The Fear of Renewal
Seminary Event Blasts Mainline Reform Groups
by Mark Tooley
An October 19, 2000 conference at Union Theological Seminary in New York City spotlighted the “threat” posed to “mainline Christianity” and “fundamental democratic freedoms” by conservative renewal groups within mainline churches.
Speakers included a former moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a United Methodist Women’s Division executive, the head of the Interfaith Alliance, and the president of Union Seminary. A cosponsor of the event was the Institute for Democracy Studies (IDS), a fairly new leftist 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 Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Hate Mail & Dark Nights
Perhaps the most enraged among the speakers was former Presbyterian Moderator Robert Bohl, who 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 Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). 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. 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 despaired. “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 added, but duty compelled him to speak out against the threats arrayed against the church he loves.
Mark Tooley directs the United Methodist committee of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (www.ird-renew.org) in Washington, D.C.
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