Several years ago, PC(USA) stated clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick and General Assembly Council executive director John Detterick approached the problem a different way. Recognizing a divide between General Assembly, on the one hand, and middle governing bodies, on the other hand, they purposed to crisscross the country, trying to ease the tension and reduce the gap through travel.
What is broken in the PC(USA) is unlikely to be really fixed either by reducing the frequency of General Assembly meetings (although that might help) or by strenuous travel by General Assembly officers. In order to know how to fix what is broken in this denomination, we must first of all know how to analyze what is wrong with it.
Stating it as succinctly as I know how, I would say that our problem is theological conflict. That may not be a revelation to any PC(USA)-watcher reading this, so let me say more. The nature of our theological conflict is that General Assemblies often propose and adopt positions which are to the left of the center of the church, and which result in conflict with presbyteries and congregations who tend to be more theologically moderate or conservative. An example is Overture 01-A, the newest proposal to remove G-6.0106b from our ordination standards. While this measure easily passed General Assembly with approximately 60 percent of the votes, it appears to be going down to decisive defeat in the presbyteries. What does this mean? It means that PC(USA) General Assemblies tend to be to the left of our church’s theological center and that much of our ecclesiastical conflict is conflict over the actions and pronouncements of General Assemblies. When one realizes that, Robert Bullock’s suggestion that we reduce the conflict by reducing the frequency of General Assembly meetings starts to make good sense.
But is there a way to bring General Assemblies back towards the Presbyterian center represented not only by the prevailing opinions in presbyteries and in the pews, but also by our tradition? I submit there is a way.
Part I of our Constitution, the Book of Confessions, contains much of our tradition and can and should be the theological center of our denomination. At the most recent General Assembly, responding to calls that we pay more attention to our confessions, our moderator and stated clerk led the Assembly in lifting up in worship the creeds, catechisms and confessions of our church. This was good, and they should be congratulated! Unfortunately, however, this use of the confessions was mainly liturgical. Now the General Assembly as our highest governing body needs to move beyond the liturgical use of our creeds to learning again how to use them to inform its thoughts, actions and decision-making.
There is one person who has a crucial role in this, and that is the stated clerk of the PC(USA) General Assembly. The stated clerk is the only person I know of who is charged by the GA Standing Rules to “preserve and defend” the Constitution of the PC(USA). I think that this means, at a minimum, that it is the job of the PC(USA) stated clerk, and those who work for him or her, to see that commissioners are aware of what our confessions say, and that the truth contained in these creeds, catechisms and confessions is both lifted up and preserved and defended in the deliberations of the Assembly.
Let me flesh out my idea of how the clerk and the clerk’s office could help return the GA to its theological center by lifting up the confessions.
1. A number of years ago when I was a commissioner to GA, I received a letter from the clerk Jim Andrews’ office offering me a copy of the Book of Order if I needed it, but I was not offered Part I of the Constitution, our Book of Confessions. Every commissioner or advisory delegate to a PC(USA) General Assembly should have in front of him or her a copy of Part I of our Constitution, the Book of Confessions, as well as of Part II, the Book of Order!
2. Since it is the clerk’s job to preserve and defend the Constitution, that means that the clerk and the clerk’s office need to make the Assembly aware of what the confessions say when they pertain directly to matters under discussion. This is especially so since the decisions and pronouncements of General Assemblies do not have nearly as much authority as our Book of Confessions and Book of Order. For while decisions and pronouncements of General Assemblies, “if consonant to the Word of God,” “are to be received with reverence and submission,” (B.C. 6.174), yet no pronouncement of a General Assembly becomes a part of our Constitution unless it is ratified by (at least) a majority of our presbyteries, and it is our Constitution which governs us, and not the mere pronouncements of General Assemblies. Therefore it is particularly important that those officers of the General Assembly who are charged to “preserve and defend” our Constitution, lift it up at those times when the Assembly is contemplating actions that might go against it or when its steadying influence is needed.
3. Let me give a practical example. At the last General Assembly in Louisville, commissioners were asked to consider Christological and soteriological statements in response to overtures from presbyteries. I think it would have been very helpful if the clerk’s office had said the following to (and done the following for) commissioners.
a. The clerk’s office could have reminded commissioners: “It is not your job to create a theological statement out of thin air. The statement you adopt should be based on Scripture, and more than that, it should be an elucidation of what our eleven creeds, catechism and confessions say about Jesus Christ and about salvation. It is not your job to write a new confession, for you have not been charged to do that. Rather it is your job to study carefully the statements about Jesus Christ and about salvation in the confessions we already have, and then, led by the Holy Spirit, to write a response to the overtures based on our Constitution.”
b. I think it would also have been totally appropriate for the clerk’s office to have distributed to commissioners selections from the Book of Confessions pertaining to these issues. For example, in William Stacy Johnson’s (out-of-print) Analytical Compendium to the Book of Confessions, he has selected and included the portions of the Book of Confessions having to do with “Salvation” and “Justification by Grace Through Faith.” It would have been appropriate for the clerk’s office as part of its duty to “preserve and defend the Constitution” to make such salient portions of our confessions available to commissioners and committee members discussing issues which are already richly covered by our confessions.
In summary, if the problem facing our church is as the editor of The Outlook suggests, that “an institution’s national gathering does more harm than good to that institution,” then one solution is to reduce the frequency of those meetings, but another solution is to change the focus of those meetings.
I submit that the confessions of the PC(USA), in the words of our Book of Order, tell our church and the world
who and what it is
what it believes
what it resolves to do.
For too long General Assemblies have been permitted to believe it was their job to tell our members and the world who and what we are, what we believe and what we resolve to do.
What is wrong in the PC(USA) will only be fixed when those with the authority and responsibility to do so begin once again to preserve and defend the Constitution by making sure that it strongly informs, and is at the center of, all our theological discussions.
It is because the Book of Confessions is not held at the center of theological debate and decision-making at General Assemblies that our church is fractured. We need a paradigm shift, back to the “ancient future” when we really acted as if our confessions were the first part of our Constitution, and they informed all our theological statements and decisions. Those charged to “preserve and defend” the Constitution need to be at the forefront of making this happen.
Winfield Casey Jones is pastor, First church, Pearland, Texas.
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