The 216th Assembly keeps the peace, while the church’s deep divisions persist

On vote after vote, the 216th General Assembly showed its reluctance to do anything — other than picking a 40-year-old moderator — that symbolized big change. They sent lots of things off for study. They respected the presbyteries. They wouldn’t say “No” to funding Messianic congregations. They weren’t interested in defining essential tenets. They wanted the PC(USA) to lobby neither for nor against the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment. They certainly didn’t criticize the theology of The DaVinci Code, as one commissioner was gung-ho to do.

So the caution of this Assembly basically kept the peace, while the underlying disagreements persist. “We are just at a standstill,” one Assembly veteran said wearily at the back of the hall. People are still expecting a huge fight over ordination standards in 2006. A sunny day today doesn’t mean the storms won’t come tomorrow. And there were moments when even the civility in Virginia showed cracks.

This was also the Assembly where Paul Rolf Jensen — whose approach to those with whom he disagrees is anything but mild — announced that he was filing disciplinary charges against outgoing moderator Susan Andrews during her last day of service. Commissioners complained publicly about receiving anonymous, mean-spirited flyers in their mailboxes about the stated clerk’s race. And someone mailed postcards to commissioners before the Assembly directing them to a Web site that compared some Presbyterian for Renewal leaders with Benedict Arnold and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

It was an Assembly where commissioners split almost right down the middle on two of the most divisive issues. Key proposals on abortion and homosexuality were decided by only four votes each — with conservatives winning one round, progressives the other.

Despite the respectful tone of the proceedings, “it is a very divided Assembly,” said Terry Schlossberg, executive director of Presbyterians Pro-Life.

And this was also an Assembly that never for a minute forgot that the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the PC(USA) will be making its report to the church in September 2005, just a little more than a year from now. “Give the task force room to work” was certainly one of the themes of this Assembly, and there did seem to be enthusiasm for the task force’s invitation that presbyteries and congregations join the process by starting theologically diverse discussion groups of their own.

But giving the task force room to work is not necessarily the same as saying, “Let’s go along with what the task force ultimately suggests.”

The task force will meet in Dallas in August to talk about homosexuality and ordination standards, a meeting the denomination will watch with exquisite scrutiny. Jenny Stoner of Vermont, the task force’s co-moderator, said in an interview that the Assembly’s heaping expectations on the task force “presents us with challenges.” Stoner also said: “We were not asked to write new (ordination) standards” when the 2001 General Assembly created the task force. “That’s not our mandate.”

Stacy Johnson, a theology professor from Princeton Seminary and a member of the task force, told the Assembly that the task force was never asked to impose a solution to the denomination’s problems from the top down.

But the Assembly’s debate over homosexuality and ordination — which focused on a proposal to remove an “authoritative interpretation” which states that “homosexuality is not God’s wish for humanity” — returned time and time again to the task force (with both sides arguing that to do what they wanted would be greatly helpful to the task force).

Former Assembly moderator David Dobler summed it up when he urged the Assembly not to do anything to get in the way of the task force’s finding “a more excellent way.” Removing the authoritative interpretation would be seen by some as a battle half-lost, by others as a battle half-won, Dobler said, and “the swords will be unsheathed again.”

This was also an Assembly where important questions were being asked that go way beyond the hit-you-over-the-head political divisions over abortion and homosexuality.

A subtler question being asked in Richmond was: what kind of church do we want to be? The United States is becoming more multicultural, more religiously pluralistic, and the predominantly white PC(USA) is losing 40,000 members a year. What’s working — and what does the denomination need to change?

One obvious door into that conversation was the election as moderator of Rick Ufford-Chase, a 40-year-old from Tucson, Ariz., who has poured his energy into mission work with immigrants along the U.S.-Mexican border. This is a Spanish-speaking, guitar-playing moderator, who as quickly as he could shed his coat and tie after the election and showed up at the General Assembly breakfast in jeans, saying with a grin: “This is the Rick I know.”

A running joke between Ufford-Chase and the commissioners had to do with his fondness for the word “incredible” (apparently seen as one tiny step up from the ubiquitous “awesome”) and the preponderance of white hair among the commissioners.

Some General Assembly veterans caution that it’s not wise to read too much into a moderator’s election — after all, Ufford-Chase was elected after saying he favors changing the PC(USA)’s ordination standards to allow gays and lesbians who aren’t celibate to be ordained, but the same Assembly that elected him did not vote to do that or even to remove the authoritative interpretation, a less dramatic step.

But Ufford-Chase will now be moderator for two years, and he definitely is not looking for a cautious, status-quo church. He challenged Presbyterians to take risks, to go over the borders of what they’re comfortable with to do God’s work in new ways. He wants to increase the number of young adult volunteers. He told presbytery executives that he didn’t just want to be invited to speak at ordinary presbytery meetings; he wants to go where young people are involved and people are excited about hands-on mission work. He told the seminary communities they need to teach languages other than just English — and he wasn’t talking about Greek and Hebrew, as valuable as those are. Seminaries need to start teaching Spanish and Korean, Ufford-Chase said.

Nancy Kahaian, a pastor from Indiana, just turned 41 and just became chair of the General Assembly Council. She said the Assembly responded to Ufford-Chase because “there’s an energy and a passion,” Kahaian said in an interview. “I actually hope it’s part of a shift, I do. We’re not YADS (youth advisory delegates). We’re not older and established … I think it is the beginning of a new generation, encouraging people our age to assume some of this responsibility.”

And Kahaian said: “I think it’s very cool we both speak Spanish, we’re part of a learning curve” for the church. “A big part of me believes in no accidents, that God has a plan and a purpose beyond our limitations . . . One of the forces that will always hold us back is fear.” But Jesus said repeatedly, ‘Have no fear.’ We’re afraid because it’s unfamiliar.”

The tensions of going across the border showed up from time to time in discussions around new church developments involving immigrants — for example, in the debates over overtures from Des Moines Presbytery to give immigrant fellowships voice and vote at presbytery meetings and to allow lay leaders from those fellowships to be ordained as elders.

This is where Presbyterian polity and tradition runs smack into today’s multicultural realities. In Iowa — the heart of the Midwest — Sudanese immigrants are moving in, with their own long history of being Presbyterian, the fruit of missionary work in their homeland, but without resources to form congregations and hire pastors and ordain elders in accordance with the typical rules.

Wayne Morrison, a minister from Miami Presbytery, argued that “it’s the history of the Presbyterian church that anyone ordained has vote,” and that not even Christian educators who aren’t ordained can vote at presbytery, as some think they should be allowed to, so it wouldn’t be fair to bend the rules here.

But Lavender Kelley, an advisory delegate from Louisville Seminary, said with all the talk of evangelism, “we need to make sure that we start at home,” and “we cannot be fixated on bricks and mortar” but must be flexible in responding to the needs of the immigrant fellowships and embracing the fullness of the church “that God is giving us.”

Maqsood Kamil, an ecumenical advisory delegate from the Presbyterian Church of Pakistan, said in that mostly Islamic country, Christians “were considered not Pakistani and second-class citizens,” and could not vote. Immigrants to the U.S. need to be welcomed, not told “you are here but not really here, we don’t consider you full brothers and sisters,” Kamil said. They “have come to the PC(USA) with great hope.”

Another question the Assembly considered was whether the PC(USA) could recognize the ordinations of people from other churches in the Reformed tradition. But what if those denominations refuse to ordain women, asked Joan Fong, an elder from San Francisco? Would their ordinations still be recognized by the PC(USA)? We don’t know, was the answer she got.

And one commissioner voiced frustration with the PC(USA)’s concern about losing members. “We do not need more members, if anything we need fewer members,” said John Judson, a minister from Mission Presbytery.

“Costco has members,” Judson said. “The Sierra Club has members. Lots of wonderful organizations have members.” But members expect to be served, Judson said. “Disciples expect to serve.”

All of these issues bring their own tensions as well. Does Ufford-Chase’s vision of social justice and mission match the views of evangelism of others more conservative than he is? How forceful should the social justice advocacy be? Do the PC(USA)’s budget priorities, which included recent job cuts in women’s ministries and in Spanish-language curriculum, square up with a multi-cultural vision?

Gary Demarest, co-moderator of the theological task force, said during a news conference that when he started in ministry, Dwight Eisenhower was president and the Presbyterian Church was called “the Republican party at prayer.” Women were not ordained.

Now Demarest lives in Southern California, where pastors tell amazing stories of multicultural outreach and church transformation, where some of the schools in his community are more than 50 percent Asian but where, in some Presbyterian churches, “I don’t see any Asian people.”

The PC(USA) needs to change its focus from “how are we doing” — will the Presbyterian church survive — to what God wants, Demarest said.