PANA Institute for Leadership Development

By Christopher Chua, Project Director, Historical Documentation Project

With the nation currently on the brink of war with Iraq, calls for religious witness have grown increasingly louder. Different religious communities may assume varying positions in the debate, but most find it clear that any possibility of war has attached to it moral dimensions that lay claim to principled responses from people of conscience. At such a critical time in history, it is interesting to test the fledgling capacities of our Historical Documentation Ministry by asking what the project's resources have to contribute to our memory of how the Presbyterian Church in Chinatown responded to another such conflict in our time: the Vietnam War.

Assuming a Public Position. Session minutes indicate that as early as 1966.Au.22, the elders of our church passed a motion to write a letter to President Lyndon B. Johnson on concerns about the war. The letter was drafted and sent out several months later, and at the 1967.F.27 meeting of the Session, it was reported that the State Department had sent the church a reply. To further underline the need to publicly express the community's concerns over the conflict in Southeast Asia, the Session also voted on 1966.D.5 to be a signatory to a letter sent to President Johnson from twenty-three Presbyterian churches in the San Francisco area.

But what precisely were the texts of these letters sent, and how did the State Department reply? Textual record of that information is unfortunately currently lacking. Also lacking is a record of how the church made use of a $93.07 "Vietnam Fund," which the Finance Committee on 1969.May.26 recommended the Session disburse. Small as that amount may seem to us today, it was considerably more significant by 1969 standards, and in symbolic terms, there was the more important issue of the church designating and contributing to a fund specifically for Vietnam. As a point of understanding our own community's commitments, would it not be interesting to know how the money was ultimately spent?

In an action more clearly recorded, David Miller went before the Session on 1971.Mar.22 with a resolution anticipating the 1971.Jun.30 expiration of the then-current draft law. The resolution, with which the Session concurred, urged the Moderator of the UPCUSA's General Assembly to lobby in Congress for the inclusion of provisions for selective conscientious objection in any new draft law. Then-Clerk-of-Session Philip Fong was directed by the elders at the same meeting to write to the denomination's Stated Clerk to ask how the church-at-large was exerting influence towards furthering the 181st (1969) General Assembly's Statement on War, Peace, and Conscience.

Assuming a Pastoral Position. That statement by the 181st General Assembly had established the denomination's position on the Vietnam War, and while it stopped short of condemning the conflict outright, the document affirmed that "War is not desired or normative for man (sic); indeed, warfare is the very antithesis of peace, and contradicts the attitudes toward others taught by our Lord and His apostles: "love one another," "live at peace with all men," and "overcome evil with good." The statement went on to affirm the church's historical regard for the place of individual conscience in moral decision-making and to call local churches to support those who objected to war on moral grounds, while, at the same time, calling on churches to be faithfully pastoral to participants in the war, be they voluntary participants or involuntary ones.

In response to the denomination's position, the Presbyterian Church in Chinatown established its own War, Peace, and Conscience Committee, eventually to become a subcommittee under the Reconciliation Committee of the Session. Active in the early 1970s, the committee was a resource to the entire church, seeking to provide information on all aspects of the war and efforts towards peace. For four Sundays from 1972.Jul.16 to 1972.Au.6, the committee — with permission from the Session-organized prayers for peace and repentance in the two English worship services each week and, with the help of the Rev. David Peng, in the Cantonese and Mandarin worship services.

Perhaps, most importantly, the War, Peace, and Conscience Committee sought to address the very immediate needs of the community. The minutes of its own meetings indicate that a discussion with the high school department at Cameron House revealed "[t]he need to be informed about draft alternatives in general and [conscientious objection] in specific." This need the committee attempted to meet through providing literature and through discussions and film-showings. The November 1972 issue of the Women's Fellowship Newsletter advertises a War, Peace, and Conscience Committee-sponsored gathering to "play" the simulation game "Union," which explored the decision-making process of the various constituencies involved in war (i.e. labor, big business, the church, minorities, the military, the peace movement, the executive branch).

What the Record Shows. Piecing together fragments of information from the Session minutes, the minutes of the War, Peace, and Conscience Committee, and the Women's Fellowship Newsletter, we see the picture of a church unafraid to bear moral commitment during a particularly trying time in our nation's history. In the midst of controversy, the Presbyterian Church in Chinatown made its voice heard publicly, and holding dear the church's enduring commitment to peace, it ministered to all those caught in the tragedy of war.

Undoubtedly, the picture could be more complete. Missing documents have been mentioned above, and documents of the types that were collected say nearly nothing about the emotional environment of the times in Chinatown nor do they say much about dissenting perspectives. In a sense, we are fortunate that most of the principals involved are still alive and many are still members of the church and can be interviewed about what they remember. The shame, of course, is that much in writing has likely already been lost.

Recovering what we can is important, because our memory of collective moral behavior partly determines the foundation on which we stand in ethically challenging times. Our history tells us of our witness to peace. Our history calls us to witness for peace.

Any historical documents (text, photographs, etc.) of PCC's activities during the Vietnam War era or any other records of the church's history are welcomed by the Historical Documentation Ministry. Please contact Christopher Chua at (510) 849-8210 or cchua@psr.edu.

The article above was prepared with the help of materials generously provided to the HDoc Ministry by Linda Lee, Terry Leong, and Jean Low.