But the denomination has decided against adding the Belhar Confession from South Africa to its Book of Confessions — a disappointment for those who thought the confession had important implications for a North American church confronting its own difficulties with racism and disunity.
Here’s more on what these decisions will mean for the PC(USA).
Form of Government
On July 10, the denomination will begin using the new Form of Government, a slimmer, more streamlined version of the one it’s been working with for the past 18 years.
“It’s a change in the way we do polity in the church,” said Daniel Williams, a pastor from Staunton, Va., and co-moderator of the General Assembly task force which proposed the revisions. “It spells out the broad principles or boundaries of our polity, and enables the church to be creative within those boundaries.”
The new approach will bring some changes in terminology that likely will take a while to work their way into the everyday vernacular. “Governing bodies” of various types now become “councils.” And “Ministers of Word and Sacrament” will now be called “teaching elders,” and elders will be referred to as “ruling elders.”
That language emphasizes both the “essential parity” between teaching elders and ruling elders, and the heart of their work, Williams said — for ministers, to teach the Bible, and for elders, to rule or discern the movement of the spirit in what is being proposed for a council to do.
Some Presbyterians may also feel their blood pressure rising as presbyteries and sessions begin to revise their manuals of operations to conform to the new system.
But Williams said people don’t need to feel overwhelmed or that they must rush to make huge changes. One option, he said, is for councils to take actions to tide them over temporarily until they make more permanent changes — by approving a measure, for example, that says the council will continue to operate for a limited period of time under the basic provisions of the old Form of Government while the manual is being rewritten. Some presbyteries are providing congregations with sample language to do that — and are offering reassurances that not everything needs to change overnight.
The General Assembly approved the new Form of Government in 2010, but the proposal to change the denomination’s constitution still needed approval from a majority of the denomination’s 173 presbyteries. On June 7, Trinity Presbytery became the 87th one to vote “yes” on the change — bringing a sigh of relief from those polity gurus who served on two consecutive task forces that crafted the revised language.
Some evangelicals in the church argued against making the change. The Presbyterian Coalition, for example, presented the argument that the new Form of Government would be onerous for congregations. The Coalition raised questions about quorums and notification for congregational meetings.
It also asked Presbyterians to “consider the time each congregation and session is going to have to spend researching provisions now covered by the current Form of Government,” but which are not spelled out in detail in the new approach.
Advocates for the change, however, contend that the new Form of Government will give Presbyterians the flexibility they need to do ministry in ways suitable for their local context. Within the parameters the Form of Government sets, councils will have the freedom to act without seeking specific permission.
Carl Wilton, a pastor from Point Pleasant Beach, N. J., and stated clerk of Monmouth Presbytery, wrote in a blog entry on his presbytery’s Web site that some may view the new approach “as an annoyance, as extra work that needs to be done,” and may be looking for ways to keep doing things in the old familiar style.
“I think it’s a mistake to look on the new Form of Government that way: as an obstacle to be overcome,” Wilton wrote. “I look on it more as an opportunity. In response to a growing sense, across the denomination, that the Form of Government had grown too large, regulatory and generally unwieldy, the General Assembly has approved a new version that’s simpler and more flexible. There’s freedom, now, for sessions, presbyteries and synods to cut away certain former rules and regulations they believe have been hindering effective mission.
“If in our sessions and in the presbytery, we take this opportunity to enter into a time of missional reorganization, we’ll very likely find that we’ll come out of that process better able to respond to the call of Christ in our particular locale, and a lot less likely to allow our shoelaces to get tied together by unnecessary regulations.”
Williams also hopes that congregations will take the opportunity to study the new Form of Government — to use the “Foundations of Presbyterian Polity,” for example, which describes the theological and historic principles that undergird Presbyterian polity, as a teaching tool for councils, for new member or confirmation classes or small study groups.
His advice for the PC(USA) as it considers the impact of the new Form of Government?
“Everyone needs to take a nice, deep breath. Relax,” Williams said. As councils consider what changes to make in their manuals, “they have an opportunity to step back and take a good deliberate look at who they are,” and at the mission work they feel called to do.
Belhar Confession
A proposal to add Belhar to the PC(USA) Book of Confessions gained support from a majority of the presbyteries, but fell short of the two-thirds margin needed to change the Book of Confessions. So far — as of June 7 — 89 presbyteries had voted to add Belhar as a PC(USA) confession and 60 had voted no — but the measure only needed 58 negative votes to be defeated.
The Belhar vote came during a season when the PC(USA) was considering other major changes — including the new Form of Government and a revision, already approved, of the denomination’s ordination standards, which will permit the ordination of sexually active gays and lesbians.
J. C. Austin is director of the Center for Christian Leadership at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York and a member of a special committee created by the General Assembly which recommended adding Belhar to the PC(USA) confessions. Austin said he’s disappointed by the outcome, but thinks the denomination can still benefit from considering the witness South African Christians have provided.
“The fact that it didn’t get two-thirds doesn’t mean it didn’t have a significant impact on the denomination, and will continue to do so,” Austin said. Many presbyteries took seriously the task of studying Belhar, and of considering the implication of its themes of reconciliation, justice and unity for an American church with significant racial divisions and ongoing theological disputes.
“Where do we find our unity as a church?” Austin asked. “How do we understand diversity” in views and in identity?
He does have concern that the PC(USA)’s decision not to add Belhar to its Book of Confessions — at a time when the confession was recently adopted by the Reformed Church in America and is to be considered at the 2012 General Synod meeting of the Christian Reformed Church in North America — may be viewed negatively by some Christians in the southern hemisphere.
“I hope it doesn’t get interpreted as a lack of commitment to ecumenical relationships and theological conversation between the global North and the global South,” Austin said. “That would be a wrong understanding,” considering how many presbyteries voted in favor of adding Belhar.
Even if it’s not part of the PC(USA)’s Book of Confessions, some hope Presbyterians will continue to study Belhar and to wrestle with its content.
“Americans and Christians have a hard time talking about issues of racism and the dynamics of that in contemporary society,” Austin said. “Part of what Belhar does is give us a chance to go far, in order to come near.”
Austin also hopes that the unanimity his task force reached in voting for the confession’s inclusion, and the energy with which some presbyteries discussed the confession’s message, can be a reminder to Presbyterians that theological confessions are not static.
“By engaging it theologically and subscribing to what it was saying, we actually saw unity being built in the church — which was a wonderful affirmation of how Christ works through the church and how the Holy Spirit moves through theology,” Austin said. “Confessional statements aren’t abstract ideas. They are a declaration of authority and an articulation of the gospel. They have life.”
