Moderator tries statesmanship to counteract negative reactions
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, January 29, 2002
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Moderator Jack B. Rogers says he once likened himself to Paul Revere, but now he believes he’s more like George Washington.
The often controversial moderator suggested that today he now is more statesmanlike and that his mail, once overwhelmingly against his leadership, is favorable.
In a Jan. 29 report to the Executive Committee of the General Assembly Council, Rogers explained the Revere-Washington metaphor:
“My youngest son … told me, ‘You spent the fall being Paul Revere, saying, “The bad guys are coming! The bad guys are coming!” You were right, but the church doesn’t need Paul Revere, it needs George Washington.'”
Presto. The moderator who entered office pledging to be a “bridge-builder” but, after a flurry of criticism for his theological views, later called himself the “truth-teller,” says he now is focusing on being a statesman – which, he adds, is more fun.
“In the summer and fall months” after his election in June 2001, Rogers said he went into a number of situations that were “quite hostile. That colored my response.”
He attacked, among others, the Confessing Church Movement and the Presbyterian Lay Committee – even accusing the Lay Committee of being militant fundamentalists not unlike Osama Bin Laden. But Rogers said he eventually learned that “I had to get my own emotions under control.”
Since November, Rogers said he has abandoned the attack mode and his mail and e-mail have been two-thirds favorable. “I’ve learned not take the negative more seriously than it should be. Ninety percent of the church is not in conflict.”
He says he no longer attacks the Confessing Church Movement or the Presbyterian Lay Committee. Instead, he said, he focuses on the “positive things” he has experienced in the denomination.
Rogers said one of those positives is the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity, which held its first meeting in December.
“I am confident that group will make a wonderful contribution in leading us back to a clearer understanding of who we are,” he said.
He also applauded the denomination’s involvement in Churches United in Christ (CUiC), a mainline ecumenical movement that has declared that combating racism should be the the U.S. church’s main objective. Rogers was in Memphis recently for the launching of CuiC.