LOUISVILLE — The work the Form of Government Task Force is doing to rewrite the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is “critical” in the life of the denomination, Joseph Small told the task force.
“You are clearly not simply saying, `Let’s take this big, thick book of regulations and make it into a leaner, meaner document that will free people up for faithfulness in mission,’ “ Small said. “You’re doing that, but you’re doing more than that. This is a chance that comes along not even once a generation … to make some significant advances in the church’s understanding of who and what it is.”
But Small, director of Theology, Worship and Education Ministries for the PC(USA), had some gentle cautions to offer the group as well during its meeting in Louisville Aug. 16-18. His advice, he stressed, is based not just on personal opinion, but grows out of discussions among his staff regarding drafts of the task force’s work that have been publicly posted on the Internet.
Small shed light on the theological underpinnings of Presbyterian polity, showing how the denomination’s constitution is not just a list of rules (although there certainly are rules) but also an attempt to structure the church to do God’s work as best it can in a complicated world.
The task force responded to some of Small’s suggestions — recommending, for example, that the phrase “governing bodies” be dropped in favor of “councils.”
Here’s more of what Small had to say.
First four chapters. The Form of Government task force is recommending that the first four chapters of the Book of Order be replaced with a statement they have written, one that retains much of the content of what’s there now, but reorders it to emphasize the mission of the church (see article on page __.) That recommendation — as with all of the task force’s proposals — would have to be approved by the General Assembly.
Many in the PC(USA) cherish those first four chapters, and may well ask, “Why in the world are you tinkering” with them, Small said. “I understand why that comment is made. It probably grows more from fear than anything else, fear that you’re going to mess it all up.”
But if the task force can preserve much of the content but reorder it to make things more clear, and if the document begins with a theological statement, “people will probably stand up and salute you,” Small told the task force.
He cautioned against writing any language that sounds like the task force is proposing a new confession for the church, or to say “this is kind of a distillation of the whole confessional witness” or “these are the essential tenets” of the PC(USA).
In his office, Small said, “we get sweaty palms every time we hear `essential tenets.'”
To summarize: “To begin with some kind of clear theological thrust I think is good and appropriate,” Small said. “But to the extent that it looks like another confession, a substitute confession, a privileging of one confession over other confessions, I think it would be doomed to failure and rightly so.”
Marks of the church. Small applauded the task force for including the Nicene marks of the church in their proposal — for referring to the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.”
But he also encouraged the task force “to say as clearly and concisely as possible what is intended by those four marks” — to challenge people to think about what it means to be that one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.
“To say the church is one at a time when evidently the church is not one” flies in the face of common sense, Small acknowledged. Instead, the Christian witness today is fragmented and fractured, with hundreds of denominations just in the United States.
And being “apostolic” doesn’t just mean sending the church into the world, Small said. “It also means receiving the apostolic church,” that is, receiving a sense of mission from the church’s foundations.
Often the use of the term “church” is confusing, Small said. The same word can be used to mean the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church; one denomination, such as the PC(USA); or a particular congregation.
“What is absolutely important to avoid at all costs is anything that suggests that a congregation is simply a subset of something bigger called Church,” Small said. “This is really, really harmful language, but it is language that creeps into our understanding,” somehow suggesting “that congregations are franchises of the PC(USA).”
But John Calvin taught that a congregation “is itself one, holy, catholic, apostolic church,” Small said. “All the gifts of the gospel are present in that church. They’re not simply pale reflections of some larger ideal” or “program organizations, but rather are the gifts of God.”
Officers and councils. Small said he really dislikes using the term “church officers,” as if pastors, elders and deacons were somehow the presidents and vice-presidents of a firm called church.
In the Reformed tradition, “we believe the basic ministry is the ministry of the whole people of God,” of all the baptized, Small said. Within that, certain ministries are ordered — given a particular shape and form — but beyond that “we make no distinction between clergy and lay,” he said.
The idea of an ordered ministry is “the genius of the Reformed tradition,” Small said. So he urged the task force to use the terminology of “teaching elder” to refer to ministers of the Word and Sacrament; “ruling elder” to refer to elders who can serve on sessions; and deacons who perform ministries of justice and compassion.
He also advised the task force to “deep six” the term “middle governing bodies” in favor of councils and to refer to “commissioned pastors” instead of “commissioned lay pastors.”
For the most part, the task force is following Small’s advice, rewriting the Form of Government to refer to councils and wiping out references to church officers.
“On some of these issues,” Small told them, “you’ve got to be bold,” even if some in the PC(USA) won’t like it.
