Religion: Presbyterian Program

John Calvin, born 450 years ago this year, would have been surprised at some of the subjects considered last week by his spiritual offspring. The lyist General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. wound up its seven-day meeting in Indianapolis, and by the time the last of the nearly 1,000 commissioners (delegates) went home, it was clear that the Presbyterians had covered a lot of ground. Items: ¶ In two separate resolutions the Assembly took note of the vexed question of recognizing Communist China and admitting it to the U.N., which roiled U.S. Protestant waters when the Fifth World Order Study Conference, meeting in Cleveland last fall, came out flatfooted in favor of both recognition and admittance. The Presbyterians were careful to tread more softly. A resolution drafted by the Committee on Social Education and Action noted that “immediate recognition of [Red China] may not be feasible,” but commended the Fifth World Order Study Conference for “dealing courageously and honestly with vital issues that may be controversial.” The Assembly’s second resolution on the subject was reported by the Standing Committee on Bills and

Overtures. Key sentence was a cautiously worded expression of “Christian concern that the day may soon come when our Government, in concert with other free nations, may enter with honor into normal relations with the government of the Chinese people.”

¶ On the subject of birth control, the Presbyterians passed a resolution stating that the “sexual life” of a Christian marriage is “given by God for the benefit of his children, and is neither an ethically neutral aspect of human existence nor an evil which needs to be justified by something else, as, for example, by the procreation of children.” The proper use of “medically approved contraceptives may contribute to the spiritual, emotional and economic welfare of the family.” ¶ On the subject of race relations the Assembly cautioned United Presbyterians against supporting or tolerating assaults on the “God-given and Constitutionally guaranteed rights of all citizens, under the mistaken notion that they are merely defending a racial arrangement they happen to prefer.” (When an Indianapolis club in which a Negro delegate was billeted refused to honor his reservation, the 60 other delegates with rooms there promptly moved out.)

On the first ballot, the Assembly elected the Rev. Dr. Arthur L. Miller as Moderator of the United Presbyterians for the next year. Greying, articulate Dr. Miller, 59, son of an Indiana farmer, and a graduate of Chicago’s McCormick Theological Seminary, is pastor of Denver’s Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church (membership: 4,300). The church’s greatest problem, Moderator Miller told reporters, is reconciliation. “With racial antagonisms, with divorce, juvenile delinquency, and the frantic pace of life these days, the church has a ministry of reconciliation to help people understand each other.”