I am impressed by the report of the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church. Despite critique that I offer below, the care and thoughtfulness of its theology, the honesty and earnestness of its tone, the pastoral wisdom and balance of its approach, as well as the insight and reflection of its ecclesiology make strongly positive contributions. One does not need to agree with all its points to find in this report a great deal that is constructive and up-building to the body of Christ. It is a rich resource with content that seems judicious and affirming, instructive and fruitful. “The Task Force was not asked to resolve all the controversial issues in the church or to relieve the church of all conflict. The Task Force was asked to help the church deal with current and future conflicts more faithfully.” I believe that at points they have given us some important help. Though a more detailed reflection on the report would take far more space and time than is allowed here, I will venture a few initial personal responses, following the order of the document itself.
I am grateful for the Theological Basis. The apparent consensus around an orthodox trinitarianism is its primary strength, and points to the central hope for any true “peace, unity, and purity” in our individual or common life. This is not to be taken for granted and is indispensable for our future, not least its affirmation of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. Alongside all that is laudatory, unifying, and valuable in this section, two closely related points seemed especially lacking adequate development. First, I would have expected to find a more developed reflection on what it means that human beings are creatures made in God’s image. Surely, it is true we are loved. But who is the “us” that God loves? The nature of our humanity, God’s intentional relationship to us and purpose for us in love informs our lives and our biblical grasp of what our humanness means. Since our createdness grounds our ethics in meaning and purpose beyond mere naturalism, I wish this had been given more emphasis.
The second, and closely connected, theme I would have expected to see more prominently, is a truly developed reflection on the profound, complex, and subtle nature of sin. Our fallenness is why peace, unity and purity are so hard to come by. Acknowledgement of sin is everywhere present in the report. However, a sustained reflection on our broken human condition seems inadequately developed. This matters for its own sake, but also because it makes some of their reflections about the gospel, reconciliation, conflict, faith, and peace murkier and less compelling than they might otherwise have been. I would have wished for more comprehensive reflection on these two subjects–creation and fall– in order to better understand what they are affirming about the gospel and its moral implications. God’s love is specifically for us in our fallen creatureliness: this double theme is what peculiarly shapes a Christian view of such issues as peace, unity and purity.
I was encouraged by the amount and level of self-disclosure the report provides in the next part of the report, the Plan and Progress section, about the experiences of the Task Force itself. It is enough without being too much or too little. That the Task Force has humbly labored to be a servant to the Church is plainly and gratefully evident. Five years of reflection on God’s grace amidst the minefield that is the PC(USA) seems to have driven them far more towards sober hope than towards an easier despair. I am thankful for that.
I was largely disappointed with the subsequent Issues section of the report. Certainly, it is worth affirming much of what was said in this section and I found little I disagreed with fundamentally. In sum, however, only this amount of agreement felt anemic. I don’t find what they say disagreeable, but neither do I find much that seems to advance our discussions or to diminish our tensions. Its summary of opinions and issues distills things, but given the sustained concentration of the Task Force, I, and many others I would imagine, were hoping for some greater, added contribution. If this was as far as agreement could be found, it left me feeling even more convinced of the substantive disagreement on these issues within the Task Force, and within the denomination.
I was heartened by the emphasis on discernment. This language and practice comes far closer to reflecting what many would consider an essential spiritual practice in the Christian faith, far more than debate, argument, and votes. These latter elements have their place but surely they ought to be secondary within the life of God’s people. Unfortunately, the reverse has been common. The up-down voting process seems to preference Robert’s Rules over the voice of the Holy Spirit. If that is so, no wonder we find ourselves needing the work of a task force on peace, unity, and purity. I wholeheartedly welcome this emphasis on discernment that is a careful, biblical, spiritual, communal act of listening and obedience. This is no panacea. This is not Christian naiveté. Nor is it demanding consensus decision-making that can at times be paralyzing. Genuine discernment is not a euphemism for merely hearing one another better. Discernment pushes beyond and through understanding one another towards perceiving and knowing in humility the heart and mind of God. Discernment is a call to a greater depth of spiritual work that requires a kind of dying, even as it also offers life.
I was challenged by the report’s implicit call to spiritual maturity. This report reflects and presumes a spiritual development that hardly seems common within our denomination. Only in and out of such spiritual depth can such a report be received and practiced, however. The call it lays before the church is not achievable by a community of faith that is shallow, cynical, flip, or arrogantly self-confident. The Task Force itself is composed of people who have maturely, thoughtfully, and prayerfully lived and practiced what they are encouraging in the church. My sense is that, broadly speaking, the church to which this report is sent is often not those things. To live into the maturity they ask us to practice demands far more spiritual work and transformation than I see across our denominational landscape.
I am grateful for their call to unity, and especially to unity around essentials. What else can the church hope to do but to found its life on that common ground? The call to approach ordination standards in this framework does seem broadly clarifying and makes that process more explicit and more even-handed. How and whether it will enable a greater faithfulness in the church, not least one that reflects the peace, unity and purity of Jesus Christ, will no doubt be vigorously debated. It could, if we learn to practice wiser discernment. But, painfully, substantial historical evidence suggests we may not be prone to do this.
Of all the valuable words of the Report, “essential” will be among those that attract the greatest attention and foster the most heated debate. To have chosen the approach they did in talking about essentials and non-essentials will be understood by some to beg the very question which plagues the denomination’s life and to have avoided the core issue that fans our collective angst.
The Task Force’s approach about essentials is fair and useful. It has the ring of Presbyterian sensibility about it that is hard to reject, even as if it is not easy to apply. This is especially true about matters that are not, strictly speaking, theological (about God) but are more ecclesiastical (about the church). That there is a church seems essential in biblical terms. That this church finds its life in and lives its life from the life of God is essential. That this church exists to mirror God’s character in action, to show forth the Spirit’s fruit, is essential. But whether, for example, it does this in an episcopal, presbyterian, or congregational form is non-essential. Our particular practices of ordination exist in the nexus that includes both essentials and non-essentials. That’s what makes these issues so complex. That’s central to our dilemma: in matters of ordination, what is essential and why?
I fear the Task Force opted for the classic and ubiquitous Presbyterian escape hatch: focusing on process when what we needed more was deeper reflection on the content itself. In a way that might have been parallel to their “balancing points” regarding polity, it would have been constructive to provide such a set of statements regarding a theology or practice of ordination itself. It may have been that the Task Force considered this sort of reflection beyond their purview. This would not, however, have handed the denomination a new policy on ordination. It would have taken us more deeply into the heart of the debate. Without “balancing points” regarding ordination, or something like it at least, the “local option” that they repudiate seems more than likely to become a reality de facto. In this area, the report is the least satisfying.
The Task Force pulls no rabbit out of a hat. That’s very good news. Neither is it Solomon-like in its insight, though what it gives us is often rich and valuable. Instead, it calls us to spiritual maturity in the midst of both our unity and diversity, our commonality and our divisions, which must surely be primary to our calling. I receive the report thankfully. And, with many additional questions. I hope we all will do likewise in the months ahead as we start, continue, or extend practices of discernment on such important issues.
Mark Labberton is pastor of First Church, Berkeley, Calif.
