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Presbyterians Being Reformed: Reflections on What the Church Needs Today

edited by Robert H. Bullock Jr.  Louisville: Geneva Press, 2006.  ISBN 0664502792.  Pb., 133 pp., $17.95.

 

While I understand the logic of doing so, I rarely seek a second opinion on a medical matter. When I find a doctor whose insights I trust, I typically embrace his or her observations and insights.  

Truth be told, I often do the same in other areas of my life. When drawing conclusions about issues before the church, I tend to listen to persons whose opinions I trust (since they generally mirror my own), and having had my own point of view affirmed, I enjoy the sweet satisfaction reserved for those who are confident of being right.

edited by Robert H. Bullock Jr.  Louisville: Geneva Press, 2006.  ISBN 0664502792.  Pb., 133 pp., $17.95.

 

While I understand the logic of doing so, I rarely seek a second opinion on a medical matter. When I find a doctor whose insights I trust, I typically embrace his or her observations and insights.  

Truth be told, I often do the same in other areas of my life. When drawing conclusions about issues before the church, I tend to listen to persons whose opinions I trust (since they generally mirror my own), and having had my own point of view affirmed, I enjoy the sweet satisfaction reserved for those who are confident of being right.

And then along comes Robert Bullock, who has perhaps grown tired of the shrill tone of the debate within our denomination, and he has invited a diverse group of persons to offer their insights about what ails us, and about how we might move toward health.  And once again, we are in his debt. As the editor of The Presbyterian Outlook, Bullock could always be counted on to address the Church with candor, after having thought deeply and carefully about matters that require depth and care. With his Presbyterians Being Reformed: Reflections on What the Church Needs Today, he has applied his editorial skills to an important project, and has challenged those of us not inclined to seek a second opinion to do just that, to listen to voices that we might otherwise ignore, to give a hearing to persons whose points of view might unsettle us.

Bullock has gathered a group of folks who would present a challenge to a dinner party host. Who will sit with whom? How can we keep the conversation light and airy when these people hold strong opinions and aren’t shy about expressing them? But within the cover of this very readable volume, they are each given a handful of pages to have their say, to speak to the Church, to offer their diagnosis and their prescription. And the church would do well to listen, for they speak with passion and insight; and while they reflect vastly different points of view, it is obvious that the tie that binds them together is their love for the Church, and the Lord of the Church. Each one wants the words “Reformed and Always Being Reformed” to be more than a cliché, but a reminder that our lives are to be shaped and guided, in every age, by the Word of God, which is Jesus Christ.

While some of the writers more directly confronted the “issues” before us, they all, in one way or another, remind us that there is really only one issue before us, and that is to remember that our sole reason for existing is to proclaim the radical gospel of what God has done and is doing in the world, through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. On page after page, we are summoned by these Presbyterians to delve deeply into the Scriptures, to take seriously our theological identity and to remember that our allegiance to our own points of view must always stand under the judgment of our ultimate allegiance to Christ.

I found myself wishing that Bullock had placed the names of the authors at the end of their essays, rather than at the beginning, so we would be left to wonder whose words we were reading.  Would we be surprised that we had nodded in agreement with someone whose opinions we’ve learned to dismiss? Would we be honest enough to admit that those with whom we are inclined to disagree sometimes surprise us, and speak the truth?

The addition of “Questions for Discussion” at the end of each essay will give Adult Sunday School classes a way to get at the essence of each writer’s argument. But the essays themselves will provide the fuel for what I would hope to be lively, spirited conversations among Presbyterians who are willing to move beyond stereotypes and slogans, and are ready to think deeply with one another about what it means to be the church.

This book is timely, to say the least. When the General Assembly meets in Birmingham, the “product” of the PUP committee will be scrutinized and evaluated. My hope is that we’ll pay more attention to the “process” of the PUP committee, where there was clear evidence that God was at work, creating community where it seemed unlikely.  It has reminded me that the unity of our church (if it comes) will not be the result of our clever management or our shrewd politicking, but it will be, as it has always been, a gift of God’s grace, to be received, or rejected.

Out of his love for the PC (USA), Robert Bullock has placed an important collection of essays before us. May it be yet another indication that we Presbyterians can engage in vigorous debate on sensitive matters, while still hanging onto one another. May it be yet another indication that we can sit around the same table together, the Lord’s Table, focused not on our partisan allegiances, but on our love and our loyalty to the God who alone has the power to make all things, even us, new. 

 

Ed McLeod is pastor of First Church in Raleigh, N.C.

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