Word: presbyterian
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...Among U.S. Southern Presbyterians, a minor defection has exploded into a full-scale schism. At a meeting last week in Atlanta of representatives from 261 congregations, the delegates voted 349 to 16 to form a new denomination called the Continuing Presbyterian Church. The dissident congregations encompass some 70,000 of the 950,000 members in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. All 70,000 may not make the break, since local congregations must still approve the move, but feelings are strong among the seceders against what they see as liberal trends in the church...
When Eugene Carson Blake left the helm of the United Presbyterian Church in 1966 to become head of the World Council of Churches, he and his church were in the middle of the principal movements of the decade. His proposal to unite Protestants into a big new church had attracted ten denominations with 25 million members, his prospering Presbyterians had just fashioned an up-to-date creed, and their ample, well-financed bureaucracy was in the forefront of the social crusades...
...idea was typical of the ecumenical '60s: a well-meaning, religiously tolerant but bureaucratic concept imposed from the top. Yet for a decade, the Consultation on Church Union (COCU) seemed to be one of Protestantism's brightest liberal hopes. Proposed in 1960 by Presbyterian Eugene Carson Blake, it swiftly grew into an ambitious ecumenical plan embracing some 24 million Americans in nine Protestant denominations, who looked forward to a new streamlined and united Protestantism. The real troubles did not begin until 1970, when COCU actually proposed a detailed plan for union. Members soon began complaining about the prospect...
Pearl Buck, who died last week in Vermont at the age of 80, was well qualified to do just this. She was born Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker in Hillsboro, W. Va., in 1892. But her parents were Presbyterian missionaries, and the family soon went back to China. Her father believed that he had to mingle with the Chinese if he was to influence them toward Christianity; he wore Chinese dress and even grew a queue. Pearl was tutored by a Confucian scholar and spoke Chinese before she spoke English. All her playmates were Chinese, and she realized that she was "different...
...champion-in the sale of encyclopedias, a job he took on the side to keep from getting hungrier. Moving on to Newport News High, he led the team to a bona fide state basketball title and then in 1960 graduated to a $6,500 job at Davidson, a small Presbyterian college in North Carolina better known until then for its academic excellence...