General Assembly Council chair delays plan to
appoint conference-planning-review task force
Full Council will address issues raised by
Peacemaking speaker
Congregational
Ministries Division objected to control over conference speakers.
by Gary Luhr, Presbyterian News Service
LOUISVILLE -- 14-November-2000 -- 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."
for earlier reports
