Advisory Council on Church's Teaching Reports on Theological Issues
Diocesan Press Service. July 17, 1969 [77-23]
NEW YORK, N. Y. -- The creation of a national Advisory Council on the Church's Teaching and the development of a series of studies on current theological issues were among recommendations made today to the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church.
The report, prepared by a 13-member task group appointed by the Rt. Rev. John E. Hines last May to study the theological process in the contemporary Church, also proposed regional ecumenical assemblies of clergy and laity which would be held throughout the country to strengthen the "internal dialogue" of the Church.
The proposals will be presented to the Special General Convention of the Episcopal Church to be held at the University of Notre Dame this summer from August 31 to September 5.
The task group making the recommendations included six lay persons, Mrs. Seaton Bailey, Mr. Dupuy Bateman, Mr. John Goodbody, Prof. Charles Lawrence, Dr. Clifford Morehouse and Mr. Thomas H. Wright, Jr.
Two members, the Very Rev. Thom W. Blair, of St. Louis, Mo. , and the Rev. Dr. John Krumm, of New York City, are parish priests. Three are teachers of theology, Prof. John Macquarrie of Union Theological Seminary, Dr. Charles Price of Harvard University and Prof. Paul M. Van Buren of Temple University.
The Rt. Rev. Albert Stuart, Bishop of Georgia, and the Rt. Rev. Stephen Bayne also were members of the task group.
The report to the Presiding Bishop summarized the recommendations as "aimed at something much more fundamental than the patching of rents in our corporate life or the plastering of cracks in traditional structures and statements. "
"The processes of theological exploration, teaching, learning and dialogue in our Church," the report said, "are not adequate to the requirements of our history. Theological confusion and uncertainty are luxuries which a mission-centered Church cannot and should not afford. "
The report emphasized that the purpose of theological study is not "merely to provide intellectual respectability for social activism. " It said:
"The being of the Christian community itself, the existence of the Body, is a principal form of its obedience to mission. And the reflection on mystery, which is the theological process, includes the mystery of God's ways with His Church as well as with the world. "
The three recommendations, the report said, are made with the hope that a "new and bracing and responsible process can be established" which will enable Church people "to talk together more freely, to understand one another, to see more clearly what our response must be to the living God, to gain new and deeper insights, together, into the mystery of our existence and of God's love, and to strengthen our corporate participation in the desperate fight of our society to be true to its vocation under God."
Resolutions establishing a 25-member Advisory Council on the Church's teaching and calling for the implementation of the other recommendations of the report will be jointly sponsored by the Presiding Bishop and the Rev. John Coburn, President of the House of Deputies.
If adopted by the Bishops and Deputies at Notre Dame the proposed Council would begin its work immediately.