254 - A Student Looks at COCU

A Student Looks at COCU
By David C. Myler

HAVING been the United Presbyterian Student Observer to the Dayton meeting of the Consultation on Church Union, I find myself reflecting on the experience with two conflicting analyses. Certainly it was a fascinating experience for one from the Reformed tradition to rub notebooks with such an array of ecclesiastical élite, including more bishops than I expect to see again until the parousia, if then.

This report is prepared by a student observer, appointed for The United Presbyterian Church, of the Consultation on Church Union (COCU), held at Dayton, Ohio, March 25-28, 1968. The following churches are now associated with the Consultation: African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion, Christian (Disciples), Christian Methodist Episcopal, Episcopal, Evangelical United Brethren, Methodist, Presbyterian U. S., United Church of Christ, United Presbyterian Church U. S. A. David Myler is a graduate of Bucknell University and a senior at Princeton Theological Seminary where he served as President of the Student Council. He plans to take advanced clinical training at the Presbyterian Medical Center, Philadelphia, Pa.

255 - A Student Looks at COCU

And, too, I recognize that much of significance took place within the historical context of the Consultation. The decision to write a Plan of Union, the increased budget for a permanent staff, and the full participation of the black churches for the first time do not leave me unimpressed. And I would be remiss if I were to ignore the importance of the decision to add a delegate under thirty years of age to each delegation. However, I still am left with another, conflicting, analysis of the Consultation which weighs even more heavily on my sensitive student soul than these significant steps.

The conflict occurs because I am in the theological student's "bag" and carry within that bag much questioning baggage. I observe COCU and ask if organic union of the church is the need for our day. How do we form a uniting and united church when we may not know what the church is? How do we talk so easily about the church when we may not know where the church is? What radically new form must the church take if it is to identify itself with a sick society? What are the new forms of ministry necessary to deal with the crises confronting us from every direction? These are my questions, and they force me to evaluate COCU in a broader context within which I must raise some serious issues.

If we take the Consultation at its word that it seeks a united and uniting church which is more than a "Super Church" and truly is prepared to minister to contemporary society, then I wonder how the delegates to the Consultation are in a position to do so. Delegates who have such a vested interest in the status quo of the institutional church seem in a dubious position to have visions for radically new possibilities for the church. To observe that those who must find these new visions are also the ones who compose the administrative heart of present institutional forms is to have an impression of serious limitation in perspective.

This limitation in perspective may be seen in the Consultation's commendable desire, which it clearly has stated, to discover and allow for new forms of ministry. However, the juxtaposition of this goal with the decision that the forms of ministry for the united church will be Bishops, Elders, and Deacons raises an ecclesiastical credibility gap.

Such developments raise the whole issue of whether the Consultation is dealing with political decisions based upon what the respective constituencies will swallow or whether the decisions are formed by

256 - A Student Looks at COCU

the demands of our day within a theological perspective. The absence of theological scholars and the deliberations on the historic episcopate show a trend toward the former. While it is assumed by the Consultation that the united church will include the historic episcopate, there is little agreement on how it will get there. Unfortunately the solutions offered for this problem, whether the mutual laying-on of hands or the gesture to permit God alone to decide what has happened, speak more to the demands of individual constituencies than to the need for a radically new understanding of church for our time. At best, this kind of deliberation elicits only a "ho-hum" response from this student.

The really critical issue for the Consultation from my perspective has to do with this seeming lack of theological perspective. I have the impression that the Consultation seeks to have resurrection and reconciliation without death. But there is no resurrection without death, and I saw very little willingness at Dayton for the old to die in order that a newly resurrected church might emerge. So much effort is spent on preserving past tradition that little energy is left to seek a church which could be more than just a little less out of date.

While I do not wish to discount the importance of these deliberations for the delegates to COCU, I also recognize that I am faced, as a theological student, with the decision whether my life energies are to be spent working for change within the institutional church or whether change is to occur more likely by committing myself in other directions. I found Dr. D. T. Niles' remarks to the Consultation particularly timely in this regard. He commented that change has occurred within the church when there have been those few men in history who have been willing to say "No" to the church. It is hardly possible to characterize COCU as willing to say "No" to the institutional church. However, as for me and my house of psychic energy, we are inclined to join the "No Church," to join those whose lives may have to be spent in saying "No" to COCU.