You are currently subscribed to the PCUSANEWS
email list of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
========================================
This story may be seen here: http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2007/07545.htm
Sacred duty
Elders called to uphold 'courage and faithfulness' of forebearers
by Mike Ferguson Presbyterian News Service
NASHVILLE - A rousing, passionate speech on leadership and inclusiveness by former Mississippi Governor and Presbyterian elder William Winter brought the first-ever National Elders Conference's plenary sessions to a close Friday morning (Aug. 31).
The more than 300 elders gathered gave Winter a standing ovation. Touching on the unofficial theme of the conference, poet Ann Weems called Winter "a deliciously dangerous elder" during a question-and-answer session following the former governor's address.
Like other speakers before him, Winter remembered the church of his childhood: Bethel Presbyterian Church in Pea Ridge, MS. That church's session - two women and one man - didn't take kindly one Sunday to a guest preacher from Jackson "who thought they were an impressionable enough congregation to be rescued from the liberals in the denomination," Winter said.
"After the service, the three elders were waiting for him at the door," Winter continued. "Nobody knows what they said, but it is a matter of record that this little church refused to be intimidated by their guest. They personified what elder leadership is about."
Winter, an elder since President Eisenhower's first year in the Oval Office and a longtime member of Fondren Presbyterian Church in Jackson, also held up the example of his friend, elder Warren Hood, a small sawmill operator who "made a fortune in the lumber business" and "brought wisdom and a generous spirit to everything he did."
Hood agreed to lead a Mississippi commission appointed by the president to bring orderly compliance in integrating schools and other public accommodations.
"Practically every white church was barring blacks from entering," Winter said. "In the 1960s segregation dominated every presbytery meeting I attended. You had to live through those experiences to understand the difference such leadership made. (Hood) was an unappreciated hero in those stormy days."
Today's Presbyterians "have inherited a record of incredible courage and faithfulness," Winter said, and Presbyterians have a "sacred duty" to uphold it.
After a century of strife, the northern and southern Presbyterian churches reunited in 1983. "So many had struggled to reach the Promised Land of unity," Winter said.
"Now, at a time we should feel gratitude and contentment, what do we find? Ripples of discontentment spreading ominously across our denomination. Including my own presbytery, a number of churches are in the process of separating from a denomination that only 25 years ago was celebrating reunification.
"If we persist in this course," he predicted, "we will wind up in more little groups telling ourselves only what we are comfortable hearing."
While recognizing the horror of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Winter called on Presbyterian elders and others not to be "haunted by fear, mistrust and alienation, retreating into cultural enclaves to get away from people with funny names and different skin color."
"We have to recognize what some of us white southerners had to learn more than 40 years ago," he said, "that no one is free until we are all free.
"We are not supposed to play God," Winter said. "We are called simply to follow God."
Attaining justice in its broadest sense, including social and economic justice, "is absolutely essential to the well-being of our children and grandchildren," he added.
"It is a matter of solidarity and hope for all of us who share love of neighbor, church and country. That may be the greatest contribution we can make to the larger society."
Mike Ferguson, a Presbyterian elder, is a reporter for the Baker City Herald in Baker City, OR.
========================================
You are currently subscribed to the PCUSANEWS
email list of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
To unsubscribe, send a blank message to
mailto:PCUSANEWS-unsubscribe-request@halak.pcusa.org.
To update your email address, send your old email address and your new one to mailto:PCUSANEWS-owner@halak.pcusa.org.
For questions or comments, send an email to mailto:PCUSANEWS-owner@halak.pcusa.org.
To learn more, visit http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) 100 Witherspoon Street Louisville, KY 40202 (888) 728-7228