You are here
Price H. Gwynn III interviewed by Carol Lytch, June 1998, side 1.
Primary tabs
Download
- speakerGwynn in a College St reet Cafe in Charlotte North Carolina.
- speakerJune 15th 1998 Carol Lytch conducting the interview.
- speakerPrice let me ask first about what was going on in the church and in the world in the year when you were running for Moderator.
- speakerWhat goes around comes around. The same things were going on in the church that are going on today
- speakerin different committee groups under different report headings. In my
- speakeryear we had the Human Sexuality report. That's reinvented itself. It's now ordination of
- speakerhomosexuals. We had abortion. That's still with us. At
- speakerleast some of the things we've resolved. There was an attempt to restructure the Board of Pensions. And, I think it's been pretty well put to bed.
- speakerIn the world the big event was the Gulf War. Bush was president.
- speakerIn fact I was in Cyprus attempting to get to Jerusalem when the war broke out.
- speakerHad an invitation from the Bishop of Jerusalem, but never was able to get there.
- speakerI finally found a man who had a boat, who said he would take me,
- speakerbut wouldn't promise to come pick me up, but I didn't want a one way ticket. That's right and the General Assembly doesn't want to lose it's Moderator either. But I hadn't thought about that. Right.
- speakerThat was the world at the time.
- speakerAs you were feeling that this was the time for
- speakeryou to offer your leadership to the church and you thought of the issues
- speakercoming before the church at that time. Was there a particular issue? No, I... You give me too much credit, I never did give that any consideration, I never dreamed about running for Moderator. Well, tell about that?Was
- speakerthere a particular issue... You give me too much credit. I never dreamed about running for moderator.
- speakerWe'll tell about that what led up to that.
- speakerA lot of candidates that year. I had planned to retire the first day of January 1990. And so I went to
- speakermy Minister in December and said that I went to a General Assembly
- speakerin 1960 30 years ago, P.C.U.S. Jacksonville Florida.
- speakerHad not been since. I'm going to retire at the end of this year. Is there such a
- speakerthing as put your name in the pot to go to GA? He said, "Well I'm not real sure, but I'll find out."
- speakerSo a couple of weeks later leaving church shaking hands he said. "For whatever it's worth,
- speakeryou're in the pot." And that's just as a commissioner? As a commissioner. Right. And I said. Great.
- speakerThanks. That was in like November of 89.
- speakerThen in December of 89 I got the official notification that the presbytery had
- speakermet, and I had been elected as a commissioner and was delighted with that prospect. The Assembly was to be held in Salt Lake. A magnificent city.
- speakerThen a couple of weeks later. My pastor and another pastor called, and ask for some time in my office. And you know, when two preachers want to see you, it's
- speakerusually a fundraiseing project. But I agreed to see them of course.
- speakerAnd they came and they stumbled and fooled around, and hemed and hawed around. And. Finally I said hey
- speakerguys you know. We didn't come to talk basketball all those sorts of things. So, what brings you here?
- speakerAnd they said. Well, we would like you to consider a
- speakerposition of responsibility in this coming Assembly. Well, having been to one,
- speakerI knew that there were Committees and they had chairs and vice chairs. And, I assumed that they were referring
- speakerto one of those spots. And, I said, "Guys, that would be marvelous. It would force me to do
- speakersome studying and become more adept and better informed in some particular aspect of
- speakerthe church's work. I would welcome that." And they said, "Well, that's
- speakernot exactly what we had in mind." And I said. "Well, what did you guys have in mind?" And, they said, "
- speakerWe would like for you to stand for moderator." Well
- speakerI paused a long minute. And said. What are you guys been smoking?
- speakerAnd I said where in the world did that idea come from? They said, "Well, you don't have a chance to be elected.
- speakerYou're too old. At that time they will as
- speakermoderator. And the 200. Is up to. It.
- speakerThey said you're a southerner which is all right but it's. A little bit.
- speakerOf a strike against. You're a businessman. So it's OK to be an elder, but you've got to be a
- speakerdoctor, or a college professor, or a professional. Like enbusinessm. They went down to the litany of reasons. And then I said, "Why
- speakerrun? I don't I don't get the picture." And they said, "For one reason only.
- speakerWe feel like the church needs options. Humm. Needs an opportunity to say
- speakerwell we've got an array. And if all two or three
- speakercandidates are cookiecutter. You know Xerox copies
- speakerof each other. The church feels a little bit cheated. And they said.
- speakerYou would offer an
- speakeroption.
- speakerAnd they said, "We feel like it would be a service to the church." And I agreed to do it.
- speakerSo in many ways. But the idea never occurred to me. You didn't know anything about church
- speakerpolitics. You weren't invested in any particular issues.
- speakerI never visited the New York office or the Louisville Office or the Atlanta Office. Had never been
- speakeron any committee at the G.A. level. I've never visited one. Right. Knew
- speakerabsolutely nothing beyond the session. And the presbytery.
- speakerAnd one of the things that impressed me, I was a commissioner that year you were the moderator.
- speakerWell I had forgotten that. Well I don't expect you to remember all 600 of us. I only remember the ones that voted for me, Carol.
- speakerThat was true and.
- speakerYour pastor said that you were someone who very carefully prepared,
- speakerBible studies when you were invited to do that.
- speakerDoes that ring a bell? Do you remember that? That you were so prepared? Well, he probably referred to the fact that I had been a Sunday School teacher for twenty years. That you took care.
- speakerAs someone who prepared lessons. I think there was a sense that you
- speakerwere like people. You were like the best of our church members, who would
- speakercarefully and thoughtfully spend the time
- speakerto study the scriptures and teach. And would see that as value. Well, I appreciate that comment.
- speakerDo you think that people voted for you because you were kind of this regular person
- speakerin the church and not, and not, identified
- speakerwith them. Oh that's hard to know.
- speakerAssemblies are difficult to dissect. The year that Ben Weir [Weir, Benjamin M.] ran. They were going to vote for Ben Weir. He had survived that
- speakerterrible ordeal. And if I had run that year, I would have been way down the list somewhere. The year Joan Salmon, or Campbell. In
- speakerthat year prior to me won, I think she was marked.
- speakerThat it was the second year in a row that she had stood for moderator, and people
- speakermade up their mind that her time have come. And as a consequence whoever ran
- speakeragainst her was an alsoran. Jimmie Johnson, for instance, was in that group.
- speakerSo. It's hard to know exactly why, what the dynamics are. Let me ask about the G.A. meeting itself. What was the G.A. meeting like that year?
- speakerI suppose every moderator feels that there's a certain amount of tension and tumult. What
- speakerwere the flash points that year? Well the flash points were the coming report on human
- speakersexuality and the usual ones in the church. I was talking to yesterday Clint
- speakerMarsh [Marsh, Clinton M.].
- speakerYou know he was moderator in seventy-six. And he said you
- speakerknow so much time has passed that a
- speakerrelatively recent moderator said to me there was nothing happened back in 76. Clinton said, "No, nothing happened
- speakerbut Angela Davis." Now You know if you join a church at the
- speakerlast 15 years that name doesn't mean a thing to you. You got to be an old timer to understand waht a
- speakermajor. Very major rhubarb that was. Right.
- speakerSo I don't claim that there was any great overhanging.
- speakerBut at the time it was very tense about human sexuality and relationships
- speakerwith the Board of Pensions. Was there a name for that General Assembly, as
- speakeryou think back? In terms of a nickname? Not that I recall.
- speakerNew work. You were a commissioner. No, I
- speakerknow I can't think of that one particular I think of it as Board of Pensions in many ways.
- speakerBut that was of course John Detterick [Detterick, John J.] has done just a marvelous job. He has. He came not long after that.
- speakerWe owe him a great debt of gratitude and. I'm delighted that he's moving over as executive
- speakerdirector of the General Assembly Council.
- speakerTo. As you think about moderating that year
- speakeraren't there. I mean the meeting itself. Are there any stories?
- speakerAny learnings you had as you moderated that meeting that we should hang on
- speakerto as a church?
- speakerYou mean with deep theological significance, overwhelming importance, and
- speakerfar reaching significance. You were far more significant than you realize. I'll tell you.
- speakerAnd you know this person. One of the first people I came to
- speakerreally appreciate was Beth Williams. Yes. Tell us about Beth Williams.
- speakerWell she was a T.S.A.D. [Theological Student Advisory Delegate] from Princeton [Princeton Theological Seminary]. And was assigned to me
- speakeras general helper, whatever is needed.
- speakerThe first time I used her was right after the election.
- speakerI turned to her and said, "I've got a sister and brother in
- speakerlaw who are missionaries in India. Would you get them word of this election?" Well,
- speakerI was, you know, so excited. They weren't in India at all. They were in Pakistan.
- speakerAnd, you said, "India." I sad, "India." I didn't give her the name. She
- speakerdisappeared and came back to her desk ,which was on the platform, behind the
- speakerpodium
- speakerin about 30 or 45 minutes and just gave me the thumbs up signal. And I knew she'd gotten the
- speakermessage through. I thought, Gee whiz, she is bright.
- speakerSo.
- speakerSo and Beth tells a wonderful story about
- speakerhow she was supposed to come in before you for
- speakerevery meeting that took place around the General Assembly. You were, as the moderator, to
- speakervisit the Foundation dinner and the Board of Pensions meetings and every
- speakercaucus and all of the seminaries. Most of them had dinners
- speakerAnd all of those seven of those.
- speakerAnd you had to be in about seven places. One night. In a single night.
- speakerAnd, Beth was supposed to run in, in advance. And what was the phrase, she was supposed to
- speakersay? I've forgotten exactly.
- speakerLadies and gentlemen, the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church or words to that effect. Of course is is a signal for
- speakerall to rise.
- speakerBut I'm finish the story. Finish the story she told. She walked into a meeting of some Roman Catholic clergy
- speakerin Salt Lake City. And she was just
- speakerabout to say, "Ladies and gentlemen, the Moderator."
- speakerAnd, for some reason, she was pre-empted in that. Someone caught her attention and
- speakershe realized she was in the wrong meeting. But that was how frantic that
- speakerexperience was too. The moderator had to be there
- speakerfor five minutes and somewhere else for seven minutes and got a nibble at
- speakerdinner at another meeting or maybe not at all. In the car. For eating. a McDonald's hamburger.
- speakerSo that was interesting because we had all these places to go because
- speakerSalt Lake was a strange city to both of us. So they gave us a driver.
- speakerA very competent driver who was driving a Saab 9000, which was a high speed sportscar and still is. And He ah... T
- speakerhis is not a story of any great significance. But he was violating the speed
- speakerlimit by. Two or three times. You remember that Salt Lake had wide streets.
- speakerAnd all the blocks were a tenth of a mile, ten blocks to
- speakera Mile.Everything was laid out in geometric fashion
- speakerand
- speakervery carefully done. And so I said. Hey guy.
- speakerWhat.
- speakerYou know. He was head of the local FBI office and all the local
- speakercops knew him. And so what he got away with murder. But, the
- speakerCatholic Church and the Presbyterian church were right across the street. He made a mistake drove
- speakerus round and said, "They're having a meeting in the fellowship hall. You go in this door, go down the steps it's in the
- speakerbasement." We did. There was a meeting going on. And, just
- speakerbefore she made her announcement, I was still standing outside the door waiting to make my triumphant entrance, he came steaming down the hall, screaming, waving his arms. He realized the mistake he'd made
- speakerand got her off the platform. Just in the nick just
- speakerbefore the Presbyterians crashed the meeting of the Catholics. That's right. Well you know we've
- speakerlaughed about many a time. Well. I know for Beth that was such a highlight of her
- speakerlife being able to help you. Oh, Beth and was equally adept..
- speakerTerrific. And, they're in Napa California, I believe. We visited them there. Oh, good. And
- speakerSteve Yamguchi was another member of that setup group. I haven't seen Steve since last December.
- speakerLook at. What we're talking about is the warm friendships that
- speakerinstantaneously blossom at this intense time
- speakerof this General Assembly.
- speakerI'm trying to recapture that feeling of compression, urgency, the need to have help that, as I remember,
- speakera Moderator must feel. Everybody is willing to help us.
- speakerIt's marvelous. One of the problems with the.
- speakerAt least, a layperson out of the business realm
- speakeris that you're immediately inundated with a scedule that's
- speakerhorrendous and you look at it. And, you've got to preach at this major
- speakerchurch, which you've never done before. You've got to speak at the commencement.
- speakerYou get to speak at a new building dedication. You've got to talk to
- speakerhigh school students. You've got to talk to college people.
- speakerYou've got to be involved in the 300 anniversary and
- speakerpreach. And, you're staggered by what's required.
- speakerAnd a layperson simply doesn't have a barrel of award winning sermons back
- speakerin the closet that you can dip into. They're all original. And so I simply went to
- speakerO.G.A, and said we've got to cut the schedule in half the first eight weeks. I got to get an
- speakerinventory. Yeah I just can't go out of here like a shot out of the cannon and start right
- speakernow. Because it hadn't been my bag. Never done that before. Right.
- speakerSo they reluctantly agreed and we pared the schedule it down
- speakerso that I could spend some time studying. At least get two or three sort of
- speakerstandard speeches in my hip pocket to carry out on the road. And, I ended up adding
- speakerto that. Finally had something like 30 to
- speakerchoose from. What about that time when you were on the road?
- speakerWhat was your message to the church?
- speakerUsually my message was not too far different from Marj's [Carpenter, Marj] . She emphasized the
- speakermission aspect, but I emphasized that it's good to be a Presbyterian. I'm proud
- speakerto be in that fellowship, and delighted
- speakerto be able to extend it to other people and happy about doing that, and do so with no apologies.
- speakerAs I remember hearing about it, you were the kind of person
- speakerwho was sent into highly conflicted churches because it was felt that
- speakeryou would relate to people.
- speakerThis was the article 13 year, the last year of that. Tell us what was Article 13 again?
- speakerArticle 13 was a residue of reunion.
- speakerThe feeling was it turned out to be incorrect. But the feeling was that the only way to get the South
- speakerto vote for recombining with the Northern stream was
- speakerto offer an exit option. Now by exit, I mean, with
- speakerproperty and without prejudice. And the exit option did not
- speakerbegin until 18 months after the reunion took place. In other words, you had to try it for 18
- speakermonths. Then if you were convinced that
- speakeryou should not proceed. I'm say you. I mean the congregation not an individual. Then there
- speakerwas a procedure that you had to go through which took at least a year. You had to have two votes one at the
- speakerbeginning. You had to invite people in from the Presbyterian from the Synod. You had to expose
- speakeryourself in other words to some other line of reasoning. And, if
- speakerat the end of that cycle, you voted two thirds to withdraw, then
- speakerthe church could do so with its. Once again with its property, provided
- speakerit affiliated with some other, with some other evangelical group. In other words,
- speakeryou couldn't go independent. This would keep an unscrupulous minister, not that we have
- speakerany, from a mega-church of saying this is my opportunity to. Build the kingdom build
- speakera kingdom and control all that budget money, property.
- speakerAnd send it everywhere. So to prevent that you had to have an affiliation worked out.
- speakerSome churches went PCA, very few because they do not ordain women.
- speakerAnd most of them went EPC, which was, in part, created to attract
- speakerand give a home to those
- speakerchurches. So. Because I was a Southern elder and had grown
- speakerup in the South and my father had been a minister and my grandfather a minister in the PCUS
- speakerchurch. I responded to every call from every church from that arena.
- speakerNow this option was not open to Northern churches. A lot of people don't recall that. O
- speakernly open to the churches in the former PCUS.
- speakerSome of those meetings were ulcerous. Were ulcerous? Some
- speakerof those meetings with those folks were ulcerous. Painful.
- speakerThat's what I heard. How did you address those, that h
- speakerurt, that betrayal? Rage. How did you diffuse that?
- speakerWell don't know that I did diffuse it all. But.
- speakerOne of the ways you address it is that you're the hired gun that comes in and then you leave town. You know
- speakeryou don't stay with that congregation. True. True! I tried to level with them in terms of where I was
- speakercoming from. That I thought it was a mistake to leave. I thought the church
- speakerwas stronger in its witness and it's. It's it influence would
- speakerbe extended.
- speakerAnd I heard that you did some especially important negotiations at a church in Texas. Was there one that comes to your mind?
- speakerOh! I don't know that they were especially important. John Mulder and I went to Houston. The Houston
- speakerchurch fascinating study they had 11 acres of property
- speakerright there in the center of the city. And. That
- speakerproperty at that time. I don't know what it's worth now. But at that time, as I recall, it had been appraised at
- speaker69 million dollars. So the possibility of
- speakerleaving with property attracted. That's right. Some folks.
- speakerThe church, probably through no offices of mine, the church stayed. People
- speakerleft and formed another
- speakercongregation. I don't recall the exact numbers. Same thing happened at Highland
- speakerPark in Dallas. Right.
- speakerBut the whole church didn't leave? No. And that was the key thing because you didn't want
- speakerto lose a whole church. You can always rebuild, if you've got.
- speakerSo, I mean. I've heard people really give you a lot of credit for keeping
- speakersome of those churches in.
- speakerI don't know that there's a lot of credit due, because had I been from
- speakerthe north and had a different background, it wouldn't have been nearly as easy to talk to those folks. In other words, you
- speakergain a certain credibility by just because you're like them. Yeah.
- speakerAnd could sympathize with some of their problems. I voted against union in
- speaker1983 in my presbytery. Right. And
- speakerthat gave you credibility with those people? Well, I didn't tell those people that. Oh,you didn't? No. If asked, I
- speakeradmitted it, but said that I had changed my mind and was
- speakerwrong at the time I voted. Right. When did you change your mind?....... HAA That's a
- speakergood question. It was an evolutionary process.
- speakerNothing cataclysmic. I simply
- speakerWhen I looked at the duplication and what two churches were trying to do, and the wasted motion.
- speakerAnd The fact that. You know, our Yankee cousins didn't have two heads.
- speakerAll those things. We're getting into a lot of history. There was a movement in the
- speakersouth in 1954 to reunite. And, I
- speakerstumped my synod in favor of it. Interesting! But,
- speakerby 1983, claimed to believe, and did at that time, that big
- speakeris not necessarily better.
- speakerThe erosion of membership in a northern church had started
- speakerbefore ours had.
- speakerAnd I was concerned that we were going to catch that virus.
- speakerWas inevitable Merge and the. Influence. That. Approach you know pretty soon. So I've
- speakerbeen honored to have been on both sides of that issue.
- speakerThat is an interesting piece of history. Because. Or could be a great ability
- speakerfor you to relate to people, because you've seen both sides and been on both sides in that respect.
- speakerI did a little checking years ago. I didn't have a single church where in
- speaker54 I had gone to that particular congregation and supported union, as it was called
- speakerback in 90. And. On the other side.
- speakerRight. So I didn't have any of those. Well, let's talk
- speakerabout some of the places you travelled to. We talk about Texas but I'm
- speakerinterested in any experiences that stand out in your mind in the
- speakerUnited States or overseas.
- speakerWell the travel itself, of course, is a pain in the you know where, but that
- speakergoes with the territory. And, you can do anything for a year, if you make up your mind to it.
- speakerNow I guess. Once again this is no great religious significance, but the
- speakermost fascinating trip was in response to an invitation.
- speakerMy wife discovered, her doctors did, that she had cervical cancer in
- speakerSeptember after I had started the year in June. So she had a
- speakerradical hysterectomy, series of radiation
- speakertreatments. And so, our agreement was anytime you want to go with it
- speakerif you feel like it. Great go. You just pick and choose.
- speakerSo she would go to New York for instance where my uncle was the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of New York. We would
- speakervisit with them and. So, she made the kind of trip where she knew
- speakershe'd be comfortable. I got an invitation from
- speakerHer Majesty, the Queen of England. It was with His Royal Highness Prince
- speakerPhilip for the two of us for four o'clock tea. Really!
- speakerInteresting way it came about. Philip, of course, is the
- speakerDuke of Edinburgh. That's the title that he brought to him and, when he came the Consort,
- speakeradded to that Royal Highness. But, the title is the Duke of Edinburgh,
- speakerwhich means he's a member of the Church of Scotland. And he had said to the moderator of the Church of Scotland, when they are in
- speakerBalmoral Castle for their summer home,
- speakerThey invite someone from the church over on Sunday morning to lead worship. And,
- speakerthey invited the moderator Bob Davidson. And in the conversation at
- speakerbreakfast before they had the service, Bob had said, if you
- speakerget an opportunity, invite my friend Price Gwynn from the States to something, some function.
- speakerThat's the way it started. So, the invitation came. And, it was oh magnificent, engraved in
- speakertwo or three colors with a big royal wax seal on the back.
- speakerAnd so I simply got home and flipped it in my wife's lap. And
- speakersaid, I don't guess that's one you want to take up. She looked at it and thought it was
- speakerone of these real estate deals you know, where if they can get you to come to the property and stay
- speakerovernight and visit it you know by yourself it's all free. You don't have to pay them to
- speakerpay. And she started to throw it aside. And then, at the last minute. You know.
- speakerShe said. Is this real? I said I've already made
- speakera phone call to be sure it's real. She said, "Wow! That'll cost you a dress."
- speakerSo. I was thinking at the Moderator's reception yesterday for Doug Oldenburg [Oldenburg, Douglas Wayne], which
- speakeris always a lengthy, arduous afternoon or morning, depending on
- speakerwhen it's held. The queen has that technique absolutely
- speakerdown pat. In this instance, we were all lined up in the First Presbyterian Church here in Charlotte,
- speakerwe are through the fellowship hall, out into the next hall, out in the next room. And, we troop by and
- speakerspeak to Doug and to
- speakerClaudia and to the stated clerk and whoever usually the chairman of the local arrangements is
- speakeralso in that group. And if somebody, you know, an old friend of
- speakerDoug's, captures him for two or three or four maybe even five minutes, the whole line is held up.
- speakerAnd it's a several hour proposition.
- speakerThe queen has everybody at the party line up, and she walks down the line.
- speakerAnd stops when and where she wishes to.
- speakerFascinating! So, we could learn from the queen. So the speed of the coverage is entirely up to her. And, she can cover
- speakerthat line in five minutes. Or she can take two hours.
- speakerBut she has not been the captive,
- speakerof some person who wants to. Keep talking! Keep talking or
- speakerpromote some idea or advocate some position or
- speakerstance. Or whatever. And so that's first time I'd ever seen that done. And were you
- speakerpart of this line. I was. We were part of that line. Did you? You do not shake hands.
- speakerYou never touch the queen. But she did stop because she
- speakerhad instructions to at least acknowledge the presence of the Moderator. You
- speakerdidn't preach in any way? Well. No. Oh this was just high tea. And, so
- speakerthere was a very large group of people having tea with her? Oh, yes. I didn't mean to imply that
- speakerwe were her only guests.There were a couple of hundred. It is hard for this
- speakerAmerican mind to even imagine having the opportunity to do that.
- speakerYou're not a North Carolinian, so you may never have heard of Jesse Helms. Oh, well, but I have heard of him.
- speakerHe's a very conservative senator from this state. So when I got back to Louisville.
- speakerI said I just wanted you folks to know that I was inclusive. And they said, "What do you mean?" And I said, " Well I spent
- speakerequal time with Jesse Jackson and Jesse Helms. The two Jesses. And
- speakerthey were at the table. They both were there. What a great story. Where did you travel mission-wise for the church, in terms of? Did you go t
- speakero Africa? I had a.
- speakerYou got to be a Charlottinian to really tell this story because it has such a limited application.
- speakerWe have a Presbyterian college here called Queens. And, the
- speakerpresident of it is a man called Billy Wireman [Wireman, Billy O.].
- speakerEnergetic, very bright. He has taken an ailing institution
- speaker15 years ago. Really put it on its feet. Has
- speakerorganized and installed a graduate school and now give MBA's They're one of the
- speakerstars in Charlotte's crown. So he is a local person of some renown.
- speakerAnd, I was scheduled to go to
- speakerAsia and did, with Insik Kim by the way who is just. He
- speakerand Victor Makari, who took me to Africa and the Middle East, are absolutely marvelous guys.
- speakerBut while we were there. We were on the
- speakerway to Korea, I guess it was. There was a horrible earthquake in the Philippines.
- speakerThis would be maybe the late fall of 80 maybe 90.
- speakerAnd, lots of people were killed.
- speakerTremendous property damage. People left homeless and just a pitiful
- speakersituation in Northern Luzon, which is the roughest part of the terrain.
- speakerAnd, four Protestant churches in the States have collaborated with the work in the
- speakerPhilippines so that we don't compete with each other, Presbyterians and the
- speakerMethodists and the Lutherans and the U.C.C.'s, maybe, I'm not
- speakerexactly sure. But they......
