When I suggested in my last article that our constant warfare over homosexuality was a waste of the denomination’s time, I did not dismiss the problems both church and society have with homosexuality, both as a general construction of sexual behavior and as a characteristic of some human beings. Instead, I suggested that the discontent of our denomination was, in my view, not a confrontation over homosexuality at all. Our internal conflict is an expression of an old, but still deepening, divide between two camps in our denomination. The flashpoint is between the reflexively progressive and the reflexively conservative personalities in our church.
Anyone with knowledge of Presbyterian history knows that this is a near 200-year-old battle. Progressives and conservatives have battled throughout the history of the PC(USA) over everything from evangelistic methods to stances on specific social issues. There were denominational splits and grafts, purges of theological faculties, consolidations of denominational management, seizures of church property, and removal of clergy from the ministry in various attempts by these parties to consolidate ecclesiastical power.
Most members, and many pastors, look upon these struggles for control with a certain detached bewilderment. And, yes, there are many who take principled stands, informed by scriptural witness, and what Richard Armstrong called “sanctified common sense” on these same issues. Yet, there are many who are bent on polarization, and always have been (they, and their like-minded forebears). Their secular politics, liberal or conservative, leads their religious perspective, and shapes their approach to their brothers and sisters who do not share their views. Unable to take any perspective on themselves because of the ferocity of their commitments to their ideologically-shaped positions, they exhaust the denomination with their constant bawling for attention and their own way, pulling away time, attention and support from the greater mission of the church. The church’s major failing has been its too-polite reluctance to thank them for their opinions, ask them to be seated, and then to move on to actually doing something.
It is fair to warn homosexuals, then, that they are being used as cannon fodder in a religious feud that predates the Hatfields and the McCoys (these two families have just signed a treaty, incidentally). Homosexual advocacy groups who imagine that they are using the church to achieve their ends should think again: they also are being used. Anyone who thinks that a “definitive” vote on the issues of homosexuality, one way or another, will solve the denomination’s present distress has been fooled into believing that treating a particular symptom will heal the disease. Once more or less resolved, the two appositive personalities in the church will choose a new cause over which to disagree, and forget about the formerly urgent issue-to-end-all-issues. The disease will continue to attack the body.
Surely, there is hope for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) As a matter of fact, since the church is the Body of Christ, with Christ himself as head, its final disposition is ultimately in his hands. However, history, we should know from reading the Scriptures, matters. What we do during our years on earth is of crucial importance in ways we only dimly comprehend. Perhaps we will not change history’s outcome by a choice, but choosing this day who we will follow tells us whether we will find ourselves in growing harmony with the will of God, or are sent to “take another lap around Mt. Sinai” until our lessons are learned (and our congregations continue to shrink and die).
Is this attitude inherently reactionary? Absolutely not! I am not advocating a smug do-nothing-ism. I am pleading for all those of deep faith in Jesus Christ, good will to humanity and thoughtful, independent minds to stop being led by the torrid, often tear-stained rhetoric that washes over our denomination, to look soberly at the outcomes of our resolutions and decisions in the past, and resolve only to do those things in the future that are consistent with Reformed understandings of Christian faith, and have some actual chance of benefiting the world and growing the church in some significant fashion. Surely, we have gotten beyond the stupidity of saying that our string of annual membership losses (and decreasing influence in the general society) are of no real concern, or is the PC(USA)’s method of “slimming down for service.” By such “logic,” victims of famine must be the most able of workers.
The upshot is this: The ends will mind themselves (as they always have). However, allowing the extremes to set the agenda for the church is a guaranteed path only to sound and fury that does surprisingly little beneficial in the life of the church and world. Will those not committed to pre-processed positions find the courage to turn from those promoting themselves and their causes, to think theologically and faithfully for themselves, with a vision for God’s mission to the whole church and world as their highest aim? The choice is before us.
Robert Johnson is a Presbyterian minister in Richmond, Va., completing a Ph.D. in theology.
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