A well known newspaper in one of our Southern cities last week was reporting the lightning and thunderstorm of the preceding evening. After enumerating the number of trees blown down and the power lines knocked out, the story concluded with these words: “Violent lightning flashes that heralded last night’s thunderstorm kept television either mangled or blacked-out between 10:00 p.m. and 10:03 p.m. The program that suffered the interference was ‘The Weather Man’.” Yes, there is something rather comical and incongruous in that, which makes everyone smile.

And in the violent social and political storms of our time, the rumbling thunder of contrary opinions and the lightning flashes of super-charged emotions, the great danger is that the program most liable to be mangled or blacked out is the program that is best able to issue the necessary warnings or to proclaim the authentic tidings of hope to a storm plagued world — the program of the Church of Jesus Christ.

Or, to change the figure a bit, whenever the gales of public opinion mount to hurricane intensity and the storm signals are run up, there are those who insist that the only rightful place for the ship that is the church is at anchor in a safe harbor, when actually the church is the one trustworthy and competent coastguard cutter which can accomplish the necessary rescues, but only if she puts out to sea and steers a straight course into the very teeth of the gale.

Presbyterians this week can be proud that at the General Assembly of their church last week in Montreat, N.C., the program and voice of the church was not mangled or blacked out by the storm, neither was the ship anchored in the harbor, despite the fact that local newspapers in Richmond gave very poor coverage.

In the tense and super-charged atmosphere of gathering storm clouds, the highest court of our church with calmness and devotion to her Lord, faced squarely and realistically the threatening perils and made decisions in the light of her Lord’s scriptural injunctions. Our Assembly’s actions are now before the church to influence her program, to point up her ideals. Whatever we may think of those decisions and actions, whether we agree or disagree, we shall all have to admit they are not the results of heeding the counsels of fear, nor an effort to silence the testimony of the church, nor to find for the church a safe and comfortable refuge.

In my judgment there were three points of paramount concern where our church took courageous Christian Action: World Missions, segregation, and church union.

The world mission of the church, as everybody knows, has of late run on hard times. Wars in the Far East have devastated the buildings of her schools, churches and hospitals. The spread of communism has closed, in many countries, all doors to missionary activity. A gradual lag in interest and decrease in dollar support for world missions has progressively plagued the church at home.

Two years ago, the General Assembly of our church appointed an Ad Interim Committee to study the World Missions obligation and strategy of our church. This committee, after intensive study, submitted its lengthy report to the General Assembly in Montreat last week.

The report included a reaffirmation of the church’s commission in obedience to her Lord’s command to carry the gospel to every man regardless of color, class, country, or contemporary difficulty. It confirmed the church’s confidence in her valiant foreign legion and issued a challenge to more of the choice young men and women of our church to offer their lives in this service. It called to a wealthy, comfortable, and even complacent church in America to consider, in the light of the gospel, the spiritual needs of despairing men and women and children without Christ the world over, and make sacrifices for His sake, that these might be brought into Christ’s glorious Kingdom.

In specific recommendations, the Ad Interim Committee’s report on World Missions urged that since time is running out for opportunity to preach and teach the gospel in many lands, haste be made in dispatching as many missionaries as possible right now, that Negro missionaries be sent to Latin America and the Far East, that churches in mission lands be made self-supporting and self-propagating as rapidly as possible, that control of mission schools, hospitals, and institutions be passed to national Christians by the missions as soon as feasible, that closer and more harmonious cooperation with other Christian missionaries in the field be encouraged in order that the spread of the Kingdom may advance with all possible speed, for time is of the essence.

Dr. John Sutherland Bonnell, renowned minister of New York’s Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, in the pre-Assembly conference on evangelism, remarked on the almost universal fear that fills the hearts of men in our time, born of the feeling that we are living in an apocalyptic era, that the end of our age is close at hand. Scientists, military experts, statesmen, poets and philosophers are voicing their suspicion and conviction that time is running out on our Western culture — that over us broods the phantom of communist revolution and atom-hydrogen bomb destruction, that the curtain is about to be rung down on our world.

But even in such a time, we Christians know that it is not the forces of history, nor even the destructive powers of man’s scientific skill which determine the time schedule. The Lord God Omnipotent still reigneth. And as Dr. Bonnell puts it: “God will come down from heaven like a night watchman rattling his keys and saying: ‘Gentlemen it’s closing time.’ Yes, the time factor is in God’s hands. When closing time comes, He will call it.

And such being the case, while time lasts, the chief business of the church is carrying out Christ’s parting words to His disciples in terms of the great commission: “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”

The second matter of pressing importance on which this General Assembly took courageous action was segregation. Here again is a question on which sincere Christians disagree. Due to its highly controversial nature some have thought it best for the church to remain silent on this issue. But your General Assembly, following the principle that the church in fulfilling her spiritual ministry as the proclaimer of God’s word and will for men, and in assuming her role of God’s body of reconciliation wherein men find their differences resolved through the spirit of Christ, took the position that the church should lead rather than follow the secular order.

Consideration of the report of the Division of Christian Relations, in which the church’s relation to segregation was discussed, was kept on a high plane. Dr. Donald Miller, learned professor of Union Theological Seminary here in Richmond, pointed out early in the discussions that if we Presbyterians are true to our heritage and tradition we have but one place to go for our final authority when we seek to reconcile our differences of opinion in faith and practice: to the scriptures. Then in his clear and convincing manner, Dr. Miller traced through the scriptures of the Old and New Testament this thread of revelation that “the only division scripture knows between men is between saint and sinner, between believer and unbeliever,” and that the church is ordained of God to be that fellowship of the redeemed which will bear witness to the restored unity of mankind by a common faith and life in Christ.

Therefore, your General Assembly voted by a count of 232 to 169 “to affirm that enforced segregation of the races is discrimination out of harmony with Christian theology and ethics and that the church, in its relationship to cultural patterns, should lead rather than follow.”

Now, what does that mean in our church, in local churches, in institutions such as colleges and orphanages and old people’s homes of our denomination? Does it mean that the door of segregation is henceforth battered down? We must remember the nature of our Protestant-Presbyterian heritage and manner of procedure. “The General Assembly in such matters does not direct … but does properly urge the adoption of these changes and practices in the church.” The actions of the Assembly, therefore, are declarative, exhortatory, urging sessions of churches, Presbyteries, boards of trustees, to consider these matters decided in the Assembly and take their own appropriate actions. Our Protestant procedure is to advise, but never to bind the consciences of men.

Two personal experiences at the Assembly threw for me some light on this challenge that confronts our church. The first day at Montreat, in Howerton Hall’s cafeteria, I asked the young Negro boy who was clearing the dirty dishes from the table who he was and where he went to school. Politely he answered me. I discovered that he went to our Negro College, Stillman Institute, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. “Are you a Presbyterian, Joe?” I asked. “No, sir,” he said, “but the Presbyterian church in Crowley, Louisiana, my hometown, gave me a scholarship to Stillman.”

On Sunday morning at breakfast, I sat next to a regal looking Negro minister from Texas. In our conversation it came out that his oldest son, who has his Ph.D. degree, had just gone as an educational missionary to Pakistan — all because Dave Currie laid his hand on him at a crucial stage in his life, when the boy was rebellious against certain clear injustices in our social order, and drew that young man into the youth fellowship program of our church. Since the historic action of our Assembly took place on the preceding day, I asked my colleague in the Presbyterian ministry what effect he thought the Assembly’s action would have on his people. He replied something like this: “This action will create a spiritual atmosphere of understanding and confidence in which our Negro and white leaders can work out our knotty problems of education for both races in the South under the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the unconstitutionality of segregation. In the mind and spirit of Christ we can work together.”

The third item of paramount importance on which our General Assembly took decisive action was the proposed Union of our Presbyterian Church in the United States, with the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. and the United Presbyterian Church. A word of historical explanation is in order. The denomination to which we belong is the Presbyterian Church in the United States — a body which was separated from the National Presbyterian Church, or the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., during the great conflict which split our nation over the question of slavery and resulted in the war between the states. Our church has maintained its separate existence ever since, although the issue which caused the division was settled about ninety years ago! Since that time we have remained a sectional church confined to a geographical area comprising 17 states in the Southeastern part of the United States, stretching southward from Virginia to Florida, and westward to Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.

The U.S.A. Presbyterian Church is national in extent, having churches in practically all the 48 states including many churches within the territory served by our church. The United Presbyterians are another sectional denomination having churches in the northern half of our nation. All three of these separate church bodies have the same set of doctrine and form of church government. Committees from each church have been working for years on a Plan of Union which would be compatible with the theological views and accepted practices of each church body. Interestingly enough, it was our own denomination which invited the two other church bodies to begin the studies looking forward to Union. Finally the Plan was ready and each church agreed that when the General Assemblies of the three churches met this May, a vote would be taken on “the categorical question” of Union which would be sent down to the Presbyteries for “advice and consent”.

The Presbyterians, U.S.A., met first and by a unanimous vote approved the Plan of Union and sent it down to their Presbyteries. The United Presbyterians next in their General Assembly voted 204 to 3 in favor of the Plan of Union. The General Assembly of our church meeting last of all voted in favor of the Plan of Union by 282 to 169, and so referred the Plan to the Presbyteries for “advice and consent”.

Though there were sharp disagreements on this issue among the commissioners of your General Assembly, the long five-hour debate was conducted on a high level of courtesy and respect for the oppositions’ sincerity. The arguments pro and con were principally these:

1. The opponents of Union argued that, though there appeared to be little doctrinal difference between the three churches, actually more theological looseness was tolerated in the U.S.A. Presbyterian Church than in the United States and United Presbyterian church. This was answered by the friends of Union who testified to personal experience of finding purity of doctrine, devotion to Christ, and loyalty to His truth among their brethren in the U.S.A. Church.
2. Again, the opponents of Union argued that our church of 750,000 would be swallowed up in the larger U.S.A. church of 2.5 million members. The Reverend A.L. Currie of Nashville, former minister at Richmond’s Second Church, humorously reminded the Assembly in the debate, as he spoke in favor of Union, that it was not until Jonah was swallowed up that he was willing to go as a witness to the unbelieving world. Dr. John R. Richardson of Atlanta, in rebuttal, observed that it was only after Jonah was spewed out, subsequent to being swallowed up, that he witnessed.
3. Some opposition to Union stemmed from antipathy to any trend toward centralization. An enlarged church would inevitably become a church of centralized power. On the other hand, those favoring Union pointed out that the Plan now before Presbyteries makes provisions for Regional Synods which can be constituted and so hold closer to grass roots church control.
4. Still another argument urged against Union at this time was: “Whether Union of the churches is right and good or not, this particular plan is not. I will vote ‘no’ for it is not the best possible plan.” To this, the proponents of Union replied that this Plan has been studied by the boards and agencies of all three churches and that these bodies have written their evaluation of it which included such statements as: “We find more agreement in our programs than we knew.” “There is nothing insuperable in the proposed Plan.” “It is thoroughly Presbyterian.” “The Plan would make for more efficient and economical operation.”
5. Still another point of view against Union was expressed: “Our church has a special witness to the world which is best made as a separate denomination. Our church is more aggressive in its missionary activity and more generous in its benevolent giving.” In answer to this, the backers of Union say that the supreme need in World Missions now is that Protestant Christianity should present a united front against the contrary forces of sin, paganism, and communism. A spiritual unity, joining all mankind, is our only hope before the threats of militant communism and the destructive forces advanced science has placed in the hands of unregenerate human nature. The revelation of the scriptures is that the saving spiritual unity God has ordained for uniting His divided children is in Jesus Christ, through His body which is the church. A dividing, quibbling church is not competent for the task, nor can it ever be a fit instrument for the redemptive and reconciling purposes of God.

The General Assembly of the Church has declared itself for Union on the Plan sent to the Presbyteries for advice and consent. Now it is for individual Presbyterians to inform themselves on the Plan, its advantages and disadvantages. The Presbyteries will vote shortly after January 1, 1955.

Whatever you think about General Assemblies, you are going to have one here in Richmond. The next one is on you. East Hanover Presbytery voted at its spring meeting to invite the General Assembly to come to Richmond for the 1955 Assembly in order to help celebrate the 200th anniversary of the founding of Hanover Presbytery, the mother of Presbyterianism in the southern part of the United States. Then East Hanover placed upon her commissioners the responsibility of extending this invitation to the Assembly, John Hardin Marion being designated the principal inviter.

We ran into opposition. Another suitor there turned out to be. Mecklenburg Presbytery, celebrating the 200th anniversary of some local churches in that section of North Carolina, sent Warner Hall, minister of Charlotte’s great Covenant Church, to ask the Assembly to come to Mecklenburg and meet in the beautiful new cathedralesque Covenant Church. The more to impress the commissioners, printed pamphlets in three colors were passed out with the slogan, “Charlotte wants the 1955 Assembly.”

The Richmond delegation was stumped. We had no pamphlets, no new cathedral, and no planned pageant to boast, but with the oratorical gifts of Dr. Jack Marion presenting our invitation with wit and charm, and the persuasive seconding speeches of Eldon Wilson and Dr. Marshall Dendy, the Assembly voted by the astonishingly close margin of 187 to 189 to come to Richmond. Now we will all have to go to work to make that one a memorable Assembly.

 

PASTORAL PRAYER

O Thou who are beyond our sight, above our thoughts, infinite, eternal, unchangeable — who can and dost touch to life and burning light these cold hearts of ours: we give Thee thanks for this day of Pentecost, this anniversary of the birth of Thy church. We thank Thee that Thou didst send Thy spirit with power upon Thy faithful people of old who all with one accord were in one place for worship and the glory of Thy name. We thank Thee that it was not by man’s might nor by his wisdom, but by Thy Spirit that the church was fashioned. We thank Thee that men of many races and languages and nations, understanding life from the frame of reference of many strange cultures, suddenly by the gift of Thy Spirit knew and understood each other as new men in Christ within the bond of His fellowship.

Help us, O Living Lord, to know Thy Pentecost as a present possession. Help us to see our impoverishment as due to our refusals to Thy Spirit: that we are unloved because we have not loved all in the Spirit; that we are lonely because we have excluded our brothers in Christ; that we are weak and broken by our burdens because we have trusted in our own strength alone and have not waited in humble submission for Thy spirit to come upon us with power; that we are anxious and discouraged because we have labored for those things which are not our Lord’s concern; that we do not understand one another because such diverse spirits of self-interest and pride and greed rule in our hearts.

Come upon us with cleansing power, O Spirit of the Living God.

“Wean us from earth, through all our pulses move.”

“Take from our souls the strain and stress,

And let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of Thy peace.

Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;

Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,

O still small voice of calm.”

• Scripture Reference: Ephesians 4:1-16 • Secondary Scripture References: n/a • Subject : State of the Church; Church Union; Race Relations; 662 • Special Topic: Report on the General Assembly • Series: n/a • Occasion: Report on the General Assembly • First Preached: 6/8/1954 • Last Preached: 6/24/1954 • Rating: 3 • Book/Author References: n/a