Editor’s Note: Michael R. Walker, the new executive director of Presbyterians for Renewal, has definite ideas about the current situation in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the role of PFR within that context. Walker and his wife, Christina, just moved from Princeton Theological Seminary — where he’s been working on a doctorate in history and ecumenics — to Louisville with their two children, Michaela, who’s four, and Christian, two. He responds to the following questions:
Q: Please tell me a little about yourself and where you’re from.
A: I’m from Florida. I grew up just outside of Orlando. And I didn’t grow up in the church — not the Presbyterian church or any church actually. I gained a vocabulary for the Christian faith, though, by attending First Presbyterian Church of Orlando on occasion. When I would spend the night with friends on Saturday night, many of my friends went to church at First Pres. Orlando, so it really didn’t matter who I spent the night with, often that’s where I ended up at church. And Howard Edington was the preacher there. And he spoke with a kind of passion and conviction that I hadn’t heard anybody speak about anything with, and so it really captivated me. I have these memories of my friends playing tic-tac-toe in the pews, trying to find ways to keep from getting bored, and I’m just glued to the pulpit, to this Presbyterian pastor speaking the gospel. That’s how I gained the vocabulary for the Christian faith, in Florida. The seeds were planted there, and I think I carried around a lot of those things in my heart for a long time.
When I was 15 in Florida, we used to vacation on the beach, at New Smyrna Beach, just south of Daytona. There was a family from Georgia who came down and who had two beautiful daughters. I wanted to get to know this family, of course, because I was interested in one of the daughters. I was struck by how the family treated each other, how they loved each other. Of course I didn’t know what it was, but I kept getting drawn into their family. It was one of those families where if you want to get to know the daughter, you get to know the father. And he was a pastor. So he and I had some really good, long conversations and he recommended that I read the gospel of John. I remember sitting down on the beach in Florida reading through the gospel of John from beginning to end, and just being overwhelmingly convinced that Jesus was who he claimed to be. I’m one of those evangelicals who has a datable conversion; not all of us do — my wife doesn’t. But I feel like that was the moment when the scales fell from my eyes and I started to see things differently.
Q: What did your parents do?
A: My dad owns a construction company, where I worked for a while, actually. Every summer since I was 15, I worked construction. So I started off scraping floors in renovation sites and I finally ended up being a foreman on the finish end of construction sites … when I was in my 20s. That helped me to gain some supervisory experience when I was still pretty young. But I think I knew from an early age that that wasn’t going to be the industry that I went into. Ever since I became a Christian, it’s more difficult to serve out one’s calling. For instance, I was a leader in school and lots of other things when I became a Christian. So it was sort of just natural for me to try to take on a leadership role and start a Bible study and that sort of thing. But I did so too early. I was definitely not mature enough to take on some of those things at the early age that I did. So I learned from a lot of my mistakes early on. But I’ve had some good Christian mentors who’ve helped me along, especially in college– Hampden-Sydney College, which is still affiliated with the PC(USA); it’s an all-male school in south central Virginia. Majored in religion there, and one professor in particular, Robert Hall, who is a New Testament scholar, really nurtured me. He helped me to work through the historical critical methods of studying the Bible that I was being immersed in there at that school. I felt like one of those fundamentalists who had their back broken and had to rethink some pretty fundamental things. But it was a good safe environment for me to do that. Both he, Professor Hall, and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship really helped me along … I was the president of the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapter there at Hampden-Sydney. That’s how I met my wife. Even though Hampden-Sydney is an all-male school, Longwood University is a co-ed state school … right nearby. And we had a joint InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapter. My wife was a small group leader, and so I joined her small group.
Q: To learn more about the Bible?
A: (Laughing) To learn more about the Bible. No ulterior motives.
Q: Do you have brothers and sisters?
A: I have two brothers and one sister. They’re all older, so I’m the baby.
Q: In college, why did you pick religion as a major?
A: Because I knew that I wanted to be either a pastor or an academic in the field of religious studies. I was 18 when I went off to college; I had just been a Christian for three years. I was still learning so much … I was so captivated by this thing that I didn’t know enough about.
Q: Do you think you were helped by having an experience of not growing up in church? Sometimes parents think the way to nurture their children in faith is to bring them to church every Sunday. But you had the experience of being with kids who were immersed in it and kind of turned off by it.
A: I do think the biblical model is probably the best model, to catechize our children. We need to do a better job of that in the Presbyterian church. Not just to bring them to church every Sunday, but to help make that more of the fabric of every child’s life. If we can do that, statistics show that we have a much better rate of retaining our children if we help to immerse them, do more than bringing them on Sunday. And of course that means not leading lives that would make children feel like their parents were hypocrites.
But I do think there are some peculiar advantages for me, my particular story, not having grown up in a church. One thing that it has meant is that my own personal story has not been shaped by the history of the controversies in the Presbyterian church. So I’m able to come in and try to take a fresh look at things and not necessarily have my vision be skewed by any personal wounds or victories.
Q: When you finished with college, what happened next?
A: I went to Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando for one year. That’s a nondenominational, Reformed, evangelical seminary. And I really sunk some roots deep in the Reformed tradition there. I had read John Calvin in college; that’s when I became a Presbyterian by volition … by reading Calvin. I’m one of those few who came into the Presbyterian church through theology. Having done that, I went to RTS in Orlando because it is one of the few seminaries that is still confessionally informed. And so all of the different disciplines there are informed by the Reformed heritage. I gained a lot of valuable skills there. But it was while I was there, a year after college, that I felt called into the PC(USA). Having not grown up in the church, and having attended then a Bible church in college, I hadn’t joined a denomination. But I was becoming increasingly convinced that congregationalism, individual nondenominational churches, was not the way to go, and that I needed to submit to a larger ecclesial body. Then I had to pick among the Presbyterian churches, and it was the PC(USA) that I picked. And because of that, I went to Princeton seminary, I transferred from RTS after my freshman year …It made sense to me that if I felt called to the PC(USA) to be trained by the PC(USA). That’s why I made the switch. And I was starting to get the academic bug too, and Princeton was a better place to come out of with an M. Div. and try to get into the very best Ph.D. program. So I ended up staying there; I’m in the dissertation phase now.
Q: What are you writing about?
A: On Calvin. It’s on Calvin’s first theological treatise. It’s called psychopannychi; it’s sort of a made up word. It literally means wakefulness of the soul. It’s a defense of the immortality of the soul, essentially what happens between when your body dies and when it is resurrected. I think it was a very practical thing for Calvin. Part of what I’m trying to figure out in my dissertation is why was this the first thing that Calvin wrote about? Theologically, everyone thinks of the Institutes, which makes perfect sense. But even before the first edition of the Institutes he wrote this defense of the immortality of the soul. One of the things Calvin talks about, one of the things I believe is true, is that the Christian life is a meditation on the future life. Who we are is grounded in who we are in eternity. So we can live in the present with a confidence that we will rest in the arms of Christ for eternity. And when some people started preaching falsely of soul death, that your soul goes into the ground in the same condition as your body when you die, Calvin thought this security, this meditation on the future life, was threatened. Because what we could look forward to with death then was the grave, not a conscious persistence in the presence of Christ. That’s my theory, at least, and that’s what I’m hoping to defend. I think it’s an incredible reality for the contemporary church too, being in a culture that is so caught up with worldly gratification.
Q: You were in Princeton for how long?
A: Five and a half years.
Q: How did you end up coming to PFR?
A; Of course I’ve known about PFR for quite a long time. The fact that PFR existed within the PC(USA) was one of the things that emboldened me to take the step into the PC(USA). I was involved in helping to form a student chapter of PFR at Princeton seminary. I thought I might do something like this, I guess I thought it would be in 10 or 20 years, not when I’m 28. I’m 28 years old now. Basically what happened is I got a call from a friend who said, “Michael, I’m going to nominate you for this position.” And I said, “All right. That sounds like a great idea, they’ll pat you on the back and say thanks, and I don’t think we’ll hear much more about it.” But that’s not how it happened. They called me and asked me if I would interview. I said of course I would. The process continued, it was over several months, and here I am. I didn’t initiate it personally, but I didn’t want to close the door to where God may be calling me. The more I went through the interview process, the more it seemed that this was right … I’ve always had a very practical orientation. I didn’t go into the Ph.D. program hoping to just be a professor or just write books. I want to teach, I want to write books, but I was aimed for the pastorate, headed for the pastorate. And this was a very natural fit for me. In many ways I do feel like I get to be a pastor for a lot of folks all across the country. My historical training I think will help me in this position. And hopefully I can help the church in whatever small way I can to think through the issues it is faced with in a manner that is informed by the church’s history.
Q: What role do you see PFR playing in the life of the church? How is it distinct or different from other evangelical groups that are out there?
A: First of all this is the largest renewal organization. And we’re the only renewal organization that works at every level of the church, from the national level on issues to the local level on congregational renewal ministry, our Wee Kirk conferences and regional youth conferences. … We’re not about one issue. There are other really good renewal organizations like Presbyterians Pro- Life, which is about life issues, or One by One, which is about matters of sexual brokenness — PFR speaks about those things. But we speak about more than any of those things and we do that as part of one of six (PFR) ministries. I think that’s a big part of our distinctiveness, the fact that we really see renewal as comprehensive. It needs to take place at every level of the church. In terms of being a distinctive voice … I hope that PFR can be a voice that is both the Jesus of John 8 and the Jesus of John 14. By that I mean the Jesus of John 14 — I am the way and the truth and the life — that makes exclusive claims, who comes down confidently on matters of truth. But at the same time, the John 8 Jesus, who says to the woman caught in adultery, “Nor do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” The Jesus of truth and the Jesus of compassion. It’s the same Jesus. There are times when we have conservatives in the PC(USA) who become all fired up about the John 14 Jesus but it’s hard to see John 8 Jesus. And I think we have some liberals where the John 8 Jesus is clear, especially the “Nor do I condemn you” part, but the John 14 Jesus is missing. So I would love for PFR to be a voice that represents the whole Jesus in the midst of an increasingly polarized denomination. Part of that may mean we’ll get flak from both sides. I think it was Karl Barth who said when you get flak from both sides that means you’re probably doing something right.
Q: What do you see as some of the biggest concerns facing the denomination?
A: Two things. One, I think it was William Temple, he was the archbishop of Canterbury in the first half of the 20th century, he spoke in one of his more famous speeches about the great new fact of our age. And he was speaking about globalization. And that was the first half of the 20th century. And for whatever reason, the Presbyterian church is still struggling to come to grips with this reality. It has been emerging for a long time and in many ways is already a present reality. I think we’re way behind on addressing the needs of the church in the midst of globalization. By 2050 it’s estimated that whites will be a minority in the U.S. And we’re in a denomination that’s 93 percent white. That represents a major challenge to the Presbyterian church. Are we willing to be culturally flexible and allow the gospel to be contextualized in areas that are not all white? That I see as a major challenge. Another major challenge is the increasing secularization of North America. I really do think that North America is the great emerging mission field of our time. And we need to be thinking more missionally as a denomination. That goes for our structures, that goes for how we think through evangelism. It also goes through the confidence — how we make pronouncements on issues facing culture. I think we’re still stuck in this mode where the denomination thinks that the culture is really concerned with what the PC(USA) has to say. And I don’t think that’s the case. I think we need to be much more selective about the things that we speak about, and we need to be much more careful about speaking into very complicated geopolitical and national issues. So those two factors — globalization and secularization. Then of course there are the obvious things. The unity of the church is threatened by some of the major controversies, especially the ordination standards. I personally am disappointed in some of my friends in the Covenant Network who’ve come out claiming victory for 2006. I don’t think victory for any particular party in the church is the way to go. If the wider church responds to that campaign, it may well decide whether or not we can continue to be one. That’s my great hope, that’s the direction in which PFR will be pushing, for unity.
Q: What do you think it’s important for the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the PC(USA) to do?
A: My hope is that they will make a decision that will really enable the church to discern the will of God over a long period of time. So I hope that the task force suggests that the church study, continue to study, this issue of ordination standards at the local level for the next decade. At the very least I think every ecclesiast, every person who has the interest of the unity of the church in mind, can say there is no consensus for change in the church and any change in polity at this time would be irresponsible. They have a tough job. They have a job that I think can be fulfilled only by suggesting intercession at the local level.
Q: Do you think having those kinds of conversations at the local level will achieve something?
A: Well, on the basis of anecdotal evidence I’m confident that they will achieve something. Because I have been a part of groups, especially groups of young people, who had heard each other’s positions on paper, but who had never really sat down and talked through them at a table, over a meal. When you do that, it does change the dynamic of the conversation and you begin to be able to hear the other perspectives. And I get the advantage of poking holes in other people’s positions and they get the advantage of poking holes in mine. I think that’s a healthy process. Part of the problem is that we think 20 years is a long time to wrestle through something, but it’s not. It’s actually a very short period of time. The issue of sexuality is near the center of who we are and how we experience life. This cannot be an issue the church makes changes about quickly. So at the very least I would hope we could continue to discuss this at the local level.
Q: What do you think young people want from the Presbyterian church? And why is it that so many congregations have difficulty getting young people to come and be interested?
A: I think young people want faith without compromise, and faith that requires risk-taking. And that hasn’t been the ethos of any mainline church recently …. We have to be willing to answer the radical call of Jesus and to live it out and to embody the gospel faithfully. That is what I think young people want. Being at Princeton seminary a long time, I’ve seen a lot of young pastors come in. That’s what they want. I’m hopeful that they’ll be going out into our congregations and bringing that passion with them. I’m hoping it will inform their preaching and transform congregations. Unfortunately, a lot of young pastors are leaving after their first call. We have to find ways to help the institution help them. I think what happens is a lot of young people, they come in wanting to take risks, wanting to have faith without compromise but they’re forced into a political situation that requires the kind of compromise that it doesn’t feel to them like living faithfully as Christians. Some of them are leaving the ministry altogether, a lot of them are …. Some of them probably go to nondenominational churches that are more flexible in their models for ministry. We have folks going to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. This is a major phenomenon across evangelicalism. Because they sense there the kind of uncompromising connection to the church’s heritage and a willingness to actually make a bold stand against the cultural trends.
Q: What would a church that was uncompromising in faith and willing to take risks look like? What would we see happening there?
A: It would really depend on where the church is and what the context is. If it’s an all-white church in an area that’s not all white, it means becoming brothers and sisters with the folks who are right there in the neighborhood and beginning to worship in ways that were previously uncomfortable to them. And asking them how the church can participate in the life of the community in the ways that the folks who have been there would be very uncomfortable with. It means being uncomfortable. That’s a key issue, worship style and how to reach out to the community … Being willing to actually share faith with folks. Not being ashamed of the gospel. Part of it has to do I think with the old mindset, that old Christendom model where we actually live in a Christian society. But that’s not the case anymore. I think we need to think of the church as a sent people and every person in it as a sent person. So when you leave the church parking lot, you enter the mission field.
Q: PFR has been criticized by the Layman. What has that been like?
A: Since I’m so new I haven’t experienced it myself. I don’t think there should be one grand inquisitor in the PC(USA). I think especially in times such as this it is critical for evangelicals to love and support one another and not to go out of their way to criticize.
Q: In places with small churches there can be a lot of discouragement. What do you see as being some of the joys and concerns of smaller churches?
A: (Before moving to Louisville, Walker was on the staff of The Anchor Presbyterian Church, a small new church development outside Philadelphia.) I think the small churches have a unique opportunity for authentic community … I don’t feel like church is just some place that you go to for an hour on Sunday. But it is a community you’re a part of. Small churches have a unique opportunity to be that. My wife, for instance, became a Sunday school teacher right away. We both became involved in the life of the church, we had people over for dinner, we went over to their homes for dinner, the kind of thing that didn’t happen as often in larger churches. It can happen, but it’s just not as natural, it’s not as easy, you have to be more intentional about it.
Q: What are the difficulties?
A: Struggling for resources. We constantly ran into the problem of who can we find to teach a Sunday school class or help with this important ministry. Virtually everybody was already committed or engaged … Of course limited funds too is something a lot of churches struggle with.
Q: What relationship do you see there being between local congregations and the national church?
A: I think the top-down model is unfortunate, I do think it’s a holdover from the 50s bureaucratic model. Part of moving the denomination in a more missional direction means rethinking our polity. How can we develop leaner structures with more ability to meet the needs of congregations rather than asking congregations to follow and contribute to concerns that are birthed and energized at the top. I think the connectional structures ought to serve the needs of local congregations. It shouldn’t be the reverse. … It’s going to take a while to revamp it. I think the missional presbytery is a good start.
Q: What role does trust play? Some people speak of having a shadow denomination — do you see PFR as being that?
A: I know we have a lot of work to do. I don’t see PFR as being a shadow denomination. I see us existing to nourish and support the congregations in our denomination, and emphatically do not encourage evangelicals in being disengaged or pessimistic. I think part of what it’s going to take to rebuild the trust is to do the kind of thing we (did) in March, praying and repenting together. It’s going to require openness on the part of the progressives to establish relationships with people like me, and many have been open to that so far. I’ve been very welcomed. But it’s going to take time.
