10 years ago — June 25, 2007 We “began with prayer, study and reading. We read together a wide range of resources on polity, theology and mission.” This is how the committee commissioned by the General Assembly to create a revised Form of Government began their work. “We have sought to create a missional polity that places the particular congregation at the forefront of the church’s witness, because the congregation is the place where the church engages the world. ... What we propose is a Form of Government that seeks to describe rather than proscribe, that seeks to define function rather than mandate structure. What we propose is a Form of Government that, rather than saying to the church, ‘Don’t do this,’ instead says, ‘Feed my sheep. Proclaim my Word. Go out into the world and make disciples of all.’ … The Form of Government we propose is written for a church in pilgrimage. The church it contemplates is not the church of the past, nor has it arrived at the future God yet holds … [Read more...]

Ever since the eighteenth century modern man has believed in a progressive history in which future consequences were both the real test of a right action and also the primary motive for it. We made a God out of history, and usually had no other God. Now we live in a period of history in which we must find the test of right action in something other than future consequences because we do not know the future certainly enough. … We had forgotten that each moment of life, each task, each duty, each event and responsibility has its own intrinsic worth and does not depend altogether on tomorrow. … The whole historical enterprise is more hazardous than we had believed. History does not move as simply as we thought toward some kind of world community. People do not become better merely because they grow older; and that is true of the life of mankind as well as of individuals. … True religion must be more concerned with qualitative depth of every moment and be less distracted by future hopes … [Read more...]

60 years ago — May 27, 1957 The American people haven chosen to develop a free and universal public school system. “Memories of unpleasant experiences of ecclesiastical domination of education in Europe and the growth of the Sunday school as a new and experimental institution of Christian education were among the many forces which prompted the body politic to draw the blueprint for a school system compatible with a pluralistic culture. Our public school structure is the result. The same constitutional guarantee protecting the church from any tyranny which would stifle freedom of belief and worship was inseparably mixed into the very mortar of this structure and also insured every child and every parent against imposition of sectarian dogmas in the classroom. … Adherents of the Reformed tradition believe that ‘cloistered living,’ implying a withdrawal from direct participation in the social milieu, is incompatible with the Calvinistic tradition and intent, and that distinct advantage … [Read more...]

Are traditional Christian convictions about vocation becoming outdated? “We need to ask about the dilemma of the unemployed – whether customary modes of interpreting and dealing with their plight are appropriate to a society marked by rapid technological change. We need, also, to ask about leisure, both the leisure of those who are enjoying the enormous fruits of technological efficiency, and the ironic leisure of those who cannot find employment. … Christians … sometimes equate reconciled relationships with peaceful relationships, and … are disturbed when the tranquility of a community is shattered by an act of protest. … The Bible, however, is not sentimental. There to cry, ‘Peace, peace,’ is repugnant when there is no peace and when peace perpetuates injustice. In the last few years, a number of protest movements have emerged within groups that are underemployed, underrewarded, and unorganized. … If it is true that justice accompanies the redress of power imbalances, the … [Read more...]

“Your whole past, even the moment which has just gone by, is already buried with Christ in the water of your baptism. God never goes back over what is past. “No looking back: that is part of the Christian’s freedom.” Christians are focused on what lies ahead and marching forward. “Not looking back does not mean forgetting the best of what you have lived, or the gifts placed in you by God.” You can’t ignore the wounded neighbor by the wayside, but you can be reconciled and march forward together. “Have you understood? To live Christ among [humanity], one of the biggest risks to take is to forgive, to forget the other person’s past. Forgive, forgive again, and the past is set free; you are plunged into the present moment. “To talk about loving is easy. To live that loves which forgives is another matter.” From “ Witness to a different future” by Brother Roger Shutz, prior of the Taizé community in France … [Read more...]

30 years ago – March 9, 1987 The celebration of the 200th anniversary of our federal Constitution will take place this summer in Philadelphia. … When one reads Catherine Drinker Bowen’s reissued classic on the Constitutional Convention of 1787, “Miracle at Philadelphia,” one is tremendously impressed not only with the document these 55 delegates from 12 states produced (Rhode Island did not bother to attend), but also with the human drama of debate, compromise, personality clashes behind it. It was, indeed, a miracle that we got a Constitution at all. Yet this document, with its amendments, is at the heart of the American political system. Government office holders, including the president, take an oath to “defend, protect and preserve” not the United States, but its Constitution! Our nation is a nation founded upon law, law developed to protect us from those who say “I am the law” and law developed by and with the consent of the governed. There is a lot to celebrate about the … [Read more...]