Reunion for Protestants?

As the congregation made its way out of San Francisco's Episcopal Grace Cathedral, the editor of the Christian Century remarked to a friend: "You could go to church for a decade--maybe for this century--and not see a service as unique and as important as this one."

The packed service they had just attended was all that Editor Harold Fey said it was: two leading churchmen had proposed seriously that U.S. Protestants begin at once to unite in a single church. Church unity is something both clergymen and laymen have been talking about for years, but this was the most direct and concrete proposal yet. The man who made it was a rugged, dimpled Presbyterian liberal--Eugene Carson Blake.

Pulling & Hauling. As Stated Clerk (executive head) of the United Presbyterian Church of the U.S.A. and onetime president (1954-57) of the National Council of Churches, Dr. Blake was in San Francisco for the National Council's fifth triennial general assembly. He had been invited by California's Episcopal Bishop James A. Pike to be guest preacher at the pulpit of Grace Cathedral. When he sat down to think out his sermon about six weeks ago, it turned into a preachment that may well be a landmark in Protestant history.

"Led, I pray, by the Holy Spirit," he began, "I propose to the Protestant Episcopal Church that it, together with the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, invite the Methodist Church and the United Church of Christ to form with us a plan of church union . . . Any other Churches which find that they can accept both the principles and plan would also be warmly invited to unite with us." The religious issue in the recent presidential election, suggested Blake, showed that the time is not only ripe but overripe. "Americans more than ever see the churches of Jesus Christ as competing social groups pulling and hauling, propagandizing and pressuring for their own organizational advantages."

Apostolic & Elective. A plan of reunion, said Presbyterian Blake, must include elements to satisfy both the reformed and the catholic (not Roman Catholic) traditions. To be acceptable to catholics (such as the Episcopalians), who set great store by the belief that their bishops have been consecrated in an unbroken line from the Apostles, Blake would have the new church consecrate all its bishops and presbyters both in the apostolic succession (by other bishops) and out of it according to the procedure (by election) of the non-catholic churches. The catholic tradition would also require that there be a formal confession of belief in the Trinity and the administration of the two sacraments instituted by Christ--holy communion and baptism.

"If the catholic must insist on taking the sacraments more seriously than some protestants have sometimes done," said Blake, "so protestants in the reunited Church must insist on catholics fully accepting the Reformation principle that God has revealed and can reveal Himself and His will more and more fully through the Holy Scriptures."

Cape & Cassock. The new church must be democratic, Blake continued, with a government in which laymen share equally with ministers; it must be capable of containing a diversity of theological formulations and ways of worship. And it must be wary of pomp and circumstance. "Since it appears to be necessary to have certain inequalities in status in the church ... let us make certain that the more status a member or minister has the more simple be his dress and attitude ... A simple cassock is generally a better Christian garb for the highest member of the clergy than cape and miter." (Blake himself wears a stiff clerical collar, which is permissible but unusual for Presbyterian ministers, and a cassock.)

When Presbyterian Blake had finished his long sermon, Bishop Pike (who had foreknowledge of what his Presbyterian friend would say) stepped forward in his white and blue vestments to add his amen to Blake's proposal: "I can say that his prophetic proclamation is the most sound and inspiring proposal for the unity of the church in this country which has ever been made in its history."

Hope & Specifics. If Dr. Blake's plan could be translated into practice, the new church would have 17,800,000 members (see box), approximately equaling the Baptists. According to the best estimates, it would take a minimum of ten years to put the plan into effect. This seemed still a bit hasty to Episcopal Layman Charles P. Taft (younger brother of the late Senator Robert A.), who plumped for a slower, looser merger. And Bishop Gerald Kennedy of Los Angeles, president of the Methodist Council of Bishops, thought the Blake proposal vague and old hat.

But the scent of unity was heavy in the air, and all week long Protestant leaders were lining up behind the Blake-Pike lead. Presiding Bishop Arthur Carl Lichtenberger of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the Rev. Dr. James I. McCord, president of Princeton Theological Seminary, and Methodist Bishop John Wesley Lord endorsed the general principles of the proposal. Newly elected President Joseph Irwin Miller (see below) told newsmen: "Perhaps it's the most important church meeting of the century."

Getting the Blake proposal off the ground against the gravity of 500 years of Protestant fissiparousness would be something else again. Possible first step: appointment of a committee by the general assembly of the United Presbyterian Church next May to draft a more specific plan for later consideration.

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