GAC chair delays plan to appoint conference-planning-review task force Full council will address issues raised by Peacemaking speaker Gary Luhr Associate Director of Communication General Assembly Council Wednesday, November 15, 2000 LOUISVILLE – The chair of the General Assembly Council (GAC), Peter Pizor, of Las Vegas, NM, has delayed plans to appoint a task force to review GAC conference planning in the wake of controversy over a speech made during last summer's Presbyterian Peacemaking Conference. Pizor planned to name a task force by the end of the year to evaluate conference-planning procedures. That decision came after an outpouring of criticism of a keynote address at the Peacemaking Conference in Orange, CA, in which the Rev. Dirk Ficca, a Presbyterian minister from Chicago and executive director of the Parliament of World Religions, said that Jesus Christ might not be the only way to salvation. "I believe that moving ahead and establishing a task force at this time is not helpful," Pizor said in letter sent to council members on November 13. Instead, he said, during its Feb. 19-24 meeting in Louisville, the full council "will deal with the many issues and concerns" generated by Ficca's remarks. In the letter, Pizor said that many council members had expressed concern about appointing a task force, to him and to Detterick. "You have cautioned John and me to not get ahead of the process," he told the council. Pizor thanked the group "for your willingness to speak the truth in love," and asked its members to "continue to help guide us as we work through these difficult issues." The letter came less than a week after the GAC's Congregational Ministries Division Committee, meeting in Santa Fe, NM, adopted a statement affirming "trust and faith" in Presbyterian Church (USA) conference planning, and "the right of all invited conference speakers to voice their opinion in conference settings."

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