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GA06026
Campbell: resist simplistic either/or answers
Hearing all voices keys deeper discipleship, Covenant Network told
by Jerry L. Van Marter
BIRMINGHAM, June 16 * McCormick Theological Seminary President Cynthia Campbell urged Presbyterians today to resist simplistic "either/or answers" to complex issues facing the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and instead embrace what she said are traditional Presbyterian "both/and" responses.
In a lunchtime address Friday to the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, Campbell praised the emphasis placed in a report by the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church (TTF) on theological "points of balance" * pairs of theological principles that "at first glance may look contradictory or even mutually exclusive" but which on closer inspection reveal that "truth often resides in more than one place at one time."
For example, she said, Presbyterians believe that the church together is best able to discern God's will, and that God alone is Lord of the conscience.
Another example, she added, is the TTF's proposal that national standards for ordination be maintained, and that congregations and presbyteries have the responsibility to apply those standards to individual candidates.
In such cases, Campbell said, "Either/or thinking is dangerous. It does not lead either to unity or peace because the desire is for one side to impose its will on the other. It may end up with a kind of purity, but it will be a purity of the like-minded."
That kind of thinking, Campbell added, "silences thoughtful voices in the community. In doing so, it does damage to the truth."
If issues are far more complex than we can imagine, Campbell said, it behooves Presbyterians to listen more carefully to all voices, especially * in the words of A Brief Statement of Faith * "the voices of peoples long silenced." Such listening, she said, "is the work of the Holy Spirit."
"Whenever we listen and really hear," she said, "we are led deeper into our discipleship of Jesus Christ."
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