There are other strong churches which make a significant witness from a Calvinist perspective: the Presbyterian Church in America, the Christian Reformed Churches with their Dutch heritage and lively, non-fundamentalist convictions represented by Calvin College. (Go to their Web site — www.calvin.edu — to see a college with a statement of purpose akin to those we knew in the “good old days.”) We are no longer the only kid on the block.
And yet, as much as (if not more than) any denomination, we are linked with this nation’s founding. Our government with its checks and balances written into the U. S. Constitution takes its cue from the Presbyterians, among others, who wrote it, who were educated at Princeton and who understood John Calvin’s doctrine of original sin with its “recognition of the human tendency to idolatry and tyranny.” Or, as we would say in these perilous times, unaccountable power. Our historically representative republic, in spite of the growing popularity of pure democracy through referenda, is Presbyterian to the core.
I’m spinning this editorial off John Wimberly’s straight-forward analysis of the pain in our presbyteries and at the General Assembly as funds dry up. There seems little end in sight. Some of us in the Presbytery of the James who meet together regularly debate this issue. We observe that congregations which give almost nothing to presbytery and GA are often the least-forgiving of others on constitutional matters.
Are we any longer connected in the PC(USA) and if so, how? We have not adapted to the confession and governance issues that have surfaced nationally and existentially among us. Making that more difficult is the fact that significant numbers of elders (40 to 60 percent sticks in my mind) were not nurtured like Wimberly in three generations of Presbyterian heritage. I mean, if it’s all local, what’s left to save and nurture?
The same disconnect afflicts us nationally. The debates over gay marriage, the Ten Commandments in public places, and taxation reflect the same loss of national consensus, and fuel an increasingly ugly debate about federalism and devolution. On the one hand it’s philosophical; on the other hand with regard to taxation, how we resolve these matters will have an enormous impact on the economically vulnerable.
How we Presbyterians decide our internal life may well make quite a difference to the nation whose “chaplains” we were when America rose to power. I believe strongly that the Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church should put governance and confession at the top of their list, because at the local level (in congregations and presbyteries) disagreement about who’s in charge and what we all truly believe cause the most pain. Cutbacks in budgets for governing bodies cause hardly any pain at all.
Perhaps if governing bodies returned to theology and Scripture, we’d find that our disagreements were not so large after all. Does not the same Spirit animate the extraordinary mission of Wimberly’s Western church and the Vienna church, different as they are in their commitments to the positions that divide us? Does not that same Spirit hold them together? For two decades our urban mission and passion for social justice at Second church have had more in common with evangelical churches in our presbytery than with the liberal churches, even though we are numbered among the liberals.
The local churches in the PC(USA) are more mission-focused than at any time in living memory. What living, breathing Presbyterian could oppose assistance to and justice for the homeless and the mentally ill who inhabit our streets? Who among us would not raise funds for and pour our hearts and lives into the alleviation of AIDS in Africa or the building of hospitals in Haiti?
For goodness sake, we Presbyterians have so much that unites us in energy, intelligence, imagination and love? May the Spirit that animates our unity in mission also teach us to listen to each other, and to stop screaming at each other. And maybe, by God’s sovereign power and grace, even Reformed Christians with our PC(USA) label will continue to have a story to tell to this nation.
O. Benjamin Sparks is interim editor of The Outlook and pastor, Second church, Richmond, Va.
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