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Highlights of the 178th General Assembly: Eugene Carson Blake says goodbye.
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- speaker[Eugene Carson Blake] It's rather impossible to answer such a resolution
- speakerand such statements adequately. I cannot
- speakerdo it. I did make a try about a month ago because I wanted
- speakerto support, as I have tried to do, the editor of
- speakerPresbyterian Life. And he asked me to write for him.
- speakerWhat I thought I was going to say to this is Assembly. I
- speakerdid. I met a deadline. He was good enough to print what I
- speakerwrote. You had it on Monday. And I certainly do not intend
- speakeron this time to repeat what I wrote, but I
- speakerhope maybe sometime you will look at it. I think maybe
- speakerwhat I would like to do, beside my expressing my gratitude
- speakerto you all, is to say something about administration.
- speakerIt's the last part really of what I wrote for, for
- speakerthis occasion and for Presbyterian Life. And, it has to do
- speakerwith my assumption about the kind of task Bill Thompson [Thompson, William P.]
- speakeris entering into. And may I say that I am
- speakervery gratified that a man for whom I have such deep respect
- speakerand such sure assurance that he will continue
- speakerto lead you in any good way that I have been trying
- speakerto exercise the influence of the office these years. And I should hope
- speakerthat you will support him and give him the kind of
- speakeropportunity that you have so generously given me over these years.
- speakerI should like to say that the greatest danger of organized Christianity,
- speakerof organized religion of any kind, is that we allow the
- speakerorganization to obstruct the goals, to defer
- speakerthe true ends of the Church of Jesus Christ, rather
- speakerthan to be the instrument to implement and reach them.
- speakerI confess I am a prejudiced Presbyterian, in that I believe we do have a
- speakerway to prevent this from happening ultimately in
- speakerour Presbyterian structure and our way of working.
- speakerI believe that God's Spirit does in fact make use of the structures
- speakerthat we have inherited from our fathers to try to find his will
- speakerand his way. It's not a very efficient way.
- speakerI believe we must modify and improve it and that
- speakerwe can. But I confess to a feeling for this assembly,
- speakernot unlike that which Winston Churchill felt for the House of Commons. And, I'm not trying to put
- speakermyself in that category of leadership.
- speakerBut I've learned to trust this house. I have dared to
- speakerbelieve that God would guide you, us, to good decisions.
- speakerThat my task,and the task of any Stated Clerk on this platform beside the moderator year
- speakerafter year, is essentially to protect the house from itself
- speakerand from the church establishment, by as careful as
- speakerpossible adherence to the rules of our high tradition.
- speakerAnd, I have a warning in this valedictory. Don't change
- speakerthe rules unless and until you understand them.
- speakerFifteen years ago perforce I had to study them. And my
- speakerexperience on the platform for fifteen successive assemblies now.
- speakerIs that this is assembly is one of the great institutions
- speakerof free men in a free church. If we
- speakerare willing to obey the rules, that God
- speakerwill bless the General Assembly. In conclusion,
- speakerI would like to add a word that goes very deep. I'd
- speakerlike you to think with me for a moment about what is success
- speakerin the church. I have believed and still do believe
- speakerthat, although we must work hard on programs,
- speakerthat although we must take seriously statistics.
- speakerAs Barbara Ward said last Friday, "Take a cold douche of
- speakerfacts." These are not the things that matter
- speakerultimately in the Church of Jesus Christ. It
- speakeris God's love in Jesus Christ reflected in us
- speakerand in our relationship to one another that is the only true measure
- speakerof Christian success or church success.
- speakerAnd I know no better way to conclude what I really would say to this assembly,
- speakerthan, if I may, to read to you a very familiar passage,
- speakerwhich has meant a deal to me for many years from the first Letter of
- speakerJohn. And each sentence, I think, says something that the Church of
- speakerJesus Christ needs to hear. [First John 4] Beloved,
- speakerdo not believe every spirit, but test the spirits.
- speakerTo see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone
- speakerout into the world. By this you know the Spirit
- speakerof God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ
- speakerhas come in the flesh is of God, and
- speakerevery spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God.
- speakerBeloved, let us love one another, for love is of God.
- speakerand he loved us is born of God and knows God.
- speakerHe who does not love does not know God healed
- speakerdoes not love does not know God; for God is
- speakerlove. In this the love of God was made manifest among us,
- speakerthat God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live
- speakerthrough him. In this is love, not that we loveg
- speakerGod, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be
- speakerthe expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God
- speakerso loved us, we also ought to love one another. No man has ever
- speakerseen God; if we love one another, God
- speakerabides in us and his love is perfected in us.
- speakerThere is no fear in love, but perfect love
- speakercasts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment,
- speakerand he who fears is not perfected in love. We
- speakerlove, because he first loved us. If
- speakeranyone says. "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar;
- speakerfor he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love
- speakerGod whom he has not seen. This commandment we have
- speakerfrom him, that he who loves God should love his
- speakerbrother also. Thank you.
- speaker[applause]
