Tomorrow the General Assembly of the PCUSA begins meeting in Birmingham, Alabama.
I have a friend who attended a GA several years ago. He came back shell-shocked from the experience. "There was nothing there that seemed anything like my church back home," he told me. " I told my wife I felt that God had left the PCUSA and was hanging out at the Starbucks on the corner across from the hotel. " He felt mobbed on all sides by special interest groups and besieged like a Congressman running the gauntlet of aggressive lobbyists, as he struggled with his responsibility as a commissioner.
I pray that his experience will not be repeated by our commissioners from New Covenant Presbytery, but I fear that it will be. If the PUP report is approved, with its recommendation for "local option" intact, then a serious schism in the church will develop and the decline of the PCUSA will accelerate. If that recommendation doesn't pass, and none of the overtures seeking to eliminate the Book of Order's current ordination standard are approved, then there will still be no peace. Those favoring a change in the ordination standard will continue to raise the issue in the next GA in some form or another.
A few months after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita I signed a letter along with two other Presbyterian members of the RevGalBlogPals webring suggesting that the church set aside these debates for a couple of years and concentrate on assisting the Gulf Coast area churches and communities to rebuild their buildings and their lives. The letter was duly published in several denominational magazines and newsletters, but the idea got absolutely no traction. No one even bothered to criticize it, a sure sign that it wasn't going to go anywhere.
I still think it was a good idea to try to get fighting church factions to lay down their arguments for a while and work together on something they could agree on. Wouldn't it have been wonderful if all the commissioners had met in work camps on the Gulf Coast this week, showing the love of Christ as they helped their neighbors rebuild their communities?
The recent brou-ha-ha in Mission Presbytery over the admission to church membership of an avowed atheist by an Austin area church is sobering and certainly adds to the tension in the air. This episode shows that the church is divided over more than the issue of ordination of gays, but also seems to be divided over the meaning of what it means to be a Christian. A startling 114 members of the presbytery voted not to approve the recommendation of its Committee on Ministry that the atheist be removed from the church membership rolls. That is just astounding to me. Will this be the issue that roils the PCUSA at the next GA, or the one after that?
When that happens, you can stick a fork in the PCUSA--it's done. If we don't have the will to enforce the Rules of Discipline to take remedial action against a pastor and session who think that being a church member is about affiliating with an activist political community group and not about confessing belief in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then all the heated arguments about ordination standards, divestment, administrative reorganization Blah-Blah-Blah and whatever, become irrelevant because the PCUSA will no longer be recognizably Christian.
In the words of one of my favorite hymns: The Church's One Foundation is Jesus Christ Her Lord. That is the meaning of being a Christian. If Presbyterians can unite on that point, then there is hope that we can work out our other differences and stay together, or part peaceably. If we can't, then we're not worth shooting, as we say in Texas. I'm praying that the Holy Spirit will be at work during the General Assembly, guiding the commissioners in all that they say and do-- and NOT hanging out at Starbucks.
Soli Deo Gloria!
I pray that his experience will not be repeated by our commissioners from New Covenant Presbytery, but I fear that it will be. If the PUP report is approved, with its recommendation for "local option" intact, then a serious schism in the church will develop and the decline of the PCUSA will accelerate. If that recommendation doesn't pass, and none of the overtures seeking to eliminate the Book of Order's current ordination standard are approved, then there will still be no peace. Those favoring a change in the ordination standard will continue to raise the issue in the next GA in some form or another.
A few months after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita I signed a letter along with two other Presbyterian members of the RevGalBlogPals webring suggesting that the church set aside these debates for a couple of years and concentrate on assisting the Gulf Coast area churches and communities to rebuild their buildings and their lives. The letter was duly published in several denominational magazines and newsletters, but the idea got absolutely no traction. No one even bothered to criticize it, a sure sign that it wasn't going to go anywhere.
I still think it was a good idea to try to get fighting church factions to lay down their arguments for a while and work together on something they could agree on. Wouldn't it have been wonderful if all the commissioners had met in work camps on the Gulf Coast this week, showing the love of Christ as they helped their neighbors rebuild their communities?
The recent brou-ha-ha in Mission Presbytery over the admission to church membership of an avowed atheist by an Austin area church is sobering and certainly adds to the tension in the air. This episode shows that the church is divided over more than the issue of ordination of gays, but also seems to be divided over the meaning of what it means to be a Christian. A startling 114 members of the presbytery voted not to approve the recommendation of its Committee on Ministry that the atheist be removed from the church membership rolls. That is just astounding to me. Will this be the issue that roils the PCUSA at the next GA, or the one after that?
When that happens, you can stick a fork in the PCUSA--it's done. If we don't have the will to enforce the Rules of Discipline to take remedial action against a pastor and session who think that being a church member is about affiliating with an activist political community group and not about confessing belief in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then all the heated arguments about ordination standards, divestment, administrative reorganization Blah-Blah-Blah and whatever, become irrelevant because the PCUSA will no longer be recognizably Christian.
In the words of one of my favorite hymns: The Church's One Foundation is Jesus Christ Her Lord. That is the meaning of being a Christian. If Presbyterians can unite on that point, then there is hope that we can work out our other differences and stay together, or part peaceably. If we can't, then we're not worth shooting, as we say in Texas. I'm praying that the Holy Spirit will be at work during the General Assembly, guiding the commissioners in all that they say and do-- and NOT hanging out at Starbucks.
Soli Deo Gloria!
You were absolutely right in your suggestion that we concentrate on Gulf Coast rebuilding for a couple of years and give a rest to our differences as a community.
ReplyDeleteI have always found you to be a most gracious person and my guess is that, while we seem to have significant areas of disagreement, they would at least partially melt into friendship in Christ over Gulf Coast mold and mess.
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ReplyDeleteAh, dear sister, this post broke my heart. I never knew much about Presbyterians till becoming good friends with a nearby Presbyterian woman pastor and having some worship times together. How interesting that was--the Pentecostals and the Presbyterians worshiping together--and always a blessing. I am stopping to pray right now. It doesn't matter one bit that I am not Presbyterian and the atheist church member is not in my "camp." It's the Body of Christ for which I grieve. I applaud your outspoken stance.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your prayers for those of us who are commissioners. I'm leaving tommorrow morning to head for the carnival/presbypalloza. Lord willing, I'll be posting some updates over at the Eagle and Child.
ReplyDeleteRussell
GG--
ReplyDeleteI'm honored by your kind words. Thank you. I'm sure we would find a lot of common ground despite our differences over some denominational issues. You know what they say..."Some of my best friends are________________________ (liberal/evangelical/conservative/fill-in-the blank)!
Grace, thanks for this post. I'll be driving to B'ham tomorrow for the GA.
ReplyDeleteI've heard commissioners say that the GA is unrecognizable to them as a church body. A big institution with hand-outs, buttons and lobbyists doesn't look or feel like a worshipping community.
My interest is preserving our mission to the world. I believe we have a great deal to offer.
I love the hymn. I will love hearing the commissioners sing together in worship. I hope some of the songs are familar to me.
More later,
St.C
Grace--my church is going to a PDA worksite in MS next month--we've not been to successful in getting other congregations to join us, though, I'm sad to say.
ReplyDeleteI am at the GA to follow the Peace, Unity, and Purity report. So far, the debate on the PUP report and the moderator's election show a centrist tone to the Assembly, which I, for one, find hopeful.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you entirely on the sad Austin situation. Even the most welcoming church has to be willing to enforce its boundaries, on both ends of the spectrum, some time.
It was your reference to Samuel Stone's "The Church's One Foundation" that caught my eye this morning, since today is the 171st anniversary of his birth. But I read your other comments with interest.
ReplyDeleteAn atheist brought into membership in a church? Really? Incredible! Then the word "church" ceases to have any spiritual significance at all. It becomes a kind of social club. Come one, come all. Not really in keeping with what the Scriptures tell us: "No other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ" (I Cor. 3:11).
Sorry! I dun got to preachin'! In any event, if you enjoy reading about our hymns and their authors, I invite you to check out my daily blog on the subject, Wordwise Hymns. God bless.