So what’s really gone on since the last General Assembly? What is the state of the PC(USA) today?
If ever there were an uncertain sound, yet a cacophony of competing interpretations, it is today. Some reassure while others remonstrate. Some warn of impending disasters, while many are enjoying sunny skies. Some fear we’ll drop off the right edge of the planet. Others worry that we’re falling off the left edge. How’s a person to know?
This edition of the Outlook has been prepared to provide accurate and insightful reporting so informed leaders can really lead the church well in this season between the 2006 Birmingham General Assembly and the 2008 San Jose GA.
So where are we now?
A sea change has been reshaping our national office. The restructure of the General Assembly Council and the election of Linda Valentine as GAC executive director have drawn an influx of fresh eyes and voices into the mission agencies of the church (read article). A new vigor is flowing through those ministries.
Our denomination continues to engage Israeli-Palestinian issues, albeit amid less acrimoniously than before the last GA. We continue to work, lobby, and pray for justice and survival, for security and safety for both the Palestinians and Israelis (read article).
Contrary to predictions, the scrupling authoritative interpretation adopted in Birmingham still waits to be tested. Many had warned that the creation of the slightest wiggle room in the enforcement of ordination standards would flood the church with gay and lesbian candidates who would press to accept calls to churches. Only one active gay person, Scott Anderson (a former member of the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church), has even initiated the inquiry process. The first test of the new policy won’t come for months, when Scott pursues promotion from inquirer to candidate status. On the other hand, about two dozen presbyteries have declared scruples off-limits in their regions of the church (challenges to such actions are working their way through higher courts, read article). Many other presbyteries have revised their examination processes, making it much more difficult for persons holding unorthodox theologies or living in untraditional lifestyles to slip unnoticed into church leadership. Rigorous examination of candidates and transferring ministers, which for decades had been the exception, is now becoming the norm (read article).
One thing has not changed since Birmingham. Theology still matters. Trinitarian theology matters most. In spite of the fact that the commissioners chose not to approve the Trinity study report, “God’s Love Overflowing,” but simply to receive it for study; and in spite of the fact that that report clearly affirms the classical understanding and language of the Trinity (read article); some post-Birmingham reports declared that the PC(USA) had abandoned the faith. Such reports also disregarded the fact that the GA overwhelmingly approved the thoroughly Trinitarian theological prologue to the report of the TTFPUP.* Those documents are not flawless (read article). But neither document — whether received or approved — enjoys an authoritative status, as do the classically Trinitarian creeds and declarations found in the Book of Confessions.
Some change has been rumbling as a handful of churches (a fraction of what many predicted a year ago) has initiated steps to withdraw from the PC(USA). Many congregations’ leaders have determined to hang in with the PC(USA), in spite of disenchanted feelings they have toward the denomination. Still others have discovered that the denomination has not drifted as far to the right or left as they had heard. Nevertheless, every departure has brought sorrow to the overall church.
The possibility of polity changes (progress? regress?) awaits us on the western horizon as the Form of Government Task Force continues writing and editing a host of Book of Order changes to be considered at the San Jose GA.
All in all, as we see it, not a lot has changed in the past year. Then again, not very much does change for us from year to year, or even from century to century. Our favorite biblical expression, “decently and in order,” does set a plodding Presbyterian pace for innovation — whether constructive or destructive. That beats the alternative.
