RINGING THE BELL ON THE PRESBYTERIAN RIGHT
by Gene TeSelle, President of the Witherspoon Society
[published here sometime in 2000]
The report of the Institute for Democracy Studies on the conservative
campaign in the PC(USA) is to be welcomed, for a number of reasons.
1. The report emphasizes that the strategy of conservative groups, and
especially the Presbyterian Lay Committee (which has been active for more than
thirty years now), is not to leave the church, not to split it, but to take it
over.
This is an important point. Despite the attacks of right-wing writers on the
so-called "mainline" denominations and their gleeful comments that the
mainline has been "sidelined," they still want to be inside those
churches--and in a position to control their policies and their actions.
Why? Because the mainline denominations are still an important basis of
legitimation in our society. Conservatives seem intensely frustrated that the
major religious voices--those denominations that have the longest history in the
U.S. and have been linked with the dominant WASP culture--consistently take
positions on social issues that can only be characterized as
"progressive" or "liberal," for the simple reason that these positions are better
informed, more generous in spirit, in sum, more moral.
The mainline churches, then, remain an important sector of society.
The conservatives' short-term strategy is to discredit them; this strategy
has been at work since the Sixties, when the churches' not uncritical
responsiveness first to civil rights, then to the counter culture, and finally
to Vietnam enraged many in the Establishment. But their long-term strategy is to
take over the mainline churches and make them the mouthpiece of a socially,
economically, and politically conservative agenda.
2. The Institute for Democracy Studies sees that the issue is too important
to be left inside the churches alone. Its press release was intentionally issued
to the media, including major newspapers. The report includes a careful
investigation of the political backgrounds and linkages of key players like J.
Howard Pew and Clarke Reed, indicating that the agenda of the Presbyterian Right
is political and not merely theological, with remarkable continuities going back to the 1930s.
Of course the conservative coalition makes the same accusation about a
"political agenda" when it criticizes "liberal" or
"progressive" tendencies in the church.
Is it, then, a matter of "Tweedle Dum" versus "Tweedle
Dee," merely a conflict of preferences or prejudices, which no one in the
churches or in society at large is obliged to evaluate? I am glad that the issue
has been posed in this way, raising questions about both the conservative and
the progressive tendencies in the churches.
When we are dealing with social and economic and political issues, it finally
comes down to the question raised in the old labor song, "Which side are
you on?" For whom are we being advocates? What would be the consequences of
a particular course of action? Whose well-being would be affected? When we put
it this way, the political program of right-wing religion becomes quite clear.
3. Evangelicals and moderates in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have much
to learn from the IDS report. Many of them have expressed misgivings about the
Lay Committee and other conservative organizations, sometimes over tactical
issues of "style," sometimes over what they perceive to be an unloving
attitude toward opponents, and sometimes over the extreme positions they take on
specific social and political questions. The IDS report confirms their
misgivings, showing that a long-term political agenda has indeed been at work.
When it is claimed that a policy is in accordance with Scripture or the
confessions, Christian freedom or Christian love--and especially when it is
claimed that this is the only policy that right-thinking Christians can
follow--we need to ask what else is involved, whose interests might be served,
and what the rewards might be.
The Presbyterian Lay Committee makes no pretense at being a representative
body. It has no members. Its board of directors is self-perpetuating. It refuses
to disclose its sources of income. It has repeatedly refused any relationship of
accountability to the General Assembly of the PC(USA), using the excuse that
this would involve some kind of unilateral compulsion by or submission to the
General Assembly. Instead of mutual accountability it wants maximum freedom of
action to attack persons and agencies in the church, and when it is criticized
it invokes the freedom of the press. This attitude has raised questions in the
minds of many evangelicals and moderates, for good reason.
4. Finally, we should note the tactics being used by the Religious Right,
which are often the same as those used by the right wing of the Republican
Party.
One is to keep up a drumfire of criticism against agencies of the church and
the persons who bear responsibilities in them. The purpose is to keep them off
balance, encourage them to engage in self-censorship, create situations in which
compromise seems to be the most satisfactory resolution, but never ease the
criticism and remove them from their positions whenever it is possible. Ruthless
tactics like these work in the church as well as in the state, probably because
people dislike conflict and eventually become convinced that the criticism must
have some basis somewhere.
Another tactic is scapegoating. Wedge issues like "radical
feminism" or "the homosexual agenda" are used to divide groups
from each other and create fear that leading agencies of the General Assembly
have been taken over by "alien ideologies." Whenever people have
anxiety about the body social or their own place within it, they are vulnerable
to suggestions that it is in danger of corruption by sickness from within or
alien forces from without.
Events suggest, however, that scapegoating tactics will backfire. In recent
years the conservatives in the PC(USA) have attacked so many constituencies in
the church--gays and lesbians, women, racial minorities, ethnic groups--that
they have begun to lose credibility with them and are in fact driving them to
collaborate with each other. A movement which has been animated from its
beginning by a quest for power and advantage is poorly adapted to a situation
which is becoming increasingly diverse and pluralistic and accustomed to
participatory decision making.
Over the long term, then, its chances do not seem especially
promising--unless we should be headed into a more repressive mood in church and
society. But for the time being we must continue to unmask its propaganda and be
prepared for further struggles.
