta. 
 
     All but Cho and Harrington attended at least one of the two 
gatherings. 

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