Since we Presbyterians have gone to General Assemblies every two years, I only get a sense of dread every two years, but still, about this time of year I begin to wonder: Can the center still hold? Will we continue the us-and-them of our preferred interest groups? Will anything be able to break the cycle of distrust and partisanship and slugfests for the moral high ground that await us in Detroit this summer? Can we truly take the other side (or sides to be more accurate) seriously or are our opponents just single-minded apostates and liberals or unenlightened biblicists and bigots?
For those who choose to remain in the PC(USA), like me, but are not necessarily looking forward to maintenance of the current trajectory or ongoing trench warfare over homosexuality or other social issues for the next 30-40 years of ministry, one seeks companionship and hope in other places and strategies. I believe staking the centrality of this issue as the primary or defining issue before us is seriously myopic (whether one is passionately for or passionately against) and leads to cyclical conflict and further erosion in our life together. If you don’t believe me, I cite the most recent statistics from U.S. Religious Census data that suggest mainline churches have accelerated our decline in membership and active participation in the last ten years. Is our ecclesiology so low and fluid – and dare I say meaningless – that we are willing to implode the church even if it means, to paraphrase Rahm Emmanuel, that we should not let a crisis go to waste and impose as much as we can on those with whom we disagree? Can we admit that we are a divided church on many issues and seek to find a third way to live together? Cyclical conflict impedes our growth and our ability to evangelize and carry out Christ’s mission in our context.
In brief, I put forth a few thoughts of seeking a third way in our life together. They are rough and broad, but perhaps there is a critical mass of Presbyterian Christians who refuse to conform to or cannot completely identify with any of the various camps within our current denominational struggles.
First, we Presbyterians pride ourselves on being ecumenical and in communion with a number of other Christian denominations and traditions; Lutherans, United Church of Christ, Methodists, and other Reformed churches come to mind. But, regarding issues like homosexuality and gay marriage and ordination, we all seek to go at it alone. Why is that I wonder? Aren’t we all divided denominations and churches on these issues? Might a 21st century ecumenical council be in order, where we are seek to arrive at solutions to these shared issues together, as Christians of all stripes? We could invite Roman Catholics and Evangelicals and Pentecostals and Global South Christians to be a part of these discussions as well. Why settle for internecine and provincial solutions and actions towards these issues? Why not think bigger and more ecumenically? Why not seek solutions and struggle with these issues as a wider church, together?
Second, why not admit that we can no longer “win” on these issues except in terms of short-term victories as the continuous departure of congregations continues to attest. We cannot cannibalize ourselves much longer because we are running out of opponents to eat. Can we accept that we are a divided church on a myriad of these issues and seek ways to live together in the midst of this great cultural divide? And can the ways we do this include and offer more than “winning” on an issue and/or leaving the church if we lose? In an interesting interview in the Christian Century, Bonhoeffer scholar Jennifer McBride argues that we Christians have the biblical and theological resources to “reframe issues and offer something new – a third way,” that swims against the current of our tired old partisan side-taking that often just mirrors the divides of our larger culture (“The Witness of Sinners,” in the Christian Century, December 11, 2013, 32-34). Three is a very important number for Christians. So perhaps our hopes and longings for a third way – that challenges those on every side but also seeks to include those on every side – has some correspondence to the triune God we seek to follow and serve.
CHRIS CURRIE is pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Shreveport, La.
