Tidings

> A showdown between Theological Hard-Liner Jacob A.O. Preus, president of the 2,900,000-member Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and more liberal Lutherans in the denomination has long been expected to occur at the national synod convention in New Orleans this July. Since he was elected president in 1969, Preus has been fighting the "historical-critical" approach to the Bible that casts doubt, he says, on the literal accuracy of such biblical tales as Adam and Eve and Jonah and the Whale. Less literal Lutherans have hoped to defeat Preus by nominating a popular moderate candidate, Oswald C.J. Hoffmann, the stem-winding radio preacher of The Lutheran Hour. But these hopes were threatened when it turned out that denomination bylaws require all presidential candidates to swear in advance that they will accept the office if elected. Hoffmann recently announced that such a vow would violate Lutheran theology of "the call" to a vocation. He insists that he must be free to decide after the election. His name may still be put up in July anyway, but Hoffmann told TIME last week: "I'm not a nominee and that's it."

> The idea was typical of the ecumenical '60s: a well-meaning, religiously tolerant but bureaucratic concept imposed from the top. Yet for a decade, the Consultation on Church Union (COCU) seemed to be one of Protestantism's brightest liberal hopes. Proposed in 1960 by Presbyterian Eugene Carson Blake, it swiftly grew into an ambitious ecumenical plan embracing some 24 million Americans in nine Protestant denominations, who looked forward to a new streamlined and united Protestantism. The real troubles did not begin until 1970, when COCU actually proposed a detailed plan for union. Members soon began complaining about the prospect of superparishes that might gobble up individual congregations and pointing out the proposed church's top-heavy administrative structure. Last year United Church of Christ executives issued a report sharply criticizing the whole merger design, and Eugene Carson Blake's own United Presbyterians, in a surprise vote, pulled out of the talks altogether. Then, this month, delegates at a national COCU meeting in Memphis withdrew the merger plan entirely. As an alternative, they discussed a more low-key approach based on practical cooperation among local congregations--sharing the same churches, for example, and experimenting with common services.

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