70 years ago this month, Cono started
in a fierce theological storm
It was the spring of 1948. Iowa farmers were still uncertain about the impact of a wet season on getting the last of their seed corn planted. But a few of them, along with their young pastor, had other concerns as well.
My dad, Max Belz, had served this rural group of some 50 Presbyterians (known as the Cono Presbyterian Church) since 1946. A few of them were brand new believers, part of what they themselves called “a revival at Cono”—just like the revival that had taken place there half a century earlier. The saints were excited.
Together, all these folks had grown in their distress over the liberal direction of their denominational affiliation, the Presbyterian Church USA, a denomination that had said that a minister did not have to believe in a literal virgin birth, a literal resurrection of Jesus from the dead, or a literal understanding of Jesus' miracles. In fact, they (pastor, elders, and congregation) had voted a few weeks earlier to leave that denomination and seek some other more fitting tie. Two or three of them had traveled to Nashville to observe the annual synod of the Bible Presbyterian Church—a young “fundamentalist” and “separatist” denomination. They liked what they saw there.
So the little church at Cono issued an invitation to Carl McIntire, a fiery leader of the Bible Presbyterian denomination, to come from New Jersey to Iowa to spell out the issues in a public gathering. McIntire was also editor of the Christian Beacon, a weekly tabloid with a national distribution. The meeting was set for June 7.
I was six years old that June, closing in on seven. I remember standing under the creaky windmill just outside the home of Herb and Norma Arnold early that afternoon when a car drove in, the doors opened, and this very famous man got out. He was weary after flying all day from Philadelphia, and said he needed a nap before the evening’s dinner and gathering at the church just a mile and a half north on the dusty gravel road. The Arnolds had a room for him.
I recall this as an especially festive time. It was exciting to have an out-of-state VIP visit us, whether or not I understood it all. The Cono church had just been significantly renovated, relocated by the Amish house movers to a new foundation and new basement and fellowship hall. All that was already paid for, and the church still had $600 in its treasury.
McIntire was half way through his nap when another car drove in. It was the official squad car of the Buchanan County sheriff, a big but friendly looking man. He was there to serve an injunction on behalf of the Dubuque Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church USA, who claimed to be the owners of the Cono church. The injunction said that neither McIntire, nor Max Belz, nor the elders and officers of the Cono church could set foot that evening on the property they thought they owned. The injunction argued that those parties all represented a point of view different from that of the property’s owners.
The sheriff, whose name was Emory Hart, apologized for interrupting McIntire’s nap. He said he was obligated to follow the law. He also said that the Presbytery’s officers had asked him to serve the injunction just as the group was sitting down for the evening meal. They wanted the most disruptive effect possible. But he reminded us he was a believer, a Pentecostal, and that the legalities didn’t require him to be that mean-spirited. By serving the injunction earlier in the afternoon, he would give the Cono folks a little time to make other arrangements.
Max Belz’s “other arrangements” proved startlingly media-savvy. They included getting in touch immediately with Associated Press, the Des Moines Register, the Cedar Rapids Gazette, etc. As many as 150-200 people gathered that evening at the town hall in nearby Rowley. That included a remarkable cadre of reporters, whose headlines the next morning set the stage for a whole summer of follow-up stories about the bully tactics of the presbytery against the little country church. It was soon a state-wide firestorm.
All that thunder and lightning, however, was just a precursor to the front-page headline in the following week’s Christian Beacon. McIntire invited his readers to a detailed account of his Iowa visit under the banner: “Meet the Sheriff.” And then, for the next several weeks in the Beacon, he hammered away at the evils of the liberal denominations.
In a court case later that year, the Cono congregation lost its property to the PCUSA presbytery. The Arnolds made one acre available, just a few hundred yards south of their home, for what came to be a new church and school campus. In the one-room school house at Cono, a collection of newspaper clippings recounting these days is still on display.
—Joel Belz, founder of WORLD, June 2018
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From Wallace Anderson, Executive Director of Ridge Haven Cono
I am happy that we can continue the life-changing ministry that Cono has been known for. We expect, by God's grace, to see Him work. Thank you for your part in Cono historically, and for watching this ministry unfold and make a difference for young people again.
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Our Contact Information
Ridge Haven Cono
3269 Quasqueton Ave.
Walker, IA 52352
828-702-9510
