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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, AUGUST 19, 1986
"marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before,•
and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic.•••• For now the hymnal
is safe, since the recommendation has yet to be adopted••••
If you want to know where the churches went wrong, it's worth
looking at the seminaries.
A glimpse of one was provided
recently by the NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, in a profile of a 23-
year-old divinity student at Princeton's Union Theological
Seminary, one of the nation's oldest and most prestigious.
Jeffrey Vamos, the son of a Presbyterian minister, subscribes
to the idea that the important work of the church is
political.
His motive for attending seminary:
"I was
interested in u.s.-Soviet relations, and North America-South
America issues.
Ministry seemed a way of bridging the
problems between nations.•... These habits of mind may be
expected, given his environment, in which, says the TIMES,
"much of the discussion both inside and outside classes
focuses on questions of race and class, AmEi°rica's relationship
to the Third World, and liberation theology••••" One of his
professors is James Hal Cone, whose contributions to theology
included the proposition that "the kingdom of God is a black
happening. It is black people saying No to Whitey.••••
PAGE 15
The negative impact of many of these issues is not fully explained in the
standard news media, very likely because the newspeople, overwhelmingly
liberal themselves, generally sympathize with the way things are going.
--Gene Hogberg, News Bureau