In preparing to write this blog, I spent considerable time on the ineffable PC-Biz website for this year’s upcoming General Assembly. If you haven’t visited pc-biz.org, take a look: It is the digital home for GA, containing every overture, a list of members for every committee, agendas, concurrences and the like. Each click is another wave of text, each scroll drowns the reader in resources and rationales.
While there is much to be interested in, I was dismayed by what was absent from the Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations docket: any mention of Evangelicals and Evangelicalism.
My interest here is not to guide the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to be more evangelical (though in a denomination with dwindling numbers and closing churches, it would be a breath of fresh Spirit-given air to see most of our churches regain a sense of sharing their faith and making converts of those who do not currently worship Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior). No, my interest is to take seriously the vast chasm between our Reformed theology and worship and Evangelical theology and worship.
This interest began after the much-reviled “Nashville Statement” made its rounds on the internet and proved delicious fodder on social media in late August and early September 2017. One day after this statement was released, the PC(USA)’s Office of Theology and Worship (OTW) released its own statement that sought to neither concur nor condemn the original. Instead, it sought to “help clarify the position of our denomination.”
This clarity, however, was lacking. Indeed, our denominational response went so far as to claim “we have become agnostic around issues of homosexuality,” a position that it later clarifies as “a more challenging way.”
I do not wish to adjudicate our current agnosticism here. I do, however, wish to draw attention to this simple fact: The Nashville Statement was written by Christians from an entirely different tradition, with different approaches to Scripture, the confessions and the purpose of discipleship today. And this is okay.
It is okay because we have long worked to build bridges of ecumenism between our denomination/tradition and other Christian denominations/traditions. We have done this without sensing that we were risking part of our own identity and without asking these other traditions to risk their own. At its best, ecumenism understands the diversity of Christian traditions as the almost natural occurrence of people who worship a God who is so big and diverse. At its best, we see God’s light as through a prism and each ROY G. BIV color that is separated from it as a different tradition. Thus we are part of the light, but are not the light itself.
My initial response to the OTW’s response was not disgust because they failed to take a position, but dismay that it felt a necessity to opine upon another tradition’s perspective of marital and sexual ethics. For an apt comparison, I challenge any reader to find a similar sort of statement from OTW on Pope Francis’ new book on Catholicism and economic justice. It’s just not there. It’s not there because we don’t sense a need to consistently challenge or concur with every Catholic thought. Our ecumenism with our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters frees us from this burden. (And this is good, too, because there isn’t much in the Nashville Statement that Roman Catholic teaching would reject).
Yet a review of the Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations docket shows no such attempts to build ecumenical bridges with our more evangelical brothers and sisters.
I suppose part of our reticence to do this is because we haven’t entirely come to terms with the fact that Evangelicals are truly their own separate tradition worthy of ecumenical dialogue. Indeed, the history of Evangelicalism in America is complex, but still simple enough to say that what is now a tradition and a (non)denomination first began as a movement in what we call Mainline churches.
I was surprised to discover in reading his obituary that Billy Graham – surely a chief candidate to be included should Evangelicals ever construct a Mount Rushmore to their forefathers – was actually raised Presbyterian. Maybe that confirmation didn’t stick, but I see evidence enough that we, deep down, regard members of this tradition as somehow still a part of us – like that kooky uncle you sometimes try to avoid at the family reunions.
We might, in fact, even find greater appreciation for our Evangelical siblings if we were to recognize this, as our own forefather – Martin Luther – did not set out to establish a new tradition and denomination(s), but rather to create a movement of renewed faithfulness within his own tradition. It was only after it became clear that he could not remain Roman Catholic than anything we call Reformed theology was created. Whether justly or not, it wouldn’t be untoward for an Evangelical today to find an apt comparison in Luther to their own experience in mainline churches.
It is time to acknowledge our Evangelical brothers and sisters as part of a real, robust tradition that is separate and distinct from us and then to seek ways that we might partner with them in Christ’s mission in the world. To be sure, the differences will far outweigh the similarities on so many issues, but good ecumenism never begins here. It begins with seeking common ground, or – to return to the metaphor – in acknowledging the source of the Light before it enters the prism.
So my prayer is that this year’s GA continues to build interfaith bridges with adherents of Islam [07-01], continue dialogue with the United States Council of Catholic Bishops [07-03; 07-06], continue our conversation with Episcopalians [07-04; 07-05], and engage with any other religion or Christian tradition that is open to it. But let us not neglect a tradition so rich and growing as Evangelicalism in the United States. Let us seek ways to open the door of conversation, rather than lobbing “statement bombs” at one another.
After all, Jesus’ table even has room for the kooky uncle.
JEFFREY A. SCHOOLEY is the pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Marysville, Ohio. Part of his ministry there puts him in frequent contact with pastors from other Christian traditions. As a group, they’ve agreed to always start with what holds them in common, rather than where they differ. You can send your reflections on ecumenicism and Evangelicals to thinklikechristians@gmail.com.
