Word: confessionals
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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"We have been informed that military personnel and employees of defense industries have been advised that adoption of the subject Confession will jeopardize the security clearance of members of the Presbyterian Church.
What happened was this. The Presbyterian Church in May completed a nine-year process of revising its confessional standards. Under the American equivalent of the Scottish Barrier Act (which guards against hasty ecclesiastical legislation by requiring that changes in church law be approved by a General Assembly, then be sent down to the presbyterians for their approval, and finally be approved by the next annual General Assembly), what is called "The Confession of 1967" was presented to the General Assembly meeting in Boston in May, 1966. It included a phrase that urged the pursuit of peace, "even at risk...
In the year following the first approval, several church officers who were in military service asked military legal officers if subscription to the new Confession would affect their security clearances. Some officers, it is reported, ruled that this could create problems for military personnel.
Other individuals and some congregations made similar inquiries at the Department of Defense in Washington. Some of them were opposed to the entire Confession and were using the security argument to develop support for their position; others were for the Confession but opposed to this statement; others felt torn in...
In April of 1967 Mr. Thomas D. Morris, Assistant Secretary of Defense, sent the following memorandum on the "Proposed Presbyterian Confession of 1967" to the Secretaries of the Military Departments: