LOUISVILLE — “Why do we need a denomination?”
That’s the question Joan Gray, moderator of the 217th General Assembly, put straight to the General Assembly Council on Sept. 27 — in essence, asking leaders of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) whether the denomination they serve is relevant anymore.
But Gray also spoke a word of hope — contending that “living into that scary, anxious question may be one of the ways that God opens us to the new thing that God wants to do among us, whatever it is.”
Gray said when she showed her husband the text of the remarks she planned to make at the first council meeting she’s attended, he told her to tone it down, “it’s too radical.”
But after sitting through a day of brainstorming about the future of the PC(USA), Gray wasn’t worried about saying out loud what’s on her heart — she’s not sure it’s radical at all.
“I am convinced that God is doing a new thing in our midst, and the sign of that for me is that the former things are passing away,” she said. Gray, a Presbyterian minister who has written a book on Presbyterian polity, a woman who has built her career in the church, asserted that the ways Presbyterians were trained, and which have served them well for so long, “are passing away. Some so slowly that I think we hardly recognize it, others very fast.”
What is changing?
For one thing, people today “can access a universe” of information, of relationships, of programs, just by logging on to a computer, Gray said. “Churches are not looking to the national office for those things much anymore.”
And people all over the PC(USA) who are involved in direct mission are asking whether a centralized denomination is needed any more, she said. Her first instinct is to answer yes — Gray said she can summon a long list of “substantial and positive” answers as to why the PC(USA) should continue to exist.
“My natural reaction to this is resistance and trying to rebuild the former things,” she said. “I think that’s human nature. But this is the very point at which the cross of Jesus Christ rises up both to confront me and to comfort me,” as she realizes that Christian faith is built on the understanding that “it is in dying that we are born to new life. It is in letting go that we receive.”
As the old passes away, “all will become new.”
Gray said she is coming to believe what Linda Valentine, the General Assembly Council’s new executive director, has recently been saying: that what matters is not the structure and programs of Presbyterian life, but “things like transparency, accountability, listening, and listening, and listening. And acting out of faith, rather than fear.”
Gray encouraged all Presbyterians — every women’s Bible study, every men’s breakfast group, every pastor and session — to think of the 15th chapter of John’s gospel, the fifth verse.
“Jesus said, `Without me, you can do nothing,’ “ Gray said. “We need to live into nothing. We need to live into what it means to be able to do nothing before we will ever get to `Abide in me and you will bear much fruit.’ There has to be deconstruction before there can be new construction. I don’t have answers, I don’t have a plan.”
But Gray says she has a vision that God is doing a new thing with Presbyterians, “and that fills me with great joy.”
When she finished, the room was mostly quiet, subdued. When she called for questions, there were just a few.
Gray ended by saying this: “It’s going to be a hell of a ride.”
