The Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is set to make its final report in September, and to some folks, that report will tell all — whatever the task force recommends is what they will weigh as its contribution.
But others in the church are taking a different path. They want to know what the task force will say, of course, but they’re also involved in their own communities in trying to model the kind of conversation across theological lines that the task force represents. For some of those people, that will be part of the task force’s legacy too — the example it has set for the broader church of bringing together Presbyterians who might vote against each other on some of the most contentious issues, but who through listening and prayer and hard work have come to understand and respect one another.
Todd Freeman, for example, is pastor of Bethany Church, a small More Light congregation in Dallas. In January, he and Rolfe Granath, a more conservative minister who’s pastor of Grace Church in Plano, Texas, stood together before Grace presbytery and asked for volunteers to participate in small, theologically diverse conversation groups that will meet over the next year.
“The fact that he and I have stood side by side in front of the presbytery with a sense of humor, sharing how important it is that people of different opinions can learn to respect and trust each other, has made an impact on our presbytery — we really think it has,” Freeman said.
And some people are beginning to raise the question — which seems particularly timely, considering the national rancor in recent weeks in the battles over Terri Schiavo and John Bolton, over filibustering and federal judgeships — of how Christians can co-exist in the same denomination and share their hearts and their faith honestly with one another even when they have intensely differing views.
What, in other words, provides peace, unity and purity in the PC(USA)? Why does it matter? How can that be lived out?
In some places, the answers to those questions are proving both practical and theological. At the encouragement of the task force, at least a handful of presbyteries have created intentionally diverse discussion groups, which get together every four to six weeks not to debate or vote or change minds, but to give Presbyterians who might not otherwise know each other well a chance to listen and perhaps to hear.
Eastminster presbytery, in Ohio, set up four discussion groups earlier this year, with a balance of both clergy and laypeople and of theological perspectives. Those groups will meet through the summer, at least until the task force issues its report, using some of the resources the task force has provided.
Dan Schomer, Eastminster’s general presbyter, said he thinks Presbyterians are tired of the polarization in both the secular world and the church. He hopes in the discussion groups “we will have the opportunity to listen to one another in a non-threatening way, when there is no vote to be taken, about issues that are of great concern I think to all Presbyterians but are also quite divisive. My hope and my prayer is that we’re going to be able to discover the source of our unity, and once we have determined what brings us together and holds us together as Presbyterians, we’re better able to deal with what divides us.”
Jerry Hurst, pastor of Southminster Church in Sugarland, Texas, near Houston, is part of a group of about a dozen people that’s been meeting since last fall. Hurst, who describes himself as conservative, said, “If we’re going to be a church and live together as a family, the things we differ on should not be the things which divide us or cause us schism” — in other words, folks who disagree on significant issues still need to find a way to live together. “I would hope the bulk of our folks could see the value of maintaining the denomination and not jump ship,” Hurst said.
Some may be skeptical of what such theological reflection groups really accomplish. Some likely will be disappointed, said Dave Wasserman, general presbyter of Grace presbytery, if they don’t agree with the positions the theological task force takes in its final report — or if it doesn’t take a firm stand on ordination standards or other controversial issues.
But some have begun to argue that the process the task force is using to do its work — collaborative, respectful, prayerful, worshipful, patient — may prove as significant for the church as the report itself. As Wasserman put it: “Is the journey the goal, or is there some end to the journey that’s the goal?”
At the local level, some of those directly involved in diverse discussion groups said they’ve seen firsthand the transforming power of such conversations — their votes on hot-button issues may not change, they say, but they have become more pastoral, more open-hearted, more Christ-centered, more willing to hear the other side.
Schomer said he’s found that “when people will sit down with different viewpoints and talk, what they discover is they’re not as far apart as they thought they were, that they hold a great deal in common.”
What’s involved, Wasserman said, is a willingness to share one’s faith story honestly and to hear the faith stories of others who come from another place. That provides “a reminder that God’s world is bigger than anything we can imagine. At that point you are speaking to something that’s deeper and broader and wider than the particular issues that we face in our time. Community is what faith is about, that relationship with Christ, that relationship with each other, and to stay focused on the truly important things is a gift, the gift that speaks to tolerance even if those who wish for change and those who don’t wish for change don’t get exactly what they want.”
In Southern New England presbytery, a group of seven Presbyterians, representing a range of views, has been meeting for more than a year now and its members have all signed up for another year — meeting each time for worship, Bible study and conversation.
“The experience has been just superb,” said John Webster, a retired pastor and missionary who just finished a term as the presbytery’s moderator. They’ve moved slowly, carefully, building trust and understanding, and discovered in their conversations “so much that unites us,” Webster said.
And now they’re beginning to explore their differences as well, to cautiously probe, as Webster put, “the nature of the dividing wall between us.”
Webster said he’s thought about it a lot, and “I don’t think I know what that dividing wall is. I’m convinced it’s not theology, it’s not hermeneutics, it’s not our views on homosexuality. It’s something deeper; it’s something sacred inside of us that makes us respond to theology differently, to biblical texts differently. And I don’t know what that is.”
Webster was writing a sermon to preach at presbytery he was calling “A Thorn in the Flesh,” from 2 Corinthians, with the thorn being not any particular controversy — abortion or homosexuality, for example — but the PC(USA)’s ongoing pattern of conflict and fighting. He gives the theological task force credit for breaking that pattern.
“For my money, the most important decision they made was to try to model the peace, unity and purity of the church — to attempt to do that, and not just report on it,” Webster said. “All the members of the task force have been transformed by that . . . I think we would make a similar kind of testimony out of our experience as well.”
What changes can come when Presbyterians who would, for example, cancel out each other’s votes on gay ordination start to meet and work together?
Freeman said he served on presbytery council with a man who’s much more conservative than he is, but they came to trust and respect each other, and to realize that “even though we have different views, we both want the best for the denomination.” As a result, Freeman said he’s told his own congregation “it’s time for me to be a little less prophetic and a little more pastoral.”
Last summer, Freeman was a General Assembly commissioner, and he attended the pre-assembly event the task force sponsored in Richmond to explain their work so far to the church, and to provide a chance for others to try some of the techniques it has used — such as “mutual invitation,” an approach for making sure everyone in a group has a chance to participate and to be heard.
At his presbytery’s training event in January, Freeman explained that “the purpose was to learn how to listen and be respectful of people with different views, more than it was to try to convince people of what your view is and that’s it’s right.”
In the end, Freeman argues, the primary contribution of the national task force may lie in demonstrating to the denomination how respectful, caring relationships can be established in the PC(USA) despite differing views. Its 20 members have worshiped and eaten and prayed together for more than three years, and through the process have become friends. “Even if none of them changes their opinions on the controversial issues,” Freeman said, “they are modeling how to get along as the community of faith.”
“How to truly love another — that has not been modeled in our denomination, not since I’ve been ordained,” Freeman said. “We usually get together and just argue and fight.”
If the task force can show the PC(USA) another way, “that is ultimately I think more important than the final decisions they make about our controversial issues.”
