Religion: Bishops & Presbyters

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Most nubile of U. S. churches is the Presbyterian. According to a recent survey, most churchgoers, if they had to merge, would pick the Presbyterians. Some reasons for this popularity: Presbyterianism stands midway between the episcopal and the congregational systems of church government; its form of worship is simple; its Calvinist doctrines have progressively broadened.

Year and a half ago the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. was glad-eyed by the Protestant Episcopal Church, which officially avowed its desire "to achieve organic union." Last spring, the Presbyterian Church murmured its "yes," and commissions set about drawing up a marriage agreement (TIME, June 6). For purposes of discussion, an agreement was published last autumn. By last week, when a Presbyterian-Episcopal conference was held in Buffalo, the wooing had reached such a pitch that Editor Stewart MacMaster Robinson of The Presbyterian declared: "Ecclesiastical love-making must not make us forget the unsaved world. . . ."

The marriage settlement laid before the Buffalo meeting consisted of a "Proposed Statement" and a "Proposed Concordat." The Proposed Statement included nine "Things Believed in Common"—including the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper—by the two churches, so broadly drawn that none but theological nigglers could object to them. The Concordat raised a more ticklish question. Its chief provision was for a "commissioning" of ministers of either church, to administer the sacraments to members of either.

Contrary to general belief, Presbyterians and Episcopalians hold the same beliefs about ordination and the apostolic succession of the ministry (from the original Apostles). Presbyterians simply believe that their ministers are the same as bishops, since they are ordained by presbyteries acting in an episcopal capacity. Not all Episcopalians, however, believe that the Presbyterians' apostolic succession is valid—just as Roman Catholics deny the Episcopal validity. At present, a Presbyterian minister wishing to enter the Episcopal priesthood must be reordained. And last week many a Presbyterian suspected that the proposed "commissioning" service, which would involve the laying on of hands, might constitute a surreptitious form of reordination.

Serene, courtly President Henry Sloane Coffin of Manhattan's Union Theological Seminary said in Buffalo that he hoped that Episcopalians "really mean business" in planning the union. Said he: "We Presbyterians mean it. We will wait, because we have Scotch caution. . . . [But] if we asked for reordination at our general assembly, we would have a revolt on our hands. . . . We Presbyterians have no question of the validity of our ministry."