 Bohl assails renewal groups By Mark Tooley Institute on Religion and Democracy Volume 33, Number 6 Posted November 22, 2000 NEW YORK – Robert Bohl, 1994-95 moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA), unleashed a torrent of vitriol against renewal groups – especially the Presbyterian Lay Committee – during a speech on Oct. 19 to a conference in New York.
Besides the Lay Committee, his targets were a number of independent organizations that work separately and together through publications, prayer, mission support, evangelism, youth ministry, advocacy for the unborn and other activities on behalf of Biblical and confessional standards in the denomination. Renewal groups a ‘threat’ Bohl, former co-moderator of the Covenant Network and pastor of Village Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village, Kan., spoke at a conference at Union Theological Seminary in New York that spotlighted the “threat” posed to mainline Christianity and “fundamental democratic freedoms” by the renewal groups. Other speakers at the conference included a United Methodist Women’s Division executive, the head of the Democratic Party-supported Interfaith Alliance, and the president of Union Seminary. A co-sponsor of the event was the Institute for Democracy Studies (IDS), a fairly new liberal group that seems to specialize in investigations of vast right-wing religious conspiracies. IDS has recently published a book, A Moment to Decide, which chronicles the allegedly ominous rise of renewal groups within the PCUSA. Bohl raised money for publishing the IDS book, which has been widely criticized as a lengthy diatribe against evangelicals rather than credible research. He signed copies of the book at the 2000 General Assembly. ‘Control and power’ Perhaps the most enraged among the speakers, Bohl opened by saying, “I’m damned mad and here’s why!” Referring to leaders for renewal within his own denomination, he exclaimed, “I wish they would go away!” He claimed that renewal leaders are not, as they profess, really concerned about Biblical authority but about “control and power.” Bohl alleged that the issue of Biblical authority has been employed historically to justify slavery, denial of civil rights, and opposition to the ordination of women. “Damn them! They will not go away!” he again complained about conservatives and their program for “theological cleansing.” Bohl predicted that the “extreme Right” will continue to exploit the Bible and abuse human reason in its quest for power. “They rebuke civility as irrelevant,” Bohl said of renewal leaders. He portrayed the pro-homosexuality Covenant Network that he helped to found as an effort to create dialogue between the opposing camps within the PCUSA. But he predicted that dialogue with the “Religious Right” won’t go anywhere. Bohl claimed that he regularly receives hate mail from Presbyterian conservatives, one of whom supposedly told Bohl that he regularly prays for Bohl’s death. “I’m accused of being evil and of being an agent of Satan,” Bohl said. Bohl has used that charge before, but he has never identified the source of the alleged threats. Doesn’t want name used Bohl says he now advises ministerial candidates not to use his name as a reference because conservative churches will be prone to reject them because of it. The “extremism,” “absolutism,” and “insidious malignancy” of the extreme Right “will eat away at those of us who are its victims,” Bohl claimed. “But we can’t sit by quietly and hope it doesn’t happen to us,” he implored. “I wish to hell I weren’t here!” he said, but added that “duty” has compelled him to speak out against the “threats” against his idea of how the PCUSA should be run. “I long for the long dark night [for our church] to be over,” he said. “But I have no intention of giving in.” Employing more temperate language, Bohl then explained that the church needs liberals to create new ways of thinking and conservatives to ask where God can be found. “We don’t all have to be the same,” he said. “God alone is the judge and Lord of the conscience.” Bohl’s statement about the conscience quoted only part of the constitutional wording – which also requires that the consciences of officers making decisions in the PCUSA be “captive to the Word of God.” Reverting to more apocalyptic language, Bohl pointed to a “chasm” within the church between the “extremists on the Right” and “the rest of us.” He predicted the “Religious Right” in the PCUSA “will exhaust every ounce of energy and every dollar to take us over.” He lamented that conservatives are more determined, better organized, and “more adept at destroying the enemy.” Bohl specifically deplored the 1997 passage of a constitutional amendment that called for fidelity in marriage or chastity in singleness for PCUSA officials. He called it “bad theology” and emblematic of conservative inroads. He also lambasted the latest effort to prohibit same-sex unions as a further attempt to “micromanage the church.” And he predicted it “will destroy our participatory democracy.” With disdain and sarcasm, Bohl recalled a meeting he had, as the de-nomination’s moderator, with the board of the Presbyterian Lay Committee. It began as a “lovely evening” at a resort. But he claimed he quickly realized that Lay Committee leaders “wanted to tell me what to do.” Then they “attacked the church.” ‘I wanted a martini’ “They offered me wine, but I wanted a martini,” Bohl remembered with a smile. “I was outnumbered.” Judging that the Lay Committee had no interest in reconciliation, he “got out on the first flight out of there.” “They want to drive us out,” Bohl warned. But he pledged: “I won’t roll over and play dead.” Bohl told the crowd at Union Seminary that groups like theirs were needed all over the country to counteract growing conservative influences in the mainline churches.
Robert L. Howard of Wichita, Kan., chairman of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, recalled the meeting with Bohl in 1994 quite differently. Howard, who is chairman and senior partner of the largest law firm in Kansas and an elder at Eastminster Presbyterian Church, said. “I am sad for Rev. Bohl and our church that he would use such language to pass judgment on our ministry and other renewal ministries of our brothers and sisters who are lifting up Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and the historic, Reformed faith. “Mr. Bohl misjudges the control issue. It is not about which faction holds office, but about whether the church is obedient to its call as defined by Scripture and the church’s confessions.” Howard comments further on Bohl’s allegations in his column "In defense of my friends." |
|||||
| Respond
to this article |
|||||
| Home
· News
· PLC
Publications ·
The
Presbyterian Layman Online Reviews · Archives · History of the Lay Committee · Feedback · Links |
|||||
