Minister calls for church
progressives to issue another 'Auburn Affirmation'
Downtown Church minister wants liberals to say,
'This isn't Presbyterian'
by Alexa Smith, PNS
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For related material .... |
 Web
site created on Auburn Affirmation
The recently established Silicon Valley chapter of the
Witherspoon Society has been busy, among other things discussing
the Auburn Affirmation of 1923 as a possible framework for
dealing responsibly with present tensions in the Presbyterian
Church.
The chapter's purposes in this effort are
described as:
 | To safeguard the unity and liberty of the
PCUSA |
| To faithfully raise questions about the
church enacting G6.0106b in the Book of Order |
| To express concern over persistent attempts
to divide the church and abridge its freedom |
| To recognize that our church is broad
enough to include people of differing interpretation of our
common standards who are nevertheless faithful followers of
Jesus and committed to working for the great ends of the
church |
The site provides helpful links to a variety
of background papers, the Affirmation itself, and more.
[3-6-01] |
David
Bos responds to criticism by the Rev. Ron Scates, on PresbyWeb,
that in urging a new "Auburn Affirmation," he has neglected
the document itself.
For the full correspondence, check
PresbyWeb. [2-24-01] |
| LATE
UPDATE: A group will gather in Baltimore over the weekend of
February 9-11, 2001, to consider a possible rewrite of the Auburn
Affirmation.
|
| Click
here for a comment from Semper Reformanda
|
| Deborah Milam Berkley, of 1st Presbyterian Church,
Bellevue, WA, has sent a note
asking for "evidence" to back up some of the
statements made by the Rev. David Bos in his sermon proposing a
conference to consider a new "Auburn Declaration."
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- September 19, 2000 -- A minister in Rochester, N.Y.,
has called for a convocation to reclaim the Presbyterian Church (USA)
"for the principles and the person, Jesus Christ, on which it was
founded."
Click
here to read David Bos' sermon on "Reclaiming the Church"
The gathering would be held in Auburn,
N.Y., the site of historic conference in the 1920s that rallied the
denomination's progressives against a fundamentalist faction that had
defined Presbyterian orthodoxy by five doctrinal tenets.
Click
here for the text of the Auburn Declaration
Another "Auburn Affirmation" is overdue, the
Rev. David Bos, interim pastor, told the members of the Downtown United
Presbyterian Church in Rochester.
The Affirmation, written in 1923, argued that the
Presbyterian church must "safeguard liberty of thought and teaching
among its ministers" -- and that the vows they take at ordination
do so sufficiently, without requiring subscription to other particular
doctrines.
The Auburn Affirmation adhered to the principles of
freedom of conscience, liberty of expression and freedom to disagree
within broad principles -- which runs counter to any attempt to use
selected statements as a test for ordination or other church service.
"It is time for another Affirmation such as
this," Bos said from the pulpit of the Downtown Church, which has
been in the midst of the fray for the ordination of gays and lesbians
for a decade, and came to national attention when it tried to call an
openly lesbian minister as its pastor.
"It is time to reclaim our church from those who
would hold it captive to a certain ecclesiastical and political agenda.
It is time to rescue the church from those who would impose an unseemly
uniformity upon it. It is time to restore the liberty that is our
rightful legacy of the Reformation. It is time to let the Holy Spirit
speak through the scriptures and through other means as well.
"One of those means," he said, "might
be a convocation to be held in Auburn, N.Y., following shortly upon the
General Assembly of 2001. I herewith propose and call for such a
convocation."
Bos told the Presbyterian News Service that he was
"unprepared" for the enthusiastic response his argument
provoked in the Downtown Church. He said other Presbyterians outside of
New York State are beginning to warm to the idea.
"A lot of people like the idea," Bos said,
"and I think that something will happen."
The Auburn Affirmation was written largely by James
Hastings Nichols, who was a professor of church history at Auburn
Theological Seminary, which was then located in the town of Auburn in
upstate New York, with the assistance of Henry Sloan Coffin of Madison
Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City.
The document was a reaction to a decision reached at
the 1923 General Assembly, which required the Presbytery of New York to
administer a doctrinal examination of Harry Emerson Fosdick, the
preacher at First Presbyterian Church, who had openly expressed doubts
about the five tenets of the faith espoused by fundamentalists within
the denomination, and approved by its General Assembly, in a now-famous
sermon titled: "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?"
The tenets were:
If Fosdick failed the exam, the presbytery was to
sever the ties between Fosdick and First Church.
It was then that the drafters of the Auburn
Affirmation met in Syracuse, arguing that deliverances of the General
Assembly are not binding because they are not part of the constitution
or the confession of faith.
The presbytery exonerated Fosdick and voted to license
two other pastors who had refused to affirm the virgin birth; and the
subsequent Assembly refused to discipline the signers of the Affirmation
or to impose the "five fundamentals" on all church employees.
It also told the presbytery that Fosdick could remain in his position at
First Church.
Within two years, the fundamentalists' position was
defeated, and within five years, the Assembly agreed that the unity of
the Presbyterian Church is based not in uniformity, but in "the
power of its faith to hold together diverse views and beliefs."
Bos doesn't mince words in drawing parallels between
the fundamentalists of Fosdick's day and today's conservative
Presbyterians who believe that the ordination of homosexuals runs so
counter to the faith that the denomination's constitution needed to be
altered to say so. The principle under dispute, he says, is forcing
additional requirements on church leaders beyond their ordination vows.
"The attempt of reactionary forces to use faith
in God as a means to advance their agenda appears in every
generation," Bos said in his sermon. "The last attempted
takeover before the one that we are at this moment trying to turn back
occurred in the 1920s. Then, as now, all the denominations, including
our own, faced well-funded reactionary forces that appeared within their
ranks and attempted to change the basic character of the denomination.
"Then, as now, there was an attempt made to purge
the church of those individuals -- especially those in positions of
leadership -- who did not conform to a narrow and unfounded view of what
it meant to be a follower of Jesus Christ and a member of the Christian
church."
This is not the first time that the Auburn Affirmation
has been trotted out by PC(USA) liberals in response to the theological
and political rifts that are polarizing factions within the
denomination.
On the 75th anniversary of the Auburn Affirmation,
Jan. 12, 1999, Auburn Theological Seminary President Barbara Wheeler
addressed the document's implications for the current political and
theological stand-off.
Wheeler began: "The Presbyterian Church has
adopted policies on ordination that a substantial minority of all
members and a majority of those represented here -- churches of New York
City Presbytery and staff, graduates and friends of Union and Auburn
seminaries -- think are wrong: not only misguided, but unfaithful to the
Gospel of Jesus Christ and therefore theologically false and damaging to
the mission of God in the contemporary world."
She said the dilemma facing holders of the minority
view is whether to openly defy the policies, which could lead to
disciplinary charges and removal from ministry, or, rather, to work to
change the policies or quietly subvert them.
She concluded that history teaches that liberals need
to "take the offensive" as a political strategy and to come to
the debate prepared. She noted that Nichols' statement had been written
a year before it was used. Wheeler said it is critical to "convince
the moderates," since the faction that wins the current debate will
be the one that comes to include the "middle" of the church.
Wheeler said finally: "The gospel has real power.
... As I've suggested, those of us who want change have to be
well-prepared, energetic, strategically clever and exemplary as our
predecessors at the beginning of this century, but finally it is the
truth, even more than our best efforts, that will set the Presbyterian
Church free."
Wheeler declined to comment on Bos' proposal.
Pam Byers of the Covenant Network said the board hasn't discussed the
proposal.
The co-moderator of More Light Presbyterians, Mitzi
Henderson, told the PNS that it is premature for the organization to
comment on Bos' idea, "other than to say that we are very much in
sympathy with the substance of the concern ... that the church has
departed from its Reformed roots and the broadness of its
ministry."
"Barbara (Wheeler) challenged us to do
something," Bos said, "and, in a way, I'm taking up that
challenge." He said he wants to bring about a reclamation of the
historic principles of the denomination, as the Auburn Affirmation did
-- standing up for freedom of conscience and liberty of expression, and,
as Bos says: "not adding onto the unadorned Gospel of Jesus Christ
for the sake of getting control of the church."
Like the writers of the Auburn document, Bos says,
today's church progressives must say, "This isn't
Presbyterian."
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