The Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity is recommending the General Assembly approve an authoritative interpretation of G-6.0108 that claims merely to clarify what has long been the historical position of the Presbyterian Church: that ordaining governing bodies have the final say on decisions of ordination. It once was common that presbyteries would allow candidates for ordination to declare their disagreements ("scruples") with the confessional standards of the church, and then determine if they would ordain the candidate nonetheless (lines 724-726). The recommended authoritative interpretation would revive this historic tradition (lines 1138-1179), encouraging governing bodies to hear the scruples of candidates and decide whether the stated scruples were sufficiently beyond the pale of our tradition to prohibit ordination.
I oppose it for two reasons: If it is approved, it will further erode the level of trust in our church; and it will be a top-down decision of a matter that the presbyteries have refused to allow.
In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah (2 Samuel 11:1a-TNIV).
Welcome to Eastertide, a season to enjoy Easter's afterglow, to anticipate Pentecost's empowerment, and to go off to war.
'Tis the season to prepare for General Assembly.
The spring of 2005--the first GA off year--afforded Presbyterians the luxury of focusing their attention on Jesus' resurrection and the Holy Spirit's outpouring. This year such reflections could be drowned out by saber rattling and megaphone shouting. The 217th war, er, uh, meeting of the GA looms on the Alabama horizon--just three months away.
In the March 29, 1944 edition of The Presbyterian of the South, editors E.T. Thompson and Aubrey Brown announced that the magazine was changing its name to The Presbyterian Outlook. They explained:
We choose this name because it describes our purpose and hope--to give the Presbyterian outlook on evangelism, stewardship, missions (at home and abroad), education, worship, morals and life; the Presbyterian outlook on the problems of the individual, the home, the Church, the nation (especially our problems here in the South), and the world; the Presbyterian outlook on things past, things present, and on the things which are still to come.
We have been and we shall remain Presbyterian.
We shall endeavor, with God's help, to present a helpful, constructive, Presbyterian, thoroughly Christian outlook on all matters which properly concern us--as Christians and as Presbyterians.
One need watch only a few episodes of "Law & Order" or "CSI" to know that the wheels of justice roll on bumpy roads. Many an omniscient viewer has shouted the right answers at celluloid investigators, detectives, and prosecutors while the actors have painstakingly dragged through the evidence to build a case that can hold up in court. In TV World, justice usually does get served--about three minutes before the end of the show.
In the real world, those wheels roll on even bumpier roads. Many a crime victim discovers that the local gendarmes don't have the time or the will to pursue the evidence. Or, if they do, the prosecutor responds with a shrug, "We have no case." Screaming at those officers of the law can be even more counter productive than shouting at a TV.
Judging by this editor's e-mail inbox, many Presbyterians are shouting at their ecclesiastical TVs these days. Some are lifting up their voices in jubilation, others in anger. They all have been watching the same program, the recent ruling of the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Presbytery of Redwoods in response to the presbytery's case against the Rev. Dr. Jane Adams Spahr. Charged with performing same-sex marriages in violation of the Constitution, she acknowledged before the court that she had indeed officiated such services. However, the PJC acquitted her, stating that the constitutional definition of marriage between a man and woman need not bind the conscience of a minister. Only constitutional prohibitions need be obeyed, they said. Definitions need not be.
Like it or not, the stated clerk is the Presbyterian Church's lead ecumenical officer.
Like it or not, the present stated clerk is a self-avowed ecumaniac. He works hard for Christianity-wide unity.
Like it or not, the World Council of Churches, on whose executive committee Stated Clerk Cliff Kirkpatrick has just completed a six-year term, provides the PC(USA) its most expansive network of ecumenical relationships.
Like it or not, the recently concluded meeting of the WCC presented a picture of great unity. And it provided a platform for others to cry out their contempt for American Christians.
Like it or not, we need to deal with that.
Also featured in the Outlook forum this issue: Deep problems by Barry Ensign-George
More than fifty years ago, historian Lefferts Loetscher in his classic The Broadening Church (1954) argued that American Presbyterianism contained two elements: one stressing "precise theological formulation" and "orderly and authoritarian church government," the other placing "more emphasis upon spontaneity, vital impulse, and adaptability." "It has been the good fortune and the hardship of the Presbyterian Church," Loetscher noted wryly, "to have had ... these two elements in dialectical tension within itself from the beginning."
The tension was apparent as American Presbyterians cobbled themselves together first in a presbytery (1706) and then a synod (1716). Initially these bodies had no official creed, but by the 1720s, some were calling for mandatory subscription to the Westminster Confession. "Now a church without a confession, what is it like?" asked one proponent of subscription, and he replied that such a church was "in a very defenseless condition, as a city without walls" liable to infiltration by heresy and error. By contrast, opponents feared that required subscription was "a bold invasion of Christ's royal power" and noted the "glaring contradiction" of requiring ministers to adhere to a document which itself declared: "God alone is the Lord of the conscience."
Also featured in the Outlook forum this issue: How Presbyterians dealt with conflict in the past by James H. Moorhead
Due to space constraints the original version of this essay was shortened for the print version of the Outlook. The following is the complete, full-length version. --Editor
The long-awaited Report of the Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity (TFPUP) is in hand. Thanks and assessments have been offered. We've invested a great deal in this effort: good people who were called in recognition of their capacity for such work, thousands of dollars gathering them and broadcasting their work, precious time for their work. Clearly they have had a powerful experience, calling us now to follow the principles that guided them, seeking similar experiences for ourselves.
Of course, the TFPUP Report does more. It proposes actual changes to the structure of our life together. And it is here that incisive questions need to be asked. The Report includes some deep problems. Specifically, the Report's recommendations 1) do not recover historic Presbyterian practices, 2) propose a form of local option without explaining how we'll deal with the implications, 3) propose a major change to our life together without putting that change before the presbyteries. It is important that these problems be recognized and addressed. In what follows I will consider these three key problems in the Report's proposals, particularly in its Recommendation 5 (Rec. 5 for short). Other problems have been identified by others among us. They also bear careful consideration.
Editors Note: In its ongoing effort to support effective local church ministry and mission, the Outlook invites its readers to consider alternative models of church ministry being developed in sister churches around the denomination. This editorial combines with two other articles, Presbyterians and the "40 Days of Purpose" and Purpose-Driven and Presbyterian: One new paradigm at work, to provide analysis of the purpose-driven church paradigm
Many Reformed Christians shook their heads in dismay when Robert Schuller's book, Self-Esteem: The New Reformation (Word Books, 1982), made its way into print.
How could he possibly think that attaining a good self-concept could replace the gospel's drama of sin ... forgiveness ... redemption, they wondered.
How could categories drawn from pop psychology supplant terms used in holy Scripture, they protested.
The reformation he helped launch has been one not of theology but of methodology. That reformation commenced when he formed a church by visiting hundreds of Garden Grove, Calif., homes, asking folks, "Do you go to church?" and "If not, why not?" Based upon their responses, he shaped his drive-in church's liturgy around people's expressed desires rather than adhere to some of the classical traditions of the Reformed churches. In the process he jettisoned the language of Zion and replaced it with terms whose meanings were self-evident to secular people. He shortened or eliminated parts of worship perceived to be boring. In the process, communication effectiveness took precedence over confessional precision and biblical exposition.
Also featured in the Outlook forum this issue: The challenge of true compassion by Tim Filston
For my first Homiletics sermon at Westminster Theological Seminary my text was Paul's challenge to the elders of the church, in Acts 20:28-31: Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he has bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, grievous wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number persons will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard!
At the time I preached that sermon, I was sure that the current meaning of "wolves" was "Protestant Liberals," who had explained away much of the text of Holy Scripture. After decades of historical research, I have not changed that opinion. However, I have learned that religious wolves come in many shapes and sizes. Left to ourselves, acting without the restraining or inspiring grace of God's Spirit, any of us can tear and divide the flock. A great hymn, "The Church's One Foundation," describes it:
Though with a scornful wonder
This world sees her oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed ...
When Luther wrote his first commentary on Galatians (1519), he was concerned to confront both heresy and schism. He knew that the leadership of the church was riddled by sexual antinomianism and other deadly sins, and that it was involved in theological heresy that had corrupted its center in Rome.
Also featured in the Outlook forum this issue: Unity and Purity by Richard Lovelace
Mae West said, "I used to be Snow White, but I drifted."
Isn't that the way we usually make compromises--we just drift a bit? We make an assumption that just seems right and worry about consequences later. Here's one: My private pursuit of happiness is no one's business. Many Americans believe that as long as we stay out of each other's lane and obey the traffic laws, then what happens inside my car should not concern you. Yet, on the contrary, what happens inside the car affects how we relate to traffic. Still, the prevailing assumption is that private freedom trumps common values. Many within the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have been chasing this trend.
This drift towards the priority of the private has been gradual but steady. And like the frog in the kettle that cannot detect the temperature rising, our common doctrinal values are slowly getting cooked. There is such confusion about doctrine that many people in the church deflect time-tested, biblical truth, thinking that they are being more Presbyterian by doing so. Some think that exchanging our confessional point of reference for the Spirit of the Age is what it means to be the "church reformed and always reforming."
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it's broke, restructure it.
Presbyterians in the pews may be excused for rolling their eyes over reports that the General Assembly Council is restructuring itself. Many will tell you that the GAC is broke--functionally, if not financially. Many wonder if it can be rebuilt at all. Some think it's not worth the effort.
Such a state of affairs is tragic, to say the least. Organized to implement the directives of the General Assemblies to facilitate the fulfillment of Christ's commission, the GAC is endowed with a high purpose, a broad authority, and huge resources.
The model currently in use was structured to broaden the representation on the elected GAC and to recruit multi-gifted members to serve. On paper the structure is very post-modern, being led not by a lofty hierarchy but by representative elders and ministers who share equivalent authority with their colleagues throughout the denomination. True to those intentions, the members of the GAC have invested an enormous number of hours into the task entrusted them.
Nevertheless, the processes keep stuttering, the work keeps stumbling, and the systems keep imploding. And folks in the pews sense a widening disconnect between national church and local church.
Also featured in the Outlook forum this issue: Reflections on Intelligent Design by Mark Achtemeier
Intelligent design has become a common cultural code phrase. It appears in our newspapers. It inspires indignation, delight, dismay, confusion and curiosity. A deeper look is worth the effort to understand what is going on.
To understand how "Intelligent Design" is used in our society today, we need to look back at the history of evolution over the past 150 years, and fundamentalist responses to it beginning in about 1920. We also need to think clearly about the finer distinctions between modern science and religion.
Darwin's Origins
The history of evolution took wing with the publication of Darwin's Origin of the Species on November 22, 1859. In it, he outlined the implications of observations made while traveling on the British survey ship Beagle 1831-1836. Darwin's ideas created religious upset in some quarters, and continue to do so to this day.
Unbeknownst to Darwin, Gregor Mendel, a Czech-born Austrian monk, was conducting experiments on the genetics of pea plants that fit well with Darwin's observations. He published two lectures in 1865 and journal articles in 1866. His work was unnoticed, and forgotten for 30 years.
Mendel's work includes some fundamentals we all appreciate: Everyone has two biological parents. Children look like their parents. Children are not identical to their parents. Most of us consider these three obvious facts truisms, and therefore we believe the fundamentals of evolution.
To these basics, Darwin added that, for the animals he observed, not all offspring survive, and that only the progeny that survive to have descendents will pass along their genetic material. Mendel added the notion of genes, the particles of heredity that parents pass to children in a way that a child receives half his genetic complement from each parent, without blending. He worked out the basic arithmetic of inheritance.
In 1902, Walter Sutton of Columbia University found that grasshopper sperm cells had only half as many chromosomes (DNA strands in the cell nucleus) as other cells. He asserted that genes are part of chromosomes, and that they are inherited, half from each parent, just as Mendel described. This notion was widely accepted by the 1950s.
In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick published their description of DNA. They revealed the now-famous double helix, a molecule shaped like a spiral staircase in which each step was one of four letters in our basic genetic code. By 2001, the Human Genome Project had decoded a complete copy of the human genome: a spiral stair with 3.2 billion steps! Our DNA is in 23 pairs of chromosomes (seen by Sutton a century earlier) and we inherit half of them from each parent, as Mendel had deduced in 1865.
Modern evolution, from the viewpoint of the biological sciences, consists of far more than Darwin's work. For example, the DNA coding structure is found in every known living thing on our planet. It is one line of evidence for a central tenet of evolution, "Common Descent," which holds that all life on earth is genetically linked by common ancestors. We are members of a single family of life on earth.
Modern evolution also uses lines of evidence from plate tectonics and geology. Plate tectonics is the well-regarded science of how continental plates form and move on the liquid core of the earth's mantle. It provides a coherent explanation for findings of identical fossils at what are today widely distant places. It does the same for some modern animals as well: marsupials in Australia, and the opossum in North America with no apparent connection other than through plate tectonics.
Also featured in the Outlook forum this issue: Intelligent design--a cultural code phrase by Walter R. T. Witschey
Even a casual glimpse at current headlines leaves little doubt that the Intelligent Design debate has become yet another battleground in the culture wars, with culturally-aggressive fundamentalists and equally-militant secularists well represented among the contending parties. Beneath the surface-level politics, however, there are substantial scientific and philosophical issues at play that ought to be of interest to any thinking Christian. It is the purpose of this essay to highlight some of these more substantive issues, lest they disappear beneath the waves of partisan politics.
One of the founding documents of the Intelligent Design Movement is Darwin's Black Box, by Michael Behe. Those who have seen Intelligent Design linked repeatedly with biblical Creationism in the popular press may be surprised to find that Behe's book contains no scriptural citations, no references to Genesis, no theological arguments, no appeals to faith, no sweeping rejection of evolutionary theory and no speculation about the nature or identity of a Creator.
What Behe's book does contain is a lot of biochemistry: technical descriptions of the chemical machinery that underlies life-processes such as blood clotting, immune response, vision, etc. These molecular machines turn out to be vastly complex, Rube Goldberg contraptions whose operation depends on the precise interaction of dozens of large, intricately-structured protein molecules.
Behe contends that while evolutionary processes of random mutation and natural selection can account for much of the living world around us, they cannot explain significant portions of what modern biochemistry has uncovered at the molecular-level of living organisms. Why is this so?
So what are we to make of Intelligent Design? Perhaps a glimpse at life between two offshoots of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) can give us insight. Take a look at the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) and the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).
These two denominations hold many beliefs in common: adherence to the inerrancy of Scripture, subscription to five point Calvinism, opposition to higher criticism, rejection of women's ordination, repudiation of modernism and post-modernism. Yet they remain separate denominations. Why?
One reason: They do not read the first chapter of the Bible in quite the same way.
While both denominations allow some latitude in interpretation, the PCA leans toward a literal, scientific chronological reading of the six days of creation. Ordination candidates who question whether the world was created in 144 hours about 6,000 years ago risk disqualification.
The OPC takes a less certain view. While some of its clergy and elders hold to six 24-hour periods of creation, "those who hold to the day-age theory or framework hypothesis argue that the biblical text is inconclusive as to the length of the days ..." They add that the Westminster Confession (and its catechisms) does not require exacting agreement, so "there must be latitude in this area." Yes, the OPC allows latitude in interpretation; see their Web site: http://www.opc.org/qa.html?question_id=131 .
Note the two kinds of latitude they affirm. One suggests that each of the six days may constitute an indeterminate length of time. The other, the "framework hypothesis," requires more explanation.
Wouldn't it be great to be able to go back to the good ol' days?
Many a Presbyterian totes around a mental sketchbook filled with scenes depicting how the church ought to be. Its pastel pictures strikingly resemble how the church used to be, that is, how we remember it used to be.
A quick comparison to the church of today produces piqued exasperation. The soft pastels have been overwhelmed by glaring, clashing neons. The view has changed and not for the better.
We know we can't blame the church for the accelerated pace of living and for the startling turns in the road. As warned over 35 years ago by Alvin Toffler, Future Shock is our world. However, when we gather with the household of God, we expect to find at least an hour's respite. We want to sense a certain steadiness, a reassurance that "God's in his heaven; all's right with the world." Instead, the church provides disruptions and disturbances not conceived in those good ol' days,
Can't we turn down the conflict? Can't we reclaim the way it used to be? Can't we go back to those good ol' days?
Then again, when are those good ol' days?
Are you one of those miniatures collectors? Do you know any one who is? Back in the days when printing presses would utilize little blocks of wood and metal, with forms of each letter with which they would lay out the type for their newspaper or an advertisement, they would put those letters in printers' boxes. That's how they sorted their As from their Bs, Cs, and so forth.
Today, the letter blocks are long gone, but the printers' trays still sell. You find them in antiques stores and flea markets. They get scooped up by collectors--miniatures collectors. They provide just the right sized cubby holes in which to display tiny cars, tables, chairs, dishes, figurines, and other decorative items that are less than a square inch in size.
Why? What's the value of having unusable tiny imitations of the real thing?
An international team of psychologists is studying this phenomenon, in the hope that an answer to this mystery could lead to solving countless other unanswered mysteries. All kidding aside, one part of the answer may be that collecting small items affords persons the opportunity to get their arms around their world, or literally, get their hands around it. When you look at miniatures, you get to see things more completely. You get a grip--literally--on life.
That may be one of the reasons that so many people have been so taken with the movie "The Passion of the Christ"--which broke attendance records almost everywhere that it has was released--including Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. In just two hours and six minutes, that movie gave people a handle on Jesus. Frankly, it exposes the horrors of violence and evil that thrive in human hearts, but in the process, that movie also provides us a picture of the sacrificial suffering of Jesus.
It's one thing to obey God. It's another thing to obey God. Or to put it in the words of H. Russel Botman, "In retrospect we learned to decipher a difference between 'simple obedience' and 'complex obedience.'"
Botman was speaking, along with colleague Dirk Smit, at the Sprunt Lectures at Union/PSCE in Richmond, outlining how the theological work of forming and adopting the Belhar Confession had helped his country find its way out of the practice of apartheid. South Africa will never be the same, thanks to these two men and their colleagues who shared the task of writing Belhar--and thanks to the courage of their people who pursued a path of "complex obedience."
What's that? As in most other situations, the text carries with it a subtext. The text here is the Confession of Belhar, a potent application of Christian theology and ethics to the church's life in secular society. The subtext is another document, the Kairos Document, which emerged in the days that intervened between Belhar's composition and adoption.
True to their denomination's policies, Belhar was proposed at a general synod meeting (1982), but it needed to be studied for four years before it could be adopted by the next synod meeting. Three years into that process, the Kairos Document was published as "an attempt to develop ... an alternative biblical and theological model that will in turn lead to forms of activity that will make a real difference to the future of our country." Kairos was an uncompromising, prophetic call to action.
Kairos lamented that, "the Church is divided. ... Even within the same denomination there are in fact two Churches. In the life and death conflict between different social forces that has come to a head in South Africa today, there are Christians (or at least people who profess to be Christians) on both sides of the conflict--and some who are trying to sit on the fence!" Specifically, the document outlines three competing kinds of theology in the church: "'State Theology,' 'Church Theology,' and 'Prophetic Theology.'"
"If we leave the PC(USA), where are we going to go?" The troubled question came from an evangelical woman, a young leader and emerging scholar in conservative circles. At issue was the possibility of a split in the denomination, likely to be led by disaffected conservatives. "We know where the women stand in the PCA [Presbyterian Church in America]," she said. "The EPC [Evangelical Presbyterian Church] said women's ordination is optional, and they've opted to 'just say no.'" Then came the clincher. Referring to the testosterone-driven conference she and I were attending, she added, "Frankly, I hear these men saying they will do things differently, but I don't know if I can trust them."
How tragic it would be if, in the midst of a grand two-year celebration of women's ordination in the PC(USA), a long-threatened split occurred that would launch another denomination where women's leadership role could possibly be diminished.
What celebration? Well, one hundred years ago (1906) a woman was first ordained a deacon in the UPCNA. Seventy-five years ago (1930) a woman was first ordained a ruling elder in the PCUSA. Fifty years ago (1956), the first woman was ordained a minister of word and sacrament. This convergence of anniversaries makes 2006 a fitting time to celebrate the ways we Presbyterians have promoted gender equality in a century long to be remembered for Women's Suffrage, gender-inclusive language, and The Feminine Mystique.
About a year ago, chest pains and breathing troubles prompted me to see the doctor. The diagnosis proved to be minor and the course of treatment easy. But the diagnostic process was memorable, to say the least.
The family doctor determined to run some tests. He marked a few items on his page-long checklist, placed the clipboard on a door hook, and while walking out, said, "I'll check back with you after the tests."
A few minutes later the nurse marched me to the x-ray department where the technician took a few photographs. She took me to another room, where I blew into a clear plastic thing that looked like an inverted saxophone. Then she took me back to the examination room, looked at the checklist, twisted her nose a bit, looked at me, twisted her nose again, shrugged and then asked, "Are your ears feeling plugged?"
"Not really, but maybe a little in my right ear."
She pulled out an otoscope, studied both ear canals, and commented, "Well, I see a little extra wax in your right ear." One warm water ear rinse later, she made a few markings on the chart, placed it back on the door hook, and walked out.
Upon his return the doctor looked at the first chart. "You're x-rays look good. The lungs are clear." He looked at the next chart. "Your breathing is strong." He looked at the third chart. He twisted his nose a bit, looked at me, twisted his nose again, and then with a most puzzled look, asked, "Did the nurse flush out your ears?"
"Yes, sir."
"She was supposed to give you an EKG, not an ear flush." He looked at the checklist, saw that his mark was a bit off the mark, and said, "I'll send her back in to do the EKG." He shrugged and smiled. "For what it's worth, you just got a free ear flush. Hope it felt good."
A sheepish nurse returned, rolling in an EKG machine. Her embarrassment quickly turned into our shared laughing.
As I left the office my laughing turned reflective. Dumbstruck, I realized that in the spiritual life, plugged ear canals cause sick hearts.
What hardened the heart of Pharaoh? What hardened the hearts of Israel's enemies, and at times the hearts of the Israelites themselves? What hardened the hearts of Jesus' detractors? One simple answer: their hard-hearts grew out of their deaf ears. Referring to that history, three times the book of Hebrews warns believers, Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your hearts as in the day of rebellion.
"I want to transfer to the Presbyterian Church because in this denomination children matter." I don't remember the name of the speaker. It has been 20 years or so. But his words left their imprint.
We were proceeding through routine approvals of minister transfers in a stated presbytery meeting. Interest picked up when this longtime military chaplain, a Baptist, shared how his journey of faith had led him to the Reformed theological camp. "In my former tradition, we dedicated infants and educated children in the hope that they someday would profess faith in Jesus Christ. Upon their profession, they would get baptized and thereby be welcomed into the body of Christ. In the Reformed tradition you all baptize them into the body and educate them into personal faith. I think that's the right sequence."
As a fairly recent convert to Presbyterianism at the time, I found his words reassuring, especially so, since the one theological sticking point for me had been the practice of infant baptism. Exercising my office under the Presbyterian Church's constitution, I had learned well how to present to parents the covenantal concept of baptism, rooted as it is in the practice of infant circumcision dating to the eighth day of Isaac's life. But I still harbored some doubts about such a practice. This chaplain helped convert me into a passionate advocate of our denomination's sacramental theology.
Show me a major city that has a significant African-American population, and I'll show you a school called "Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary (or Middle or High) School." Its students will be nearly, or 100 percent, African-American. Wasn't MLK promoting racial integration?
Show me a denomination that has spoken prophetically against race hatred, against apartheid, against segregation, and against all kinds of social injustice, and I'll show you any one of thousands of Presbyterian churches, where nearly 100 percent of each congregation's members come from the same race. Aren't we promoting racial integration?
In his recently released book, The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America, author and educator Jonathan Kozol says that America has gone from desegregation to re-segregation. Walls set up by the power of the law came down only to be replaced by walls set up by social and economic class distinctions. Result: Our schools are more segregated in 2005 than at any time since 1968.
The Presbyterian Church has taken some baby steps toward greater racial diversity, in pursuit of a goal to have 10 percent of our members come from non-western European races by 2010. But the operative term here remains "baby steps." We have much further to go.
Why should we care?
So what happens when a pastor-theological-task-force-member tries to don a pastor-editor hat? Simple answer: It raises boundary issues.
I've spent two-plus decades quickly changing in the roles and tasks of the normally complicated pastoral ministry. Now I'm simultaneously wearing two particular hats: editor and theological task force member. Doing so raising questions about how to respect the integrity of each role.
In September of 2001, the Clear Lake Church Session and I prayed as we sought God's wisdom, regarding the possibility of my serving on the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church. Together we concluded that God was calling me to serve as a minister-member of the TTFPUP. They believed God was calling them and the congregation to commission me to join with 19 others in search of better ways for Presbyterians to hold on to one another while holding on to their differing convictions.
In September of 2005, the Presbyterian Outlook Foundation board of directors and I prayed as we sought God's wisdom regarding the possibility of my serving at the Outlook. Together we concluded that God was calling me to serve as editor-in-chief. They believed God was calling them to commission me to join with thousands of readers in the Outlook community to help Presbyterians catch a fresh vision for dynamic ministry, strengthen efforts in cultural transformation, deepen spiritual vitality, and find better ways to hold on to one another while holding on to their differing convictions.
"Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Clichés are clichés, and truisms are truisms. But Lord Acton's most famous cliché posits enough truth to cause any thinking American to tremble with fear.
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, most westerners rejoiced. This symbol of Soviet totalitarianism had crumbled, and freedom was singing a new song. However, a handful of those rejoicing also began to tremble. They asked, "What will become of America if it remains the lone superpower in the world? Will she muster sufficient character and courage to contain the corrosive effects of unchecked power in this new world?"
When the earlier Bush government felt compelled to send troops to Kuwait to defend its ally against the Iraqi invasion there, it achieved its basic goals. The military withdrew, encouraging the hope of other nations that we would not over-assert our power.
Then 911 happened. The appearance of invulnerability was shattered. Americans were taken hostage by fear of further attacks. Ends now could justify means, that is, if the ends in view included the preservation of American's freedoms. And what of those means? What about a second invasion of Iraq driven by a complicated mix of incomplete espionage regarding alleged weapons of mass destruction over there, alongside a hunger for justice (vengeance?) over here. Would dubious ends justify the means of a new war? What should we do with the resulting prisoners of war? Could we extract information from them that might avert more terror-caused carnage?
So we know that the Scriptures are inspired by God and are authoritative for the church's faith and life. Does that mean that the words in Scripture uttered by angels are just as inspired as those spoken by God or humans? Do their words carry clout, or can we dismiss them as being platitudes? Getting specific, what's to be made of the angels' song to the shepherds, 'Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace..." (Luke 2:14a)? If the chief end of humans is to glorify God, then the first line of the angelic song sounds substantive. What about the second line, the one that sings the promise of "peace?"
Granted, modern translators differ as to who should receive the peace promise. Is peace to be experienced by "all people?" Is it intended for "all people of good will?" Or is it being offered only to "those on whom God's favor rests?" What's for sure is that the peace is to be experienced by many, including at least all recipients of God's saving grace. It may be intended, as suggested in other biblical passages, for all persons created by God. Indeed, given the plan for the wolf to lie down with the lamb, it appears that God promises peace for all creation.
What about that peace? Holiday carols sing its melody. Christmas cards echo its refrain. But do we really want it?
Deck the halls with expectation. 'Tis the season for anticipation.
The original lyrics better fit the tune, but these words do fit the season. Children dream sugarplum dreams. Soldiers count down the days to a holiday leave. Shoppers look forward to a smiling friend unwrapping that perfect gift. Worshipers sing of the arrival of the Savior.
Why such December expectations, Advent anticipations?
The answer--God places them in the hearts of believers. They prompted landlocked Noah to build a boat, and elderly Sarai to decorate a nursery. They moved Ruth to leave the green fields of Moab and David to sing songs. They spoke to Mary treasured words of shepherds and angels. They emboldened Peter and John to command, "Rise up and walk."
Sadly, in post-Watergate America and in the post-reunion Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), cynicism--anticipation's dread enemy--seems to be out-shouting the more hopeful voice. Alongside impatience, apathy, certitude, and self-importance, cynicism has been waging war on the more hopeful Christian virtues of faith and trust. Of course, sinning ways of sinful people continually pump more helium into the balloons of disappointment in the church, but the resulting pessimism misses the point of Christian faith.
Throughout the biblical record and pervasive through church history the refrain is sung, "Have faith in God!" Bold faith animates the stories told of the first century Christians. Deep trust radiates from the lives of millions of faithful through the centuries, and for good reason. God has come through for them. The one who promised to build a church against which the gates of Hades would not prevail has overcome time and again.
In this season of Advent, in a time when many Presbyterians are warning of the demise of the church, how can we recover the vibrant faith of our forebears? Might we dare believe again that the best is yet to come?
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