As I get older, I spend more time in front of the mirror each morning. The issue isn’t vanity — at least that’s not my primary concern.
The time in the mirror is less about curating my image for the world. It’s reflection, introspection, meditation, correction, inspiration and motivation. In the mirror, I see myself and who I want to be and am called to be in the world.
Mirrors have a funny way of showing us who we are, who we can be and who we are called to be.
For 200 years, the Presbyterian Outlook and her predecessors have mirrored who we are as Presbyterians and who we aspire to be as a church. The view has been inspirational and aspirational. And unsurprisingly, it has also been disturbing and frustrating. While not always ideal, the publications mirrored our truth.
In the 1930s, the Presbyterian of the South, one of the progenitors, espoused “The Spirituality of the Church.” It was a longstanding doctrine within the Presbyterian Church from the late 19th century. It promoted the church as a spiritual organization concerned with the salvation of sinners and their reconciliation with God through Christ. Partly due to its authorship by slave-owning theologians, the doctrine rejected the church’s role in correcting societal evils or participating in political matters, such as slavery and women’s suffrage. The publication mirrored who we were and how we wanted the world to perceive us.
Influenced by the teachings of social gospeller Walter Rauschenbusch, Ernest Trice Thompson burnished our mirror to reveal another angle of Presbyterianism. In 1933 when he assumed the role as editor of the Presbyterian of the South, Thompson displayed our Reformed tradition as one called to promote social righteousness and exhibit the kingdom of God to the world.
In 1943, Thompson along with his new managing editor Aubrey Brown renamed the Presbyterian of the South to the Presbyterian Outlook. Together with the publication, they held up a mirror that not only reflected the present but provided a glimpse of who Presbyterians wanted to be in the world and of what God was calling us to be.
Their tenure included editions on the ordination of women, reunion with other Presbyterian denominations and integration with people of color. They included a space for many voices with verifying opinions — not to be fair and balanced, but to be faithful to the gospel.
In my first call serving in the national mission agency of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), I, like so many others, relied on the Outlook’s independent reporting. It reflected conversations Presbyterians were having around the country. Articles included our various perspectives on the church’s mission, ordination, interfaith dialogues and theological education.
The Outlook also featured Presbyterians working to rebuild communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina, to care for immigrants, to embrace changing technologies and to nurture all generations. It showed us living in gratitude of God’s love in our work for justice and care for the spiritual, material, social, political and existential well-being of all people and God’s creation. The Outlook allows us to see ourselves, our treatment of one another, our shared joys and our struggle to discern faithful living.
Thompson and Brown fashioned a mirror that succeeding editors continued to polish, refine and hold up to us. Many editors, reporters, writers, designers and staff throughout the church shared in the responsibility of holding the mirror. Through the years, they reflected who we are, revealed who we hope to be and helped us to reclaim who God calls us to be as a church.
We need mirrors. We need to see ourselves in light of the truth. To paraphrase Paul, we are not our own, but bought by price; therefore, we should glorify God.
May we never lose this mirror we call the Presbyterian Outlook.
Bridgett Green teaches New Testament at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and is a minister member of Charlotte Presbytery.
