Dear Editor:

“Peace for Our Times”

In September of 1938, Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of Great Britain, said, “My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time... Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.” He had just concluded negotiations with Adolf Hitler, assuring peace in Europe. To this end, they were willing to carve up Czechoslovakia like a sacrificial goat to the gods of fear and appeasement.

Less than one year later, Hitler invaded Poland, triggering the single most deadly saga in human history. As a result, the people who wanted a nice quiet sleep received a nightmare as the darkness fell upon them.

Peace at all costs is not peace. Appeasement of people hell-bent on conquest is suicide. Trusting people who continually break their promises is folly. Nations more concerned about a nice quiet sleep than fighting the good fight end up with their cities in ruin. A Church willing to sell her birthright for a bowl of beans invites travail and disintegration.

The TTFPUP members remind me of Neville Chamberlain. They are among the finest people we know. They hope their negotiated truce will bring peace for our times. But they are woefully wrong. The consequences to the Church we love are as dire as those resulting from Chamberlain’s folly were to the nation he loved. This stalling tactic will actually precipitate discord and strife akin to the division and breakdown now fracturing the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Communion.

There are people and lobby groups in our midst who are hell-bent on conquering the PCUSA with their agenda. As if they were worthless pieces of paper, Scripture, our confessions, and our constitution have been subject to denial by those who have claimed to solemnly follow and uphold them. And now, the TFPUP members want us to negotiate away entire presbyteries to appease such folks, in hope we can all get a nice quiet sleep, dreaming of peace, unity, and purity. Dream on.

We are enjoined to sell our birthright of dialogue, debate, voice, and vote of the presbyteries for a bowl of beans to assuage pangs of fear and exhaustion. “Shut up, and sign zee paper,” then go get a nice quiet sleep. Close your eyes and drift off. No debate. No voice. No vote. Just do what we say. Trust us. We know better than all of you.

I plead to the commissioners of our upcoming General Assembly: please do not approve the report of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity. It will not deliver peace, unity, or purity. We will not have peace for our time. It will unleash a nightmare from which none of us will awake for a long time.

Sincerely,