wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Slavery was hot topic at last Richmond Assembly

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Note #8292 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Slavery was hot topic at last Richmond Assembly
GA04002
June 26, 2004

Slavery was hot topic at last Richmond Assembly

Commissioners of 1847 couldn't agree, deftly dodged the issue

Submitted by Committee On Local Arrangements

RICHMOND, June 26 - The last General Assembly in this historic city adjourned
157 years ago.

When commissioners gathered here in 1847, the issue that dominated the agenda
was slavery.

Officials of the Presbyterian church in Great Britain had sent letters to the
American church deploring the institution of slavery and calling on U.S.
Presbyterians to call for its abolition.

According to James Smylie, professor emeritus of church history at Union
Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education
(Union-PSCE) in Richmond, the commissioners responded to their Scottish and
Irish counterparts by "underscoring the difficulty of doing what their
colleagues across the water advocated."

Smylie, who served for 27 years as the editor of the Journal of Presbyterian
History, said the church of 1847 was unwilling or unable to deal with the
issue of slavery, despite a long Presbyterian tradition of engagement with
social and political issues.

The two leading Presbyterian figures of the day - one from the North, the
other from the South - agreed during the Assembly that slavery was a matter
for the state, not the church, to deal with. They seemingly were stumped by
the moral, economic and political complexities that would plunge the nation
into civil war just 14 years later.

The presiding and outgoing moderators of the General Assembly criticized
slavery only tepidly, if at all. Charles Hodge, the Northerner who had
moderated the 1846 Assembly in Philadelphia, and James Henly Thornwell, the
South Carolinian chosen to moderate the Richmond meeting, agreed that
religious instruction and mission work should go on in slave communities, but
neither called for immediate abolition, Smylie said.

Smylie wrote two articles about the 1847 Assembly for The Presbyterian
Outlook, an independent news magazine for Presbyterians that has been
published under a variety of names since 1856.

The Civil War, which broke out in 1861, brought a schism in the Presbyterian
denomination that lasted more than 100 years. National union wasn't achieved
until 1983, when the northern and southern "streams" united to form the
Presbyterian Church (USA).

"When commissioners were unable to agree over the issue of slavery, the
General Assembly of 1847 did stand in favor of greater ecumenical partnership
with like-minded Christian bodies," Smylie said. Their deliberations in 1847
led to the formation of an Evangelical Alliance that evolved into the Federal
Council of Churches (1908), the World Council of Churches (1948) and the
National Council of Churches (1950).

There were 182 commissioners to the 1847 Assembly. They met at the original
site of First Presbyterian Church, near the current Virginia Commonwealth
University Medical Center. As many as 10,000 commissioners, delegates and
volunteers are expected for the 2004 Assembly.

In 1847, the membership of the Presbyterian Church was about 180,000. Today
it is 2.5 million.

The Presbyterian Historical Society is honoring Smylie with a special
reception during this year's 216th Assembly, and has invited him to give a
lecture.

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