If it is true that a manifesto is more appropriate to the summer of 1967 than a Confession, an interesting possibility is raised. Is it possible that committed unbelievers may be of more help to the Church in fulfilling its stated task than many of its members?

The Department of Defense recently circulated a memorandum on the subject of Presbyterians as security risks. The Department decided Presbyterians weren't risks.

For the question even to be raised was to give more credence to Presbyterians as revolutionaries than they deserved; but it was raised, and to trace how it happened throws some light on the conflicts and transformations taking place in America.

What happened was this. The Presbyterian Church in May completed a nine-year process of revising its confessional standards. Under the American equivalent of the Scottish Barrier Act (which guards against hasty ecclesiastical legislation by requiring that changes in church law be approved by a General Assembly, then be sent down to the presbyterians for their approval, and finally be approved by the next annual General Assembly), what is called "The Confession of 1967" was presented to the General Assembly meeting in Boston in May, 1966. It included a phrase that urged the pursuit of peace, "even at risk to national security."

In the year following the first approval, several church officers who were in military service asked military legal officers if subscription to the new Confession would affect their security clearances. Some officers, it is reported, ruled that this could create problems for military personnel.

Defense Memo

Other individuals and some congregations made similar inquiries at the Department of Defense in Washington. Some of them were opposed to the entire Confession and were using the security argument to develop support for their position; others were for the Confession but opposed to this statement; others felt torn in their loyalties between church and state.

In April of 1967 Mr. Thomas D. Morris, Assistant Secretary of Defense, sent the following memorandum on the "Proposed Presbyterian Confession of 1967" to the Secretaries of the Military Departments:

"We have been informed that military personnel and employees of defense industries have been advised that adoption of the subject Confession will jeopardize the security clearance of members of the Presbyterian Church.

"In response to inquiries concerning this Confession, we have, with the advice of the General Counsel's office, informed the questioners that:

"1. commitment to the Confession would not disqualify an individual for a position requiring access to classified information:

"2. from the plain meaning of the language of the Confession we find nothing to suggest that disloyalty to the United States is encouraged; and

"3. the Confession does not identify the United Presbyterian Church as a pacifist group.

"I would appreciate it if you would make these views known throughout your department."

A month later, in Portland, Oregon, the General Assembly adopted the Confession, retaining the "risk to national security" lines. It also adopted a strong Declaration of Conscience against the war in Vietnam, including this statement: "We understand this Declaration of Conscience to be required of us by our Confession of 1967: 'The search for cooperation and peace...requires the pursuit of fresh and responsible relations across every line of conflict even at risk to national security.'"