wfn.org | GAC chair delays plan to appoint conference-planning-review task

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Note #6266 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

force
14-November-2000
00408

General Assembly Council chair delays plan to appoint
conference-planning-review task force

Full Council will address issues raised by Peacemaking speaker

by Gary Luhr

LOUISVILLE -- The chair of the General Assembly Council (GAC), Peter Pizor,
of Las Vegas, NM, has delayed plans to appoint a task force to review GAC
conference planning in the wake of controversy over a speech made during
last summer's Presbyterian Peacemaking Conference.

	Pizor planned to name a task force by the end of the year to evaluate
conference-planning procedures. That decision came after an outpouring of
criticism of a keynote address at the Peacemaking Conference in Orange, CA,
in which the Rev. Dirk Ficca, a Presbyterian minister from Chicago and
executive director of the Parliament of World Religions, said that Jesus
Christ might not be the only way to salvation.

	"I believe that moving ahead and establishing a task force at this time is
not helpful," Pizor said in letter sent to GAC members on November 13.
Instead, he said, during its Feb. 19-24 meeting in Louisville, the full
Council "will deal with the many issues and concerns" generated by Ficca's
remarks.

	In the letter, Pizor said that many GAC members had expressed concern about
appointing a task force, to him and to Detterick.

	"You have cautioned John and me to not get ahead of the process," he told
the council.

	Pizor thanked the group "for your willingness to speak the truth in love,"
and asked its members to "continue to help guide us as we work through these
difficult issues."

	The letter came less than a week after the GAC's Congregational Ministries
Division Committee, meeting in Santa Fe, NM, adopted a statement affirming
"trust and faith" in Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) conference planning, and
"the right of all invited conference speakers to voice their opinion in
conference settings."

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