wfn.org | Re: [Ga212reports] Commentary

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #17 from PCUSA NEWS to GA 212 REPORTS:

This is David Steele commenting Wednesday morning on the 212th General
Assembly.

So many observers crowded into the room where the Assembly Spiritual and
Well Being committee was debating issues related to Same Sex Unions that the
committee had to recess and move into the gigantic Conference Center
ballroom.  Even that was nearly full when I sat in on their discussion.
Would formal endorsement of Same Sex Unions be a pastoral move toward
rejected people raised and nurtured in our Sunday Schools and youth
programs.  Or would it be a denial of the standards of our confessions and
the Bible which label homosexuality sin?  There's a huge chasm between those
views and lots of emotion.

Lunch found me at the Armss gathering.  That's the association of retired
ministers their spouses and survivors.  Former moderator Harriet Nelson gave
a cracker jack speech.  But I was most touched by the brief appearance of
the moderator.  The assembly moderator makes an appearance at all events,
usually breezing in and out and saying something hopeful about the church
and the future. Syngman Rhee was different.  He shared with us his inner
thoughts on the  50th anniversary of the start of the Korean War.  His
Presbyterian Minister father had been imprisoned and his mother told Syngman
to flee to the south.  She bid him and his brother farewell and said to
them, "In war anything may happen.  Perhaps we will not see each other's
physical faces again.  But we will see each other in our prayers."  He and
his brother joined the fleeing refugees.  They never saw either parent
again.  But, he said, "I see her face in my prayers."

I was in Korea with the Princeton Seminary Choir when the war ended.  We
sang for American and Korean wounded soldiers in hospitals.  And walked the
crowded hills around Pusan thru the shacks with beer can roofs that housed
the 2 million refugees in that city.  Was our moderator there then?

I am glad Dr. Rhee is getting some glory from the church.  Thru his years of
service he took a lot of guff.  Especially for his interest in North Korea
and possible reunification.  "The Presbyterian Layman" published a scathing
article accusing him of being a communist sympathizer.  It was then that
Rebecca McElroy the first woman on the Layman board, reached out to a hurt
Rhee.  The two became friends.  She was the one who placed him in nomination
asassembly moderator.  And she is the one he appointed vice-moderator. 
Though they disagree on many issues, Rhee says "maybe this will give a hint
of what could really happen if the church could work this way."

There are cynics among us who suspect someone is getting conned.  But at the
moderator's reception on the Queen Mary a festive atmosphere prevailed. 
People waited in long lines for an hour or more to greet the moderator and
the vice moderator and other  church leaders.  The band played people
mingled and greeted one another with smiles and embraces.

As we left the stately ship named for the good Queen Mum.  There was a sense
of tranquility and beauty about it all.  The General Assembly was ready to
push off from the shore in a spirit of joyful good will.  God's in the
heavens and all is right with the world!

A parting image startled me.  As I looked up to the top deck of that lovely
ship there was that a young woman in a long dress leaning, arms
outstretched, over the bow.  And was that a handsome young man beside her
seeing that she did not fall.

It couldn't be.  I must be seeing things. Icebergs don't float as far south
as Long Beach do they?  Today we'll find out as the Assembly begins its
business sessions.

This is David Steele.  Thanks for listening.  Shalom Friends.

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