Other signs:
• more people standing in unemployment lines than in cash register lines;
• A news headline: “Anxiety: the New Normal;”
• And, the omnipresent sign of the season: “SALE!”
The economy is taking us back to a Dickensian kind of season. Bankers are sitting behind Scrooge desk signs — not that they enjoy that role any more than Ebenezer did — as they bring bad tidings of a great credit crunch.
Which leads to another sign, a hopeful sign: governmental officials taking action. Both the outgoing president and the incoming. Both the Republicans and Democrats. Both the White House and the Congress. Leaders are leading. And they’re doing so together.
What gives?
Well, our leaders have recognized that the only way to survive this bumpy, winding road, with the many unforeseeable turns ahead, is to travel it at full speed. They have rejected the option to play it safe. Sure, they are debating methods, allocations, and programs, but they are acting. They are refusing to park in a rest area. They are throwing caution to the wind.
Such decisive and innovative leadership deserves our appreciation. These governmental leaders will bear the brunt of history’s judgment for the actual substance of the decisions they are making. No doubt some decisions will backfire. No doubt some actions will throw good money after bad.
No doubt a career in the private sector must look appealing to them at such a time.
But leaders lead, and history will note that.
Which brings us to the church. Given that our leader Jesus invited his followers, Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest, where are the church leaders extending such invitations today? Whose pronouncements echo the Savior’s words so clearly, so directly, and so loudly that the national press is taking notice?
Where are the church leaders willing to throw caution to the wind?
Are we so afraid the church won’t balance the budget that our primary response is to trim our support of missions? Are we too busy reassuring the saints struggling with tightened budgets to help the newly-unemployed, non-church-attending, low-income-housing neighbors pay their overdue electric bills? Too wrapped up in our own congregation’s discomforts to care about other congregations’ financial emergencies?
Leaders lead. And as it was for Jesus, the apostles and prophets, so it is for today: this is the season for the leaders to lead with reckless abandon.
One other thing the national leaders are doing: they are leading alongside others. Our national leaders are demonstrating in spades that we cannot solve our own economic downturn in isolation. They’re working with other nations’ leaders, not acting like the 10,000-pound gorilla but as an equal partner with the other G-20 leaders. They understand that, in the community of nations, we stand together or we fall together.
It is time for us Presbyterians to rediscover the power of our connectionalism. Parallel to recent years’ national unilateralism, many U.S. churches have pursued a pattern of going it alone, operating independently, and even glorifying disaffiliation from other churches. The non-denominational church movement — which, in the spirit of openness, I attest nurtured my faith as a teenager and young adult — has ascended in popularity while denominational affiliations have been treated as an albatross to be jettisoned. The multilateral approach of the nations’ leaders provides us a teachable moment to showcase the value of denominational connectionalism, give witness to our presbytery partnerships, demonstrate our mutual accountability, and thereby manifest the catholicity of the church.
Yes, by leading. And, yes, by leading together.
Businesses, pundits, and events post most of the signs of our times. ‘Tis time for the church to herald some different signs of the season.
— JHH
