Author's note: Denominational "downsizing" has continued with relentless persistence over the past 30 years due largely to changing views and practices of how Presbyterians ought to fund God's work in the church and the world. Periodic discussions have ensued about the various levels of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) governance and their optimum size and shape. The substance of the proposal that follows was first published in the Outlook in 1994. Much has happened in the church and the world since, but recent developments in the denomination have led to requests that the Outlook republish an updated version of the article. Perhaps the time is right for a new "big idea" that has potential to help us all re-imagine how authentically Presbyterian polity could be refashioned to serve the new needs of new times.
On September 26th of last year, I was arrested in the Hart Senate Office building in Washington, D.C., while participating in an intentionally nonviolent, interfaith prayer service to end the war in Iraq. I was not alone; 71 other people of faith and conscience were arrested that day as well, among them four Presbyterian pastors.
Coming out of that experience, a small group of us began dreaming of a new kind of witness for peace. It would be clearly, unapologetically Christian. It would be deeply grounded in worship and in prayer. It would be bold about who Christ calls us to be as peacemakers. It would be an invitation to join a movement of Christians who believe that genuine security will come only when all of God's people commit themselves to build right relationships with one another around the world.
"I believe we are at another such time in our life together when the focused and timely work ... could help us seek a more excellent way, a way guided by the Spirit of Christ seeking mutual understanding and enabling us to speak the truth in love," - the Rev. Syngman Rhee, Moderator of the 212th General Assembly
How can a Presbyterian congregation embrace "emergence" while remaining true to its historical roots? The members of Mountain View Church in Loveland, Colo., struggled with this thorny question, as have many other Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregations. It is answering it in both a creative and unified way.
When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness (Acts 4: 31).
Rick Smyre wrote in a recent edition of Net Results: "All communities and churches will face, without exception, the need to transform themselves as the effectiveness of old ways crumble."* As we try to imagine new capacities for new realities, as we try to help people learn how to think differently, it will also be important to help people see God in new transforming ways. Our capacity to respond to new realities is either hampered or enhanced by the images of God we have inherited.
We gathered for worship at our 9:00 a.m. service on a recent Sunday morning. It was a special time--it would conclude with the baptism of a little baby. I welcomed the large contingent of family and friends who had joined us for worship, expressing to them my hope that the Scripture and sermon would speak to them on this special occasion. I would read from 1 Samuel 1, a tender passage about Hannah dedicating her son, Samuel, to the Lord.
However, instead of turning to chapter one of I Samuel, I unknowingly turned to chapter two. I began reading what I thought would be words of encouragement to the congregation and the family of the child to be baptized:
On February 9, I welcomed the New Wineskins gathering at First Presbyterian Church of Orlando on behalf of Central Florida Presbytery. As I read and thought about the gathering in advance of the day, I remembered that there have been many ways to be a Presbyterian in this country down through the generations. In the past three generations of my own family, there have been Presbyterian ministers in 5 denominations. Grandfather served as a missionary in India for the UPNA for 40 years. My father served in three denominations, the 'old' USA church, the UPC and the PCUS. I have served in the PCUS and the PC(USA). For us, the differences were matters of geography and history not controversy. Still, I was reminded that there have been lots of ways to be Presbyterian; lots of divisions, and, thanks be to God, several reunions.
One of my treasures is a small volume titled, The Book of Church Order 1925, Revised Edition. This book is six inches high, three and one-half inches wide, and one-half inch thick, with big print and lots of white space. Our current Book of Order measures nine inches high, six inches wide, and is one inch thick, with much smaller print. Recognizing that the Book of Order had gotten somewhat cumbersome, the last two General Assemblies set into motion processes for shortening our current book and making it more user-friendly. The idea is to remove some of the material that is currently in the book and put that material in manuals to be used by groups such as committees on ministry, committees on preparation for ministry, and so forth.
We have always known that the seminaries related to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are centers of theological depth for the preparation of a new generation of ministers and church leaders. We are discovering much more than that these days.
The expressed desire of some New Wineskins participants to leave the denomination is as old as the church itself. Case in point: the 1920's.
It would be pleasant to the ears to hear a lot less talk about leaving the PC(USA) than we have heard since last July! Enough already! Nearly everything I read about leaving concentrates on gatherings and meetings and votes and why other people are wrong and "we" are right. I have yet to read anything that establishes a scriptural basis for leaving any denomination.
The New Wineskins Association of Churches (NWAC) has published their strategy document for encouraging congregations to seek dismissal from the PC(USA)[1], including a sample "Open Letter from the Session to the Congregation." The letter makes several claims regarding theology, biblical studies, and the polity of the PC(U.S.A.) that, as I read them, seem deeply problematic and inaccurate.
Lent 3 ¢ Introduction
Jesus saying here about throwing the children's bread to the dogs has troubled readers over the centuries. Did our Lord really share the prejudices of his place and time, prejudices against foreigners, and against women? In my meditation I have tried to imagine how this all might have taken place, and how that amazing Syro-Phoenician woman could have had the sagacity and wit to come up with her winning response. Do read the Scripture passages first and note how Mark's version, although the earlier of the two, comes across more simply and intimately. Perhaps the secret lies in the tiny details that Mark includes, speaking of the woman's little daughter and adding that when she went home she found her cured little girl lying in bed, and the demon gone.
ATLANTA - Nanette Sawyer's congregation doesn't meet in a church.
"This ministry was the dream of the presbytery of Chicago," she said recently. The vision was to minister to people outside the church in an art-filled neighborhood in west Chicago, "people who would not come to church in any traditional kind of setting."
As the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) continues to deal with its various struggles around its spiritual and physical health, a myriad of new terms are tossed about. No debate has been so paradoxically embraced and maligned as the seemingly ambiguous discourse around the "Postmodern" church. Often used alongside such terms as "Emergent," "Culturally Creative," "Bobo" and who knows how many others, this struggle with the church yields the usual debates around what is the Truth (Gospel, God, Church, etc.) and how a people of faith are supposed to faithfully claim and live out that Truth as we understand it.
A word that crops up frequently in the discussions around the Missional Church is the word liminal, or liminality. Liminality has to do with that disorienting whitewater experience between the known past and the yet-to-be and unknown future for which there are no patterns. That's where we are, that's what we are experiencing in the North American church at present -- and it can be a bit disorienting. Yet, we shouldn't really be all that surprised. We've been getting the prophetic warnings now for decades. But for (what I consider) a remarkable emerging generation of younger adults, it has provoked a creative quest having to do with the essence of the church.
Editor's Note: The following essay is the sixth in a series dealing with topics of interest and importance to Presbyterians. Author Johnson explains: "The report from the General Assembly Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church provides us both the occasion and the urgency for theological dialogue within the PC(USA). This and succeeding essays are offered as a constructive effort in that direction."
The marks of the true Church become important when (a) the Christian community is deeply divided over issues of its peace, purity, and unity; (b) some members and congregations talk openly about separating from the denomination; and (c) the Church or denomination is reconfiguring its polity, The Book of Order. All of these dynamics are now in play for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Lent 2 ¢ Introduction
Most of us today will find it difficult to identify with this demoniac, called Legion. He is surely one of the strangest characters in the gospel narratives. And his tale is told in surprising detail and at unusual length. Many of the man's symptoms seem to fit well with modern day accounts, but the ancient concept of demon possession is quite alien to our modern understanding of mental illness. And the whole business with the pigs, while strangely fascinating, is also quite bizarre. Yet I invite you, for a brief moment, to suspend your twenty-first century frame of mind and step back two thousand years to capture something of what this experience must have meant to one so desperately troubled, and in such crying need of deliverance.
We live in a time of great transition from a global economy based on non-renewable resources with their consequences of environmental devastation to some form of sustainable new order. This dilemma is forcing us to radically rethink all our ideologies, be they economic or theological.
Within such a context, President George W. Bush's recent State of the Union address to Congress falls behind the curve. It lacks any desperately needed correction and innovation and shows little awareness of humankind's largest challenge to be stewards of the Creation. We are "staying the course" on this titanic, indestructible ship of state, moving around the deck chairs as we bear directly toward glaciers in the night.
Throughout the nation, Presbyterians of all stripes are responding to God's call to restore and protect creation. The shape of the response varies greatly depending on the particular theological understandings and interests of the people in the congregation, as well as the local environmental challenges of the geographic area.
All his friends would have understood if he had left her. She was unfaithful, wandering, adulterous--plain and simple, she was a whore. The children, who all bore his name, didn't all look very much like him. He was always having to go after her, always having to hunt her down in bars and strip joints and other men's houses. He was always having to bail her out of some mess or another--and, that wasn't cheap or easy. So, everyone would have understood if he had left her. Some would have even applauded. Some would have said, "Well, it's about time! She's been playing him for a fool for way too long!"
c. 2007 Religion News Service
(RNS) It's easy to characterize religion as a bloodthirsty enterprise. History seems to be strewn with the wreckage of witch hunts, crusades and religious jihad. If God does exist, a caller to my Southern California radio show offered, he ought to be tried for crimes against humanity.
"New atheists" such as "Letter to a Christian Nation" author Sam Harris and "The God Delusion" author Richard Dawkins seem to blame religion -- particularly Christianity -- for all the world's ills. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Lent is for listening.
A season of hushed voices and uncomfortable silences;
of hearing and overhearing ~
hearing the creak and groan of the church building;
overhearing the muffled cough, the stifled sigh ~
in worship, the silenced infant's cry.
Outside the oblivious, uncooperative, noisy world goes on,
white noise distracting.
Lent offers the church a time each year to consider the wondrous love of Jesus Christ and what it means to follow in his way. These resources (some specifically for Lent, others not) may prove useful for individuals and groups who read, pray, plan worship, and study during this season.
The Beatitudes for Today, by James C. Howell. WJKP, 2006. ISBN 0-664-22932-8. Pb., 124 pp. $14.95.
In 14 chapters, Howell reflects on what it means to be blessed in the way of Jesus Christ. His work considers not only what Jesus says, but also what he does not say, ever with an eye to the shape of God's blessing in real human lives. Includes discussion questions at the end of each chapter.
(Matthew 13:1-23. Mark 4:1-20, Luke 8:4-15)
I never actually heard him speak that day,
although, over the next few months,
I listened to him many times.
It was the early springtime - don't you see? -
and I had spent the first part of that week
stumbling along behind my stubborn mule.
We were ploughing up a whole new section,
yes, that hillside that sits above the Sea of Galilee,
digging out and carting off old tree stumps,
roots and rocks and boulders,
preparing the virgin soil
to receive the precious seed.
I observed recently that the PUP Report had not changed anything. A pastor asked, "If nothing's changed, what's the big deal?" An elder responded that we are in a spiritual battle. These comments spurred my deeper evaluation of the dynamics gripping us all.
The key to understand our dilemma is to realize the depths of that spiritual war.
Some history is helpful. In 1978 the northern Presbyterian Church issued a Definitive Guidance prohibiting ordination of "... avowed, practicing homosexuals..."
In 1979 the Definitive Guidance of the southern Presbyterians stated, "...unrepentant homosexual practice does not accord with the requirements for ordination..."
With reunion, these statements were incorporated as Authoritative Interpretation (AI).
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