 Book Reviews A Moment to Decide: The Crisis Lewis C. Daly Reviewed by Stephen D. Crocco Princeton Theological Seminary March/April 2001 |
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The focus of the groups’ efforts is to overturn the “socially enlightened vision, policies, and programming” of the PC(USA) and other mainline denominations. By attacking these values and the notions of religious freedom and constitutional democracy that undergird them, the renewal organizations have plunged the PC(USA), mainline denominations generally, and indeed America itself, into a crisis. A Moment to Decide sounds the alarm! Readers are assured that A Moment to Decide “does not seek to present the motives of the various groups” and that the book “represents the organizations and individuals mentioned in a fair and nuanced manner.” However, these words stand in stark contrast to page after page of simplistic representations, incendiary rhetoric, sledgehammer subtlety, conspiracy theories, and guilt by association. Readers are told that J. Howard Pew gave generously to the Presbyterian Lay Committee, that Pew supported a college that hired an economics professor who was a former Luftwaffe pilot, that Pew happened to be a friend to the founder of the John Birch Society, and so forth. Daly makes a passing reference to Young Life and describes it as “a conservative evangelical network aimed at recruiting high school students.” When Daly describes the activities of renewal groups, here and elsewhere, I often thought of claims by Soviet officials in the 1960s that the Boy Scouts of America was a paramilitary organization. A Moment to Decide gratuitously assumes that commitments to an abstract concept of the freedom of conscience and liberal social witness policies have defined the PC(USA) for most of the twentieth century and are at the heart of the denomination and its contribution to American life today. Any person or group not in agreement with this vision and also, seemingly, with the full acceptance of feminism and homosexuality, is branded “right wing” and cast as part of a conspiracy to take over the PC(USA) and undercut the American way of life. To associate the renewal movements with the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist denomination is another clever, but finally unconvincing, move. The obvious difference is that renewal groups in the PC(USA) and most of their members are not fundamentalists. They believe in the ordination of women, they care about the poor and oppressed, and most are members of churches whose pastors are graduates of PC(USA) seminaries. It is a great irony that A Moment to Decide treats the renewal organizations in exactly the same ways Daly accuses renewal leaders of treating his allies in the PC(USA) and other organizations. Daly needs to consider whether the Covenant Network, The Witherspoon Society, COCU and the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice should be treated in the same way this book treats the renewal movements. Clearly the answer is No. Is it possible that A Moment to Decide is a misguided “payback” for decades of supposed yellow journalism by the Presbyterian Lay Committee? The complete absence of an evenhanded critique vitiates the contributions A Moment to Decide could or should have made. Daly’s thesis is arguable, the implications are important and the research that is done is impressive. A better book can be written, minus conspiracy theories, logical fallacies and so forth. There are dozens of people, all sympathetic with Daly’s research, who could have produced a serious, useful and fair book. One can only assume that this report was rushed into print because of the urgency of the issues. If so, the plan backfired. A Moment to Decide was stillborn, and the credibility of the Institute for Democracy Studies lies in ruins. Stephen D. Crocco is James Lenox Librarian at Princeton Theological Seminary. The review was originally published in The Princeton Seminary Bulletin. This abridged version is reprinted by permission. |
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