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Interview of William P. Lytle by Lois Boyd and R.D. Brackenridge, side 3.
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- speakerwere also of a real help. They were late in coming of some instances. But all of
- speakerthose I would see as a part of the picture of
- speakerthe church today and what's
- speakerhappening within and within congregations.
- speakerOne other item that I would mention, as far as characteristic of my own
- speakermoderatorial year, was the whole matter of union with the Presbyterian Church U.S. That's
- speakerbeen an issue through the year. That's been a very happy relationship to work
- speakerwith and made all the more so by Sara Bernice Moseley's
- speakermoderatorial role with the Presbyterian Church U.S. She
- speakercame from Sherman Texas. We were
- speakertogether at least on 15 different state-type
- speakeroccasions during the year. One of those being
- speakerthat time in Dallas when we shared together in the constituting meeting of the tenth union presbytery
- speakerof the two churches. We were together at the Consultation
- speakeron Union in Louisville. We were together at a number of union presbytery
- speakerand union synods, meetings across the year.
- speakerWe were together at the National Presbyterian Church opening of the Congress time,
- speakerplus the times that we spent together just doing the planning for the union General Assembly, the
- speakerjoint General Assembly in Kansas City.
- speakerThat was good.
- speakerI appreciate it. I appreciated her. I appreciated her spirit.
- speakerI think that this last year has seen some of the real issues surface
- speakerthat have been kept under the under the table. And
- speakerI think they're out in front of us now. We realize there are some real killer
- speakerplaces where there's going to have to be some compromising done, and some changing done before
- speakeryou can really have a union, a reuinion of the two churches. In
- speakerthis General Assembly, the most recent one in Kansas City,
- speakerwas an evidence that there is a spirit in both churches right now to lean over
- speakerbackwards to try to see if there cannot be some
- speakercommon ground to bring together. I point particularly to the broadening
- speakerof the Joint Task Force on Reunion, which brought in two persons
- speakerfrom each denomination, representing what was called the more conservative
- speakerelements within the church. That's something that is almost is a must with the P.C.U.S.
- speakerIt's a phraseology, which we have been not used to making.
- speakerWe've never tried to distinguish between conservative and
- speakerliberal. but in this case, because we want to use the same words as the
- speakerP.C.U.S., we did go along with this and enlarge our own task force in the
- speakersame way they did. All of which is saying that, if there's going to be reunion
- speakerfrom the Presbyterian Church U.S. point of view, it's going to happen only because
- speakerthat element within the church, which does in a sense control the presbyteries
- speakerthat have been the hold-up presbyteries, are going to
- speakerwant somehow to get into the act of deciding the framework. And this,
- speakerthis will help.
- speakerWas the? You and. You and Mrs. Mosely had a dialogue sermon at the Assembly in 1979. How did this come about?
- speakerWe decided that early that that's the format that we would follow.
- speakerAnd I guess that might have been decided as early as August
- speakerat the Consultation on Union in Louisville, when we met briefly and began doing a little
- speakercogitating.
- speakerAnd then as I recall at a time in October or
- speakerNovember when we were together, we decided on the Scripture
- speakertext that we would center around. And then
- speakerfollowing that, we had another time when we sat together and did
- speakersome initial planning for this. I remember it one day we flew up.
- speakerThis was in March when she was in and she got in from Atlanta. I got in
- speakerfrom somewhere else, and we flew into Dalles and spent three hours in the
- speakerDalles Airport doing some working together on
- speakerthis and then finalize in Kansas City. So it's rather hard to work out a dialogue sermon
- speakerwith the kind of schedules that we were. We just didn't have a kind of time together.
- speakerBut it was nice to to do.
- speakerWell. We were in the. We were using the lectionary passage for that
- speakerfor that week. John 15, the vine and the branches,
- speakerthat passage of Jesus. It's the passage the week that follows that vine and the
- speakerbranches passage, which is Jesus is talking about you are, not simply do i
- speakerf you do with my father commands you.
- speakerYou did not choose me. I choose you. And, it is in that passage.
- speakerAnd we did.
- speakerAnd she has. She had her experience
- speakeroverseas and. actually in Latin America and this year in Brazil
- speakerprimarily. We were able to share something out of the experience that we had there
- speakerplus some of the experiences that we had within
- speakerthe church itself during the year. Well. At this Assembly in 1979, are
- speakeryou moderator up until the time that you turnover the?
- speakerYes.
- speakerYou open the meeting, open the meeting. The
- speakerGeneral Assembly opens with a worship service.
- speakerIn this case we had an abbreviated worship service in the afternoon, since we had to do
- speakersome business of getting our electing sections underway and the like,
- speakerso that they be ready to go the next morning. And then the evening was the joint
- speakerworship service with the P.C.U.S. So
- speakerI moderated that afternoon session and
- speakerthen shared in the evening worship service, and then moderated the
- speakersession the next morning when we went into the electing process. And, Howard [Rice, Howard L., Jr.] was
- speakerelected before noon
- speakerin this instance. And, took over immediately.
- speakerAnd, then I become just one of the commissioners. i become. You are a commissioner? I am
- speakera commissioner and a commissioner at large. You're the. I
- speakerunderstand, I don't know whether it was planned that way but of course by virtue of the
- speakermoderator's being a commissioner that makes for the odd
- speakernumber of commissioners. There would never be a tie vote.
- speakerAn odd number and the moderator's the odd person. There are a number of
- speakerthe things that you talked about here your impression of the church for the year.
- speakerI don't believe you mentioned anything about this whole issue of homosexuality.
- speakerHow how did you see that? Is that something? It was at the Assembly and then it didn't
- speakerappear much again? Or was this something that came up during the year? E
- speakerarly on, after the assembly, in several of the presbytery
- speakervisits,
- speakerI had people who would approach me, or in the question and answer rather, who would say. One
- speakerman I remember said, "I feel with the church wasted two years of its time
- speakerand money on the whole homosexual." There is still some
- speakerhostility that was out there in the church about
- speakerthe process. That was a minority voice.
- speakerObviously it was. I think overall there was a
- speakervery positive feeling within the church,
- speakerboth about the process and about the way in which it had been handled by the
- speakerassembly in 78. What was
- speakerlacking possibly was the, what was, some
- speakerfollow through, which would have shown, what I
- speakerwant to say, real intent on the part of the church to do what the Assembly said ought to
- speakerbe done. And that was a continuing dialogue and openness in the question and in
- speakerrelationships with the gay community. The only place,
- speakerthe only presbytery, where I recall any action being
- speakertaken, any business dealing with this, was sometime
- speakerlate in the year really early January February when we were in Florida. Interestingly enough in the
- speakerMiami area in Dade County, where that presbytery
- speakerseriously was following through on setting up a task force,
- speakerthat would relate to the gay community in Dade County.
- speakerNow I think that was partly an oversight, hard as that may seem, that
- speakeryou could have an oversight on an issue that was raing that big at the Assembly.
- speakerThe oversight being that, my understanding is that, when the
- speakerassembly is over, it falls the responsibility of the General Assembly Mission
- speakerCouncil to see to that that the
- speakermatters of General Assembly are followed through. That is, if the presbytery is
- speakersupposed to do something OK. Or, one agency is supposed to pick up on an
- speakerissue or an action. It is up to the General Assembly Mission Council to be the group to look at
- speakerall of the actions of the General Assembly and then to make sure that they get out to.
- speakerAnd to my knowledge, this was not picked up until late in the year. Dropped
- speakerthrough the crack, almost as it were. Will be this year picked
- speakerup again so that this year presbyteries will be approached
- speakerwith the question,
- speakerthe General Assembly took action saying this. What actions have you
- speakertaken in this regard? It is more of us bringing to the attention of the church
- speakersome concerns, that are along these lines.
- speakerBut in answer to your question, Doug, I'd say that very
- speakerlittle was actually said or heard about that issue
- speakeras far as the church at large was concerned. I wondered if what
- speakeryou've expressed to me the one person saying this is waste of time
- speakerand money on it as to whether what was being, maybe not
- speakerthat strongly, set in place for a kind of relief that the
- speakerchurch had said something, but hadn't really come down one
- speakerway or the other and kind of the least productive thing go for it. I don't know.
- speakerI think there was. I think I was a natural, maybe a sense of, "Well. You
- speakerknow we did this. And, we did it in a way that was satisfying to
- speakermost."
- speakerAnd so they were happy to have that behind them and were ready to go on.
- speakerMy own feeling was that I've I have said on many occasions
- speakerthat Paul's letter to the Philippians has been the letter that has informed my year.
- speakerI had been studying that letter devotionally before the Assembly began. And, I
- speakerfound much of what my, the word that I brought to the
- speakerChurch growing out of the letter to the Philippians or the way in which that church was founded in the
- speakerstory of Acts. One of the passages in Philippians hit me after the Assembly
- speakeras being very apropos. With Paul in prison said, "I want you to know,
- speakerbrothers and sisters, that what has turned out, what has happened to me, has turned out to
- speakeradvance the gospel. I really feel very strongly
- speakerthat what many people feared was going to be a divisive
- speakerquestion, that was going to really tear the church apart. In,
- speakerin actuality served to advance
- speakerthe cause of Christ within the church in many ways. I think it brought together
- speakerpeople who haven't been talking together very much of late. I think if you
- speakerwant to speak of the camps within the church, liberal and conservative camps.
- speakerI think those camps were forced, in a sense, to dialogue because
- speakerof this issue, and in the dialogue came to respect each other in ways they hadn't
- speakerbefore. That in itself was positive.
- speakerBesides the church's willingness to handle a tough
- speakerquestions in a public arena. I remember that at
- speakerthe San Diego, during one of these lunch times in those opening days,
- speakeryou're asking what the moderator did. And I was out eating
- speakerlunch, and I had a couple of reporters get next to me.
- speakerTheir question was, "Well now. Do you think the church can ever regain its health after this?"
- speakerThis is before Monday came on. This was like Monday was the time we took it.
- speakerThe debate was on. So everybody is looking forward to Monday still. These fellows
- speakerthink the Church can never regain its health after this issue. And
- speakermy, off the cuff, reply is don't talk to me
- speakerabout regaining health. That a church that can handle an
- speakerissue like this in an open forum is a healthy
- speakerchurch. You don't handle this kind of an issue unless you are.
- speakerAnd, I think that's right. I. I think that the way in which we went through the
- speakerprocess, and the way in which we were able to keep our balance, and the strong feelings that
- speakerwere on hand, that in a sense were able to be shared,
- speakerexperienced and listened to.
- speakerThat was a good sign of health.
- speakerDid you have much contact with the groups like Presbyterian Layman,
- speakerPresbyterians United for Biblical Concerns? Did you pick up any feeling about
- speakertheir power in the church or their? How
- speakermuch they reflect what many people in the church are thinking?
- speakerWell more so, I would guess, you hear about the Presbyterian Lay Committee than
- speakerabout Presbyterians United for Biblical Concerns.
- speakerI met with both groups during the year, officially met with
- speakerboth groups. The Presbyterian Lay Committee
- speakerobviously because of this news media has a tremendous
- speakervehicle of influence in the church, which is not
- speakeralways used, I think, in a proper way. But,
- speakerit is certainly a means of getting the news out. And,
- speakera lot of people in the church get news this way. And they say, if only the official
- speakerchurch had the same kind of a news media, why, you know, that'd be great.
- speakerBut, on the other hand, Presbyterians United for Biblical Voncerns is a
- speakergroup that, you know, I think has pretty
- speakermuch shown a real loyalty. It doesn't mean they agree with everything that happens in the
- speakerchurch by any means. But I think, there's been a great deal of denominational loyalty that has been, that
- speakerhas been present there. And, that whatever has been done has been an attempt to really
- speakerbuild up and strengthen ties. Whereas I I get the feeling at
- speakertimes that some of the things that are done on the other wing
- speakerare done really with a desire to see what damage can be done
- speakeror some real hurting that can be done, which is sort of
- speakeragainst the grain a little bit, in my. They're free to do it in a free society.
- speakerBut I did have contacts with both.
- speakerAnd I would have to say that the Layman paper
- speakerdid quote the statements that I made. And, probably I got as
- speakerwide distribution through them, as I did in any other. I think.
- speakerI'm going to. Yes. I think that they were the ones that probably
- speakerdid more service in a sense. as far as I'm concerned, of
- speakerbeing free to quote me
- speakerand they quoted me fairly. They handled that
- speakerin a very fair way.
- speakerDid you encounter any hostility during the year? Oh,
- speakeryes.
- speakerOn. On, Particularly again, the World Council
- speakergrant [Special Fund for Combatting Racism grant to the Patriotic Front of Zimbabwe] it was hostility, that not
- speakernecessarily was pointed to me. I. A couple of times when
- speakerI felt personally, in a sense that
- speakerthe criticism really was leveled at me
- speakeras a person, but most of the time that was something in which there is a good
- speakerdeal of anger being expressed, at the church, at the
- speakerestablishment, which I was, at that point, seen to represent. Not
- speakera great deal. And again I say that even in the kids. I suppose the most
- speakerhostile moment that I experienced was in a church school class
- speakerin Los Angeles.
- speakerAnd, I think that when that ended, there was probably as fine a feeling
- speakeras there had been anywhere. That openness of being willing
- speakerto get hostility out. I'd much rather much rather deal with hostility in the open.
- speakerBut you can't take is, is hostility that does the digging from somewhere
- speakerbehind the scenes and is there but won't come out openly and say it.
- speakerI'm not afraid of the open hostility. And, as I say, I think in almost any
- speakerinstance where it came, it's it it allowed for dialogue.
- speakerIt allowed for some follow through, which was very healthy. Well. Let me ask you. If you
- speakerhad it all to do over again, would you put yourself in the position of being nominated,
- speakermake the challenge? Would you like to be
- speakermoderator again? Well you've asked two questions.
- speakerThe answer, of course, to the first. If you had it all do over again, would you, would you do it?
- speakerAnd, the answer is yes. I am. And, the experience of serving as
- speakermoderator of the church is a privilege beyond
- speakerwords. And,
- speakerit is one, which one can only be grateful to have
- speakerbeen able to experience. To say would I want do it again?
- speakerI don't mean the, again. Would be. Would raise the question though. I think
- speakeronce is enough.
- speakerBut, now I wouldn't have given anything for the
- speakerexperience that my wife and I had together, because it was a shared experience in this way
- speakerI just wish that everybody
- speakercould meet the kinds of people. I didn't say
- speakerearlier and something that I feel very strongly that one of the things that
- speakerimpresses you, when you get into this, is the caliber of leadership in the church. We have a
- speakertremendous group of people within the
- speakerchurch at varying roles of leadership, both
- speakeremployed, lay, clergy, as
- speakerwell as simply congregational leaders, that you just
- speakeryou really are encouraged by getting around folks like that and to have that
- speakerone end of the country to the other, wherever you go, to have the carpet out
- speakerand people are receptive way to hear you. You
- speakeralways look back and say, "Gee, I wish I hadn't done that. I
- speakerwish I had done something else with the experience."
- speakerI frankly feel that, since we're talking here, moderator, moderators
- speakertalking, moderators feeling, I have every reason to think that there might
- speakerbe more wisdom in encouraging moderators to spend more time at their
- speakerdesk reflecting and sharing
- speakerwhat they're seeing and feeling. What happens is that
- speakeryou pretty much are on the go. Little time
- speakerfor reflection. And by the time that opportunity comes to reflect, you're no longer
- speakermoderator. You no longer are have
- speakerthe same opportunity, the same audience, the same
- speakerarena, in which to share your feelings. So I guess if I were
- speakergoing to encourage future
- speakermoderators in any way it would be to that extent. It would be be more
- speakerguarded in, in
- speakerthe invitations you do accept.
