Supporting Ficca

The Rev. Donald Smith, a member of the staff of the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii, sent this open letter to John Detterick, Executive Director of the General Assembly Council. In it he supports not simply Ficca's right to say what he said, but also the content of his address on interfaith dialogue.

Check out a more recent comment following discussion by GAC in February, 2001.

December 8, 2000

From

Rev. Donald L. Smith
Synod of Southern California and Hawaii
1501 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90017

John Detterick
Executive Director, General Assembly Council
100 Witherspoon Street
Louisville, KY 40202-1396

Subject: Ficca Peacemaking Address

Dear John:

I write you as a friend and colleague in the denomination we both care deeply about. Count me as one of many who attended the 2000 Peacemaking Conference at Chapman University and found tremendous value in the theme address by the Rev. Dirk Ficca. As leader of one of the discussion groups following that presentation, I can testify that he made a substantial positive impact on those in my group. One woman pastor from Iowa confessed to me privately at the end of the session that followed Ficca's address, her eyes brimming with tears, that perhaps she could remain a Presbyterian after all.

I have been increasingly dismayed by the escalation of the controversy this address has spawned in our denomination as I have seen us fall into a pattern that appears all too sad and familiar. I have the text of the address as well as the audio tape and have returned repeatedly to give it closer scrutiny as this debate has progressed. It appears to me now that I need to speak up. Regrettably, I believe some in our church seem to have found a useful "weapon" in this address to further a rather narrow and exclusionary agenda. Unfortunate remarks you reportedly made on October 31, 2000 before the Presbyterian Coalition characterizing this address as "out of bounds" were a great disappointment to me. I honestly do not believe they have served us well.

Prior to the recent creation of the General Assembly Committee on Ecumenical Relations, I represented the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii on the Synod Section of the Advisory Committee on Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations for five years. You know me best as the staff to the Stewardship and Mission Rally in this synod. I am also currently President of the Southern California Ecumenical Council, Chair of the Theology and Ecumenical Relations Committee in the Presbytery of the Pacific and a board member for the Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights here in California. In addition, I serve as a Parish Associate for United University Church on the campus of the University of Southern California - a union congregation of United Methodist and PCUSA partners. My history of ecumenical and interfaith work spans the last twenty years, particularly as I have worked in refugee resettlement and immigration ministries in close association with Church World Service.

With the passage of time, I am more and more convinced that Dirk Ficca delivered an important and difficult message that our church needs to hear for the challenging times in which we live. I don't refer to the "What's the big deal about Jesus?" remark lifted out of context in some articles written by persons who never actually heard him speak. More central to the message was Ficca's controversial observation that persons of other faiths often experience sincere Christian evangelism to be a kind of religious "ethnic cleansing." This is actually a far more challenging assertion which, I submit, we need to examine thoughtfully, with humility and prayer.

This is especially true in a denomination that holds "evangelism" as a primary goal and measures the value of programs by how well they fulfill that goal. As you and Cliff Kirkpatrick travel around the country, lifting up ways in which our times resemble those in which the early church found itself, do we forget the Christian history that followed? Indeed, there were numerous times when devout Christians did practice religious "ethnic cleansing." Even John Calvin, in the "justice" he meted out to Servetus in Geneva, left himself open to charges of that kind of intolerance. The people of other faiths we increasingly encounter today may be much more aware of that history than that of the first century Church. Some may well have strong reasons to distrust our Gospel.

In light of Ficca's observation, it is urgent that we give attention to issues of the meaning of "pluralism" and "dialogue." After hosting a conference in 1999 which explored the person of Jesus under the theme "Who Do You Say That I Am?," the Peacemaking Conference in 2000 did an exemplary job of exploring these issues in depth. One of the most eloquent contributions in this regard came from Dirk Ficca as he spoke out of his deep and many-faceted experiences of interaction with other faiths in his capacity as Executive Director of the Parliament of World Religions.

As he discussed the differing lenses through which we view "truth," (i.e., relativist exclusivist, inclusivist, reductionist, culturalist, humanist, synchronist, pluralist and particularist) many in the audience developed new understanding for approaches they had not previously considered. How many had even previously imagined how to open dialogue about faith issues with persons of other faiths? Starting from a Christian "particularist" perspective, Ficca helped the audience to envision how that might take shape with integrity and respect on both sides. The alternatives of the "instrumental" vs. the "revelatory" streams for interpretation of Scripture, of Jesus Christ, and of salvation were especially illustrative of ways in which the door is opened or closed to genuine and meaningful dialogue with persons of other faiths.

Not too many years ago we used to see bumper stickers that read "God said it. I believe it. That settles it!" Nothing could be further from the spirit of genuine "dialogue" than that. Many in the PCUSA, however, are faulting Dirk Ficca and the planners of the Peacemaking Conference today because what Dirk said does not embrace that kind of approach to truth. By contrast, The Office of Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in its publication Handbook for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations states, "Dialogue respects the other. It therefore has no prior motives or imposed goals brought by one side to require of the other. It is based upon mutuality, even mutuality in witness." (p. 25 "Guidelines for Interfaith Dialogue and Relationships")

What I think would better serve our denomination than what we are seeing today is a return to a more balanced, responsible and tolerant discussion of these issues and the persons who have in good faith tried to advance our understanding of them. They should be applauded for rising to a difficult challenge in a thoughtful, creative and entirely responsible way -- not maligned and abused. I trust that when General Assembly Council meets in February, we will see more of that model of leadership from you.

Respectfully,

Rev. Donald L. Smith
Director for Regional Ministries