Broadening, but also deepening

As a newly converted atheist, my study of Christianity began at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. Westminster was an outgrowth of J. Gresham Machen's separation from mainline Presbyterianism. It was, and still is, a bastion of Reformed orthodoxy.

Westminster's great strength was its stress on the authority of Scripture as the ultimate norm of faith and practice. Classes on the Old and New Testament were invigorating and faith-inspiring, carefully, though often critically, related to current scholarship. Theology courses had a polemic flavor, but immersed students in the worldview of the Westminster Confession. Historian Paul Wooley -- the only Democrat on the faculty -- exposed us to important primary sources, including Soren Kierkegaard and Jonathan Edwards.

A field for the future

Editor's Note: This sermon was preached at the recent General Assembly Council-Middle Governing Bodies Conference in Louisville, Ky.

Scripture: Jeremiah 32:6-15

In 1931, Karen Blixen lost her farm.

She had come to East Africa in 1914 from her home in Denmark, just as the Great War was breaking out in Europe. She had come to meet her husband and her future, far away from Europe's decay. Together, the Baron and Baroness von Blixen purchased some land in the mountains of Kenya to build a coffee plantation.

Their European friends told them it was a mistake; that the land was too high to grow coffee, that the market was too unstable, and that the enterprise would consume them. They were right. Coffee trees and marriages make for hard work, and offer few rewards, and the Baron grew impatient with his investment in both. In the end, he left both farm and wife and lived the life of the idle rich until his money ran out and he died penniless, of syphilis.

The unity we seek

We Presbyterians are searching frantically to preserve the unity of our denomination, anything to keep the church from splitting. Let's try this way, that way, a third way. There must be some way we can find! But maybe what we need is to give up our ways and concentrate on what God in Christ has done. We Reformed souls are not very big on liturgy, but that's where our unity lodges and is celebrated -- in our liturgy.

Confessing a radical catholicity

Our utopian visions of harmonious love for each other quickly dissipate when we are confronted with the gritty everydayness of our life together in Christ, whether we are talking about the church down the street, our own Presbyterian denomination, or the larger church. Left to ourselves, our attempts at loving each other fall apart quickly and spectacularly. We try this love thing Jesus was talking about, but when we inevitably fail, which is bound to happen in the hands of sinners, we retreat into more familiar communities of the like-minded. 

Perhaps that is the ultimate question hanging over our intramural disagreements and divisions in the Presbyterian church. Deep down, will our American Protestant proclivity for separation and schism continue to lead us into smaller and smaller enclaves of the like-minded, or can we move in a different direction? Can we be led to recover our catholic roots? Is the church, with all its faults and blemishes, still the church we have been given that summons us to live with our enemies and to share a common faith and life with them, even bearing with them in love and forbearance around the Lord's table? 

Loving chaos

The report of the Theological Task Force on the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church is a winner. I support it enthusiastically. Then again, my enthusiasm is influenced by the fact that -- as one mystified parishioner asserted months ago -- I have a high tolerance for chaos.

Years ago I played college basketball, although not well. When our team fell behind by 20 points, with little hope of recovery except some drastic measures be taken, the coach would look long and hard down the bench. I knew his meditation: Should I put Massey in the game and hope that the resulting confusion will lead to new scoring opportunities? Early in my playing career my teammates hated to see me enter the game; I couldn't remember the plays or I would follow them slavishly. At best my personal style could be described as unorthodox. More than once a teammate hit me in the back of the head with a passed ball, or I would return the favor. But over time these same teammates--as much anxiety as I caused them--began to appreciate the chaos I created. It proved even more disadvantageous to our opponents, who could not anticipate what they were about to experience. Out of chaos came creative play, and sometimes surprising victory.

Pictures you won’t see in the papers

It was our privilege and responsibility to serve as moderator and vice-moderator respectively, of the Ecclesiology Committee of the 217th General Assembly meeting in Birmingham, Alabama. The Committee's primary responsibility was to recommend actions to the commissioners regarding the Report of the Theological Task Force On the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church. The task before us was daunting; nonetheless, we came away from the experience inspired by the way in which we Presbyterians can come together, with all our inevitable differences of opinion, to seek common ground and unity in spite of disagreement. 

Beyond Birmingham: What Next?

In the aftermath of the 2007 General Assembly we have observed the controversies breaking out concerning the meaning and significance of the Assembly's actions. In particular, we have heard the criticisms and complaints that the Birmingham Assembly's action of adopting (with amendment) Recommendation Five of the Theological Task Force on the PUP of the Church has brought us less peace, unity, and purity than we had before. 

As two members of the Task Force who helped develop Recommendation Five, who now continue to work together, and who feel a responsibility to promote shared understanding, we want to do what we can here to set the record straight.  

We appreciate the grave concerns being expressed by critics of the TTF report. We esteem as brothers and sisters those who find themselves caught on the same side of the aisle as those GA commissioners who found themselves in the voting minority. One of the chief teachings of the Task Force, in fact, is that minority positions held in good faith need to be respected. Moreover, the Task Force urged the church to avoid situations in which the majority rides roughshod over minority concerns. Accordingly, we write these reflections in the spirit of ongoing dialogue. We believe that dialogue offers hope for mutual understanding and for moving the whole church forward together. 

Time will tell

Do not say "Peace, peace" when there is no peace. In the debate over the recently adopted report of the Task Force on the Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church, some have rushed to point to those words of prophetic denunciation, believing that they fittingly apply to the present-day Presbyterian Church.

But is it not likewise a serious error for God's people to proclaim "Doom and disaster" when there is no doom and disaster? It seems that certain individuals and groups within the church are so certain that doom and disaster are imminent that they apparently refuse even to consider the possibility that God might have something else in mind for our future.