Sunday, June 14, 1998

Presbyterians present new catechism

By LORETTA FULTON / Abilene REproter-News

Nowhere is the growing trend of openness among mainstream Christian churches toward people of other faiths more evident than in a proposed new catechism to be presented to Presbyterians next week.

The Study Catechism makes such statements as "How God will deal with those who do not know or follow Christ, but who follow another tradition, we cannot finally say."

Janice Six, director of Christian education at First Central Presbyterian Church, has just one word for the new expressions of inclusiveness: "Amen!"

"I'm not about to limit God's ability to have mercy on any he would have mercy on," Six said.

Leaders of the national Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are hopeful that others share Six's view when the body convenes today through June 20 in Charlotte, N.C.

The Special Committee to Write a New Presbyterian Catechism will present two proposed catechisms to the 210th General Assembly of the church. The First Catechism is primarily a resource for children, while the proposed Study Catechism is for use in confirmation classes.

The General Assembly will be asked to review the texts for possible inclusion in the church's authoritative <I>The Book of Confessions.<I>

A field study of the catechisms, primarily the one for children, has had good response, said Dr. Laura Lewis, associate professor of Christian education at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and a member of the committee that wrote the new catechisms.

"In general we've had pretty positive results," she said, "but that's not the whole church."

After nearly four years of work, Lewis said the committee's prayer is that the General Assembly will recommend sending the documents to the denomination's 11,000 churches for study and future acceptance.

"We recommend they send them to the church for use," Lewis said.

While many Christians believe that professing faith in Jesus Christ as lord and savior is the only way to reach heaven, the new catechism asks tough questions that are in many people's minds: "Will all human beings be saved?" "Is Christianity the only true religion?" "How will God deal with the followers of other religions?"

"We see dimly," is Six's answer. "Those are questions people really have in their minds," she said, and often the church has no concrete answers.

The proposed catechism acknowledges that no one knows how God will deal with persons of other faiths.

"We can say, however, that God is gracious and merciful, and that God will not deal with people in any other way than we see in Jesus Christ, who came as the savior of the world," the catechism states.

It further states that, "No one will be saved except by grace alone. And no judge could possibly be more gracious than our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ."

The Rev. Jim Pitts, pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church, said the proposed catechism reflects a trend in modern theological thinking, as opposed to the sometimes controversial historical idea of "limited atonement," that only those who profess Jesus Christ as savior would be "saved."

"More and more, people in the Reformed faith are adopting a view of the redemptive act of Christ on behalf of all," Pitts said, "so God's grace is offered and is not limited to only a few."

"Limited atonement" grew out of the Reformation and its leaders' "desire to tie up everything very neatly so that we could understand the world," Pitts said.

As a part of the Reformed tradition, the Presbyterian church was founded on the teachings of 16th century French theologian John Calvin. His Reformation thinking was that "In the sovereignty of God, those whom God chooses, God extends grace," Pitts said. "That was the Calvinist view of God's action, and it's a view that has had an impact on many, not just Presbyterians."

But the proposed catechism shifts gears and emphasizes the belief that Jesus died for all people, according to the Rev. George Hunsinger of Princeton Theological Seminary and one of the drafters of the proposed catechisms.

"This way it makes everyone elect, and everyone judged by Christ," Hunsinger told Religion News Service. "You don't have to give up hope for anyone, not even for yourself."

The proposed Presbyterian catechism is very much in line with the 1992 catechism adopted by the Roman Catholic Church, the church's first in 400 years.

That catechism, based on the teachings of the Second Vatican Council which met from 1962-65, "addresses these precise issues," said the Most Rev. Michael D. Pfeifer, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of San Angelo.

Pfeifer, like Pitts, believes that "We are offered the fullness of the truth through Jesus Christ" but that truth isn't limited to professing Christians. That truth is available "whether people fully profess it or not," Pfeifer said.

Pitts agreed that whether people profess Christianity or not, it is by God's grace through Jesus Christ that salvation is made possible to all.

"Salvation is available to all who will respond to this grace that Christ offered," Pitts said. "All of us who find a new quality of life that is redemptive do so by the act of Jesus Christ and the will of Jesus Christ."

Pitts noted that such "big guns of the Old Testament" as Abraham and Moses had no cognizance of Christ "but very few would automatically discount Abraham and Moses as being in the kingdom of God."

But, Pitts said, as St. Paul argued, "it is Christ who saves them" as well as us.

And, whether people today profess Christ as redeemer or not, "Christ is the redemptive agent of God in the salvation of humankind," Pitts said.

Ultimately, the mystery of faith is just that. As the proposed Presbyterian catechism states "we cannot finally say" who will be "saved" and who won't.

"It's one of those things we don't know -- it's part of the mystery of God," Pitts said.

But will the layperson in the pew agree with that thinking and accept the more inclusive views of the proposed catechism?

Although he doesn't have an answer, Pitts does have an observation: "It's always been a part of the Presbyterian church that thinking is allowed."