Cynthia Bolbach, nFOG Task Force co-moderator, squared off with Jim Berkley, the director of Presbyterian Action for Faith and Freedom, a division of the Institute of Religion and Democracy. Over two hours’ time they made presentations, responded to questions from the audience, and debated with each other.
The following are excerpts compiled by Outlook editor Jack Haberer. A complete broadcast of the debate is available online at www.natpresch.org.
Overall:
CB: “My guess is that he [Jim] and I will disagree on a couple of different things in the course of the afternoon, but I think that we both believe each other to be committed to the same thing, which is how we most effectively proclaim the gospel in the 21st century, and I hope we can model what I think our polity is supposed to do, which is to allow for debate and discussion about how we do just that.”
JB: “I feel somewhat awkward being here. Good people have worked very hard. … But I will continue anyhow. … I believe that the new FOG — Form of Government — is dangerous and unnecessary. … I’m supposed to talk about the need for the new FOG. But there really isn’t any.”
Why change?
CB: “There has been an ongoing call for changes to our Form of Government over at least the last 10 years … because people have realized that over time our Form of Government has expanded, perhaps inevitably, from what it is supposed to be, which is a constitution, into something that is more like a regulatory manual of operations. … There has been, over the years, a recognition that the Form of Government has become too unwieldy, has tried to propose a one-size-fits-all answer to all problems.”
JB: “Let’s face it. It’s the Office of the General Assembly that keeps calling for a new FOG. Twice before the General Assembly has disapproved of the idea. It seemed dead in the water, and then came back (at) the last General Assembly with the chapter 14 revision, and the Office of General Assembly got it through, and it passed the presbyteries, and now we have a new chapter 14. And everywhere that I’ve run into, the presbyteries and sessions are scrambling to find their old Book of Order to adopt the old Book of Order chapter 14 as their set of rules that they do need, because the new chapter 14 that we adopted doesn’t have what we need.”
On being missional:
CB: “A missional polity says that where the church engages the world is at the congregational level. It’s the congregation that goes out to proclaim the gospel, and that’s where we start: with congregations and their membership. … The congregation is the church engaged in mission in its particular context. … There’s a sentence that kind of sums up what we’re trying to say about our polity, that is, “The congregation is the basic form of the church, but it is not of itself a sufficient form of the church.” In other words, the congregation is where the rubber hits the road, if you will, but congregations cannot live, and breathe, and do ministry effectively in a vacuum.”
JB: “Describing this new Form of Government as missional, to me, makes about as much sense as describing it as aromatic or, maybe, curvaceous. The adjective doesn’t fit the concept. Missional is a wonderful word, one I embrace. I like it as a concept. However, it has little or nothing to do with the radical, new Form of Government being proposed. … To make a constitution sketchier, more ambiguous, more ripe for abuse, I would contend, is not to be missional. It would be tremendously ill- advised. We see presbyteries, we hear church leaders, even agencies of the General Assembly, struggling with the idea of wanting to embrace the new FOG, but also having grave reservations about this wholesale move towards tossing a wise and proven Form of Government to gain a vague, imprecise, unproved, new Form of Government that is missing key elements.”
On the present “problematic” Book of Order:
JB: “I want you to be very honest with yourself now. Think in your own mind. How many of you have elders come up to you and say, ‘Dang, if it … weren’t for the Book of Order, we’d be a really wildly successful church. It’s only the Book of Order that’s holding us back.’ I haven’t heard that. I haven’t felt that. How many of you wake up in the middle of the night and think, ‘What we really need to do for the next decade or so as a congregation is come up with a new set of rules, and now, then we’ll be a thriving church?’ … The present FOG is like a newer car. It’s the result of incremental refinements year after year, issue after issue. That’s improvement. It’s said there’s one on every page. That’s because there was a problem and it was fixed by amendment, and now we don’t have that problem any more.”
CB: “I agree with Jim that the Book of Order has not stopped the congregations from successfully doing ministry. But I think the Book of Order is also the way we define ourselves in the way we talk about ourselves. … I think that’s important. And I think that as a denomination we are steadily losing members, and as a Christian society we are losing a foothold in American society. Again, we are at a different point now than we were 50 years ago. And the way we define ourselves has got to change.”
On developing regulations by lower governing bodies:
JB: “Do you really relish reinventing the regulatory wheel? If the new FOG should be approved, any work in your session or presbytery or synod or the General Assembly will grind to a halt because each council will need to replace dozens of policies and regulations. … If you look at the back of the new Form of Government there are 15 pages, not of new regulations but 15 pages of lists of regulations that would need to be made up. … Why upset the applecart?”
CB: “What he characterizes as imposing a lot of burden upon sessions and presbyteries to do all these procedures I see as an opportunity for presbyteries … to say, “How can we do things better? How can we minister more effectively?” … Earlier this month, the San Diego Presbytery issued a declaration stating, ‘As of today,’ (that would be March 13th) ‘we, the Presbytery of San Diego declare that we are no longer primarily a governing body. We declare that we are a relational community and that we are becoming a mission agency.’ So they have started their process of thinking. And what I’m hoping is that other presbyteries will go through that same sort of process.”
On trust in the church:
CB: “The biggest impediment in enacting this and any other kind of change in our denomination is the fact that we don’t trust each other. I don’t know how we change that. … Just saying, ‘Let’s not do anything,’ is not going to change the level of mistrust across our denomination. … There are many people who say, ‘Yeah, here in National Capital Presbytery, we do things right. We do things decently and in order. But those yahoos in New York City Presbytery, they don’t have their act together.’ But this new Form of Government says that we’ve got to assume, we’ve got to trust that those people in New York City Presbytery can do what’s necessary to do mission in New York City, and we here in National Capital Presbytery will do what’s necessary to do mission in National Capital Presbytery.”
JB: “We have a reinforced lack of trust. It’s not just a lack of trust — it’s reinforced. Trust is a rare commodity in this denomination. Why? Because we’re all just untrusting people looking around for ways to be mad? No. Because trust has been extended, and trust has been broken, time and time again. And when that happens, it’s like, ”Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” … I’m not prepared to be fooled over and over and over again by end-arounds around the clear meaning of words and intents of regulations. So we’re suspicious. With trust so rare, many, many Presbyterians — even a group like the General Assembly Council and the Committee of the General Assembly, which instigated this whole thing — have counseled to delay for two years.”
On interim and associate pastors succeeding to become the congregation’s pastor:
JB: “Take temporary pastors. They could be busy in the church, setting themselves up, feathering the nest to be called as the called pastor. We’ve learned that that’s not good. It hurts the church. It defeats the purpose of the transitional leader.”
CB: “We offered an option for the General Assembly because we realize that this generates … controversy in the church. It seemed to us that given our mandate to provide flexibility at all levels, we couldn’t impose a flat-out prohibition against calling an interim or associate as the next installed pastor.”
